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[Pejo]

Genshin Impact dev miHoYo enters top 15 largest private companies with $23 billion valuation | Game World Observer

The Hurun Research Institute has released its sixth annual Global Unicorn Index, which ranks private companies and startups worth at least $1 billion. Genshin Impact maker miHoYo became the most valuable game developer on the list.

gameworldobserver.com

They are the most valuable game developer on the list. Valve was valued last year at approximately $8 billion.

Their two biggest games, Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail made a combined estimated $213 million last month alone.

Recent stats say that the ongoing development cost of Genshin Impact has reached about $700 million.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Remember when it was all 'Lol, Breath of the Waifu, amirite?'

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

The biggest success story in the last gen, by far. They have transformed the mobile scene elevating standards and attracting other big publishers with the highest AAA budgets. However, they have also brought awful practices like the 50/50 banners. Unlike Shift Up, they are stingy AF. Mihoyo needs serious competition so they never forget why they have become this big. The good news is that very soon devs like Kuro or Hypergryph will join the console/PC market and that's indirectly because of Mihoyo.

On a side note, kudos to Phil Spencer for the great miss.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

s

On a side note, kudos to Phil Spencer for the great miss.

the hits keep coming.

 

[Punished Miku]

Remember when it was all 'Lol, Breath of the Waifu, amirite?'

I haven't really evolved from that position.

 

[yurinka]

Genshin Impact dev miHoYo enters top 15 largest private companies with $23 billion valuation | Game World Observer

The Hurun Research Institute has released its sixth annual Global Unicorn Index, which ranks private companies and startups worth at least $1 billion. Genshin Impact maker miHoYo became the most valuable game developer on the list.

gameworldobserver.com

They are the most valuable game developer on the list. Valve was valued last year at approximately $8 billion.

Their two biggest games, Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail made a combined estimated $213 million last month alone.

Recent stats say that the ongoing development cost of Genshin Impact has reached about $700 million.

Valve must make more than $8B per year only with Steam. That $8B valuation doesn't make sense at all.

 

[Pejo]

Valve must make more than $8B per year only with Steam. That $8B valuation doesn't make sense at all.

All of the sources I found in quick google searches put it at 7.7 billion in 2022, so I don't know what to tell you.

Valve Revenue and Growth Statistics (2024) | SignHouse

Key Valve user stats. Includes data on valuation, investments, revenue, number of users, number of employees, and more.

www.usesignhouse.com

There were estimates all the way from 1.7 billion to 10 billion but I didn't see any stats that put them above 10.

 

[A.Romero]

Valve must make more than $8B per year only with Steam. That $8B valuation doesn't make sense at all.

Valuations are not based on yearly income only but it's hard to know with Valve given that they are a privately owned company. I don't see them on that list so they were probably excluded because I also remember Valve being valued by Microsoft not long ago and being under 10 bn and there are other companies in the list with a valuation of less than 5bn.

I'm surprised to see Niantic there with 9 bn.

 

[Lambogenie]

And I love that they make their characters visually appealing and attractive. Stuff is tempting to burn money on just because the characters look dope.

 

[mayham2199]

Great games. Haven't really played Genshin in a long time. Honkai I've played more recently.

 

[Euler007]

I hope they celebrate by uncapping the frame rate and increasing the draw distance on PC.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Really didn't like the floaty shitty combat of Genshin Impact but I did really like Star Rail, played it and am up to date completely for free and never felt it bugged me too much with the gacha stuff.

 

[Pejo]

I hope they celebrate by uncapping the frame rate and increasing the draw distance on PC.

Unironically the 120 fps feature is iOS exclusive. Like Apple pays them to keep it exclusive to that platform, or gives them revenue breaks or some other undisclosed advantage. Also controller support on mobile. Also a specific type of volumetric clouds on PS5. It's a shitshow.

There are ways to fix the 120 issue on PC though, cough.

 

[Saber]

The biggest success story in the last gen, by far. They have transformed the mobile scene elevating standards and attracting other big publishers with the highest AAA budgets. However, they have also brought awful practices like the 50/50 banners. Unlike Shift Up, they are stingy AF. Mihoyo needs serious competition so they never forget why they have become this big. The good news is that very soon devs like Kuro or Hypergryph will join the console/PC market and that's indirectly because of Mihoyo.

On a side note, kudos to Phil Spencer for the great miss.

Because they look at Genshin and ignore the follow:
- Appeal
- Gameplay
- Story
- Lore
- Characters
- Skills
- Enemies
- Element reaction mechanics
- Meta

Instead they go straight to "hey look this GaaS is a huge sucess. Its the easiest work ever, just make GaaS and will be swiming on money! Easy cash grab ever!!!".
Probably the reason why Last of Cuck online was cancelled.

 

[Rentahamster]

I don't even know what kind of gameplay Genshin Imact and Honkai Star Rail have lol. What are they, like third person action adventure, or third person shooter RPG or something?

 

[Fafalada]

It's a shitshow.

Meanwhile Mihoyo does this:

It's a bit absurd how meteoric success GI has been - rivaling Fortnite within a year on the market - basically leaving every other GaaS on the market in the dust.
But it does warrant a question whether Star Rail is cannibalizing GI more than growing their market reach though - they were already in 3B/year range before HKS released.

 

[mayham2199]

On a side note, kudos to Phil Spencer for the great miss.

It's wild that they even went to MS first. Maybe they thought MS was a bigger company and would give them more money. Maybe they just didn't like Sony. Either way huge miss by Phil. So much so that they created a division to keep and eye out for future talent in China.

 

[yurinka]

All of the sources I found in quick google searches put it at 7.7 billion in 2022, so I don't know what to tell you.

Valve Revenue and Growth Statistics (2024) | SignHouse

Key Valve user stats. Includes data on valuation, investments, revenue, number of users, number of employees, and more.

www.usesignhouse.com

There were estimates all the way from 1.7 billion to 10 billion but I didn't see any stats that put them above 10.

Valuations are not based on yearly income only but it's hard to know with Valve given that they are a privately owned company. I don't see them on that list so they were probably excluded because I also remember Valve being valued by Microsoft not long ago and being under 10 bn and there are other companies in the list with a valuation of less than 5bn.

I'm surprised to see Niantic there with 9 bn.

Valuations are based in multiple things, one of them being their yearly revenue, debt, assets, profitaliblity, etc.

Valve must have had billions on revenue during many years with a pretty likely big ROI since they have been working on little amount of games and instead getting a ton of money from Steam. So pretty likely don't have debt.

As assets they have the by far most important PC gaming store, plus several iconic IPs like Counter Strike and Half Life (CS2 continues being the top Steam game today). And only from Steam, they must make over $7-8B per year.

SIE makes around $11B/year from PS game revenue (not counting game subs) and they don't have even half of the console marrket. PC is an aprox. similar market in size regarding game revenue and Steam has a way, way bigger market share of PC than PS has it from console. So make sure Steam makes more game revenue than PS.

To valuate Valve on $7-8B, when Bungie was sold for $3.6B, Bethesda for $7B, Zynga for $12.7B or ABK for 70B is a very bad joke.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

It's wild that they even went to MS first.

i can't belive that story is real

 

[Aion002]

I haven't really evolved from that position.

You should.

It's a great game with good graphics, solid gameplay (both combat and exploration) and a fun story (if you are in to anime stuff).

Even if you don't spend a penny on it you can still have fun.

Obviously there's a lot of fomo tactics and the gacha rates for f2p players are harsh... But still, it's a really well made game.

 

[Pejo]

Valuations are based in multiple things, one of them being their yearly revenue, debt, assets, profitaliblity, etc.

Valve must have had billions on revenue during many years with a pretty likely big ROI since they have been working on little amount of games and instead getting a ton of money from Steam. So pretty likely don't have debt.

As assets they have the by far most important PC gaming store, plus several iconic IPs like Counter Strike and Half Life (CS2 continues being the top Steam game today). And only from Steam, they must make over $7-8B per year.

SIE makes around $11B/year from PS game revenue (not counting game subs) and they don't have even half of the console marrket. PC is an aprox. similar market in size regarding game revenue and Steam has a way, way bigger market share of PC than PS has it from console. So make sure Steam makes more game revenue than PS.

To valuate Valve on $7-8B, when Bungie was sold for $3.6B, Bethesda for $7B, Zynga for $12.7B or ABK for 70B is a very bad joke.

I don't disagree with any of your points, I was just posting the info I found. I think it's insane to value Valve so low, but that's what I saw. Microsoft supposedly pegged them at $6 bil in 2021, the numbers are wildly inconsistent and not really believable, but that's what's out there.

 

[A.Romero]

Valuations are based in multiple things, one of them being their yearly revenue, debt, assets, profitaliblity, etc.

Valve must have had billions on revenue during many years with a pretty likely big ROI since they have been working on little amount of games and instead getting a ton of money from Steam. So pretty likely don't have debt.

As assets they have the by far most important PC gaming store, plus several iconic IPs like Counter Strike and Half Life (CS2 continues being the top Steam game today). And only from Steam, they must make over $7-8B per year.

SIE makes around $11B/year from PS game revenue (not counting game subs) and they don't have even half of the console marrket. PC is an aprox. similar market in size regarding game revenue and Steam has a way, way bigger market share of PC than PS has it from console. So make sure Steam makes more game revenue than PS.

To valuate Valve on $7-8B, when Bungie was sold for $3.6B, Bethesda for $7B, Zynga for $12.7B or ABK for 70B is a very bad joke.

Well, that's precisely what I said (about valuations going beyond yearly revenue).

We have the sources stating Valve's valuation under $10bn by industry analysts that could be wrong but definitely have access to better information than the average Gaffer.

I haven't found any sources that state different but I did find what's Gabe's estimated wealth (which I guess would include Valve) by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/gabe-newell/

I get what you are saying and I agree but I'm guessing there is more to it and that's why no analyst seem to be valuating the company higher.

 

[yurinka]

We have the sources stating Valve's valuation under $10bn by industry analysts that could be wrong but definitely have access to better information than the average Gaffer.

I know it was estimated by that, but I highly doubt whoever did such valuation had any idea about the gaming market and Valve's value and did a quick guess work with almost no data. Could be analyst but not from gaming, or if was did an awful job.

 

[hybrid_birth]

s

the hits keep coming.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I don't even know what kind of gameplay Genshin Imact and Honkai Star Rail have lol. What are they, like third person action adventure, or third person shooter RPG or something?

They are literally free to download and play so why don't you just go try them yourself?

 

[Gallard]

Yeah, no way Valve is worth just $8 billion. They basically OWN the PC store front. Every game sold on Steam gets Valve a nice 30% cut. For comparison, Apple & Google with their appstore and 30% cut generated revenues of 85 billion and 48 billion respectively (in 2021).

Granted, mobile has a bigger user base, but games sold on Steam tend to go for premium $60 prices If Valve was worth so little, Phil Spencer should have bought them with 70B and and not Activision/Blizzard - bad move MS.

Thing is, if I was Gabe, I'd hide my power level too. If you had essentially unlimited money - more money than you could spend ever - why subject yourself to public scrutiny or a board of directors? Better to stay private.

 

[Rentahamster]

They are literally free to download and play so why don't you just go try them yourself?

I'm too busy playing Blue Protocol uWu

 

[Fabieter]

Yeah, no way Valve is worth just $8 billion. They basically OWN the PC store front. Every game sold on Steam gets Valve a nice 30% cut. For comparison, Apple & Google with their appstore and 30% cut generated revenues of 85 billion and 48 billion respectively (in 2021).

Granted, mobile has a bigger user base, but games sold on Steam tend to go for premium $60 prices If Valve was worth so little, Phil Spencer should have bought them with 70B and and not Activision/Blizzard - bad move MS.

Thing is, if I was Gabe, I'd hide my power level too. If you had essentially unlimited money - more money than you could spend ever - why subject yourself to public scrutiny or a board of directors? Better to stay private.

I rarely buy games directly from steam tho. They don't get any money from key stores.