MiHoYo

Based on Wikipedia: MiHoYo

Three computer science students at Shanghai Jiao Tong University had a problem. They loved anime, comics, and video games, but when they scrolled through the App Store's top-selling games, they couldn't find a single one they actually wanted to play. So they decided to make their own.

That was 2011. Today, MiHoYo is one of the most successful video game companies in the world, with Genshin Impact becoming one of the highest-grossing mobile games ever made. But the path from a university dormitory to global phenomenon involved dodging dorm supervisors, winning startup competitions, and the audacious decision to throw away six months of work and start over from scratch.

The Dormitory Years

Cai Haoyu, Liu Wei, and Luo Yuhao weren't just classmates. They were otaku, a Japanese term for people obsessed with anime, comics, and games, known collectively as ACG culture. In China during the early 2010s, this wasn't exactly a respected career path. Investors saw anime-themed games as fringe entertainment, not a billion-dollar opportunity.

The trio had already proven they could work together. Their first collaboration was an open-source literature community that won them scholarships worth 200,000 Chinese yuan at a competition. In 2010, they built a game engine using Adobe Flash Player, naming it after Katsuragi Misato, a character from the legendary anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Using this engine, they created a game called Legend of Saha for a Flash game competition, winning 30,000 yuan from Shanda Games.

In January 2011, they officially founded the MiHoYo studio in room D32 of their university dormitory.

The company name itself tells a story. The "H" and "Y" come from the founders' names: Cai Haoyu and Luo Yuhao. They added an "O" because successful companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all contain that letter. But "HoYo" was already registered as a trademark, so they needed a prefix. They chose "mi" as a tribute to Hatsune Miku, the virtual singer created using VOCALOID software who had become an icon of the otaku community they belonged to.

The Artist in the Dormitory

There was one significant problem with the founding team: none of them could draw.

They reached out through Tencent's social media platforms and found Zhang Qinghua, an animation student at Guangdong University of Technology. Zhang was in his final semester of college when he began working with MiHoYo's founders. The first character he designed was Kiana Kaslana, who would become the protagonist across multiple MiHoYo games for the next decade.

Zhang actually lived in one of the founders' dormitory rooms while working on the early games. He had to sneak around to avoid the dormitory supervisor, since he obviously wasn't a student there. Years later, Zhang recalled the day he finally left to return to Guangzhou for his graduation:

When I finished my art work and was about to return to Guangzhou to graduate, the day I walked out of the dormitory with my luggage, the supervisor took the initiative to say goodbye to me. In fact, she knew that I was not a student here, but she did not chase me away. This was my first impression of Shanghai, which was very good.

That small kindness, looking the other way while a scrappy startup bootstrapped itself in a college dorm, would prove consequential. Zhang Qinghua later joined MiHoYo officially and became its art director.

Flying to the Moon and Falling Short

MiHoYo's first commercial game launched on September 28, 2011. They called it FlyMe2theMoon, inspired by the iconic jazz standard that served as the ending theme for Neon Genesis Evangelion. The concept was simple: a puzzle game about a magical girl flying to the moon.

The game's theme song featured Hatsune Miku's voice, connecting back to the "mi" in their company name. It was built using Cocos2D, a popular framework for mobile games, along with the Box2D physics engine.

FlyMe2theMoon was a commercial failure. The three founders split a monthly income of just 4,000 yuan, roughly 600 US dollars total.

Liu Wei began entering university startup competitions, pitching MiHoYo to anyone who would listen. The rejections piled up. Investors couldn't see the potential in a tiny team making anime-themed games for a niche audience. The ACG market in China simply wasn't mainstream enough to attract serious capital.

Eventually, they secured their first and only outside investment: one million yuan from a Hangzhou technology company called Skye Network. This would prove to be the only external funding MiHoYo ever needed.

From Dormitory to Office

Liu Wei entered the New Entrepreneur Talents competition and won third place. The prize was extraordinary for a struggling startup: a 50-square-meter office space at No. 100 Qinzhou Road in Shanghai, six months of free rent, and a 100,000 yuan interest-free loan from a government program supporting graduate entrepreneurs.

In December 2011, they moved out of the dormitory. In the new office, each founder had a desk against the wall. A large table in the center was dedicated to their shared obsession: comics and light novels.

Shanghai Mihoyo Network Technology Co., Ltd. was officially registered on February 13, 2012. One early team member, Jin Zhicheng, left in March to take a job at Cisco. He transferred his equity shares to the remaining founders. Today, Cai Haoyu controls 41 percent of the company, Liu Wei holds 22.6 percent, and Luo Yuhao owns 21.4 percent. The remaining 15 percent belongs to an investment entity.

Zombies and the Birth of Honkai

After the disappointment of FlyMe2theMoon, the team wanted to create something more successful. They found inspiration in an unlikely combination: a side-scrolling shooter called Zombie Town and the Japanese anime series Highschool of the Dead.

The result was Zombiegal Kawaii, also known as Houkai Gakuen, which began development in December 2011. Creating just four or five demo versions took three months. They switched to the Unity game engine and Autodesk Maya for 3D graphics, then spent eight more months expanding gameplay, adjusting values, and adding game systems.

When asked why they made this particular game, the founders' explanation was refreshingly direct:

We wanted to make a game we want to play so we did it. We discovered that the top-ranking games at the App Store didn't have the types of games we wanted to play, so we made our own. The reason is that simple.

The game's first version launched in November 2012, with public testing in December.

Guns Girl Z and Growing Pains

Guns Girl Z, the sequel known in Japan as Houkai Gakuen 2, launched in June 2013. Because it reused the underlying data, art assets, and core gameplay from Zombiegal Kawaii, development moved faster. The team studied Puzzle and Dragons, a hugely successful Japanese mobile game, and spent three months converting its systems into an action game format.

Testing began on January 26, 2014, and the game released in March on Bilibili, China's largest platform for anime fans. The game achieved moderate financial success, but success brought problems the seven-person team couldn't handle: payment failures, server crashes, and a flood of player complaints.

Their solution was unconventional. They started hiring their own players as employees.

The Leap to 3D

In June 2014, MiHoYo began developing Honkai Impact 3rd, their most ambitious project yet. The game would transition from 2D to full 3D graphics, a challenge none of the team members had experience with.

By March 2015, they were building proprietary technology. They created a physics-based animation system that could simulate realistic character movements and destructive scene effects. They developed their own tools for 3D modeling, light mapping, and real-time rendering.

The combat system drew inspiration from Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, two games known for their fluid, stylish action. The team studied Guilty Gear Xrd, a fighting game that achieved a distinctive anime look using 3D cel-shading, a rendering technique that makes 3D graphics look like traditional hand-drawn animation.

Creating the first version of Kiana Kaslana, the same character Zhang Qinghua had originally designed years earlier, took six months.

Then they threw it all away.

After testing the initial work, the team decided it wasn't good enough. They restarted from scratch to establish what would become the final game's systems. This willingness to discard months of effort rather than ship something mediocre would become a defining characteristic of MiHoYo's development philosophy.

Honkai Impact 3rd and Global Breakthrough

Honkai Impact 3rd had its internal beta in March 2016, launched in September, and officially released in October. The game combined role-playing elements with hack-and-slash action, featuring returning characters like Kiana Kaslana, Raiden Mei, and Bronya Zaychik in a new story.

It also incorporated gacha mechanics, a monetization system where players spend currency to receive random virtual items, similar to lottery systems or trading card packs. This model had proven wildly profitable in Asian mobile gaming markets.

MiHoYo's earlier games had found success within Asia, but Honkai Impact 3rd achieved something new: global reach. The company opened servers in Japan in February 2017, Taiwan in May, South Korea in October, Southeast Asia in November, and finally North America and Europe in March 2018.

The game spawned an entire media ecosystem: anime series, graphic novels, comics, and promotional videos. In December 2019, a PC version launched, breaking the game free from mobile-only constraints.

Explosive Growth

Within two years of Honkai Impact 3rd's release, MiHoYo grew from seven people to approximately 200 employees. Over half worked in research and development. The company was remarkably young: the average employee age was 29, and 84 percent of staff were under thirty.

Four years later, the headcount exceeded 1,000.

In February 2017, MiHoYo filed for an initial public offering with China's securities regulator, planning to raise over one billion yuan. The filing highlighted a significant risk: the company depended almost entirely on a single intellectual property. At the time of the initial filing, Guns Girl Z alone accounted for 96.34 percent of revenue. An updated prospectus in December showed the combined Honkai titles representing 98.82 percent of total revenue.

The concern was reasonable. What if players' tastes changed? What if the company failed to launch successful new products? The entire business rested on one franchise appealing to one audience.

MiHoYo ultimately withdrew its IPO application in 2020. By then, they had something far bigger in development.

Building Community

In November 2018, MiHoYo launched Miyoushe, an official gaming community platform. The name combines "Miyo" from MiHoYo with "she," which means "community" in Chinese. The platform distributed official game information but also provided practical tools like damage calculators and character-building simulators. Most importantly, it served as a content creation platform where players could share guides, artwork, and discussions.

The platform's mascot, Miyouji, was revealed in April 2020. She has different themed costumes matching each MiHoYo game and is accompanied by a rabbit that appears in the forum's logo.

A global version called MiHoYo Forums launched in January 2020 as the official forum for an upcoming game called Genshin Impact. It was later rebranded as HoYoLAB, with its own mascot named Mimo.

Diversification: Tears of Themis

Tears of Themis, announced in July 2019 and released in July 2020, represented MiHoYo's expansion beyond action games. It's an adventure visual novel combining romance with detective elements, targeting an audience interested in narrative-driven experiences rather than combat.

The game is set in 2030 in a fictional city called Stellis. Players take the role of a female defense lawyer who works alongside four male love interests to solve cases. The international version launched after closed beta testing in spring 2021, reaching over 650,000 pre-registrations before release.

Tears of Themis won the Pocket Gamer People's Choice Award in 2022, proving MiHoYo could succeed outside its core genre.

The HoYoverse Transformation

By 2022, Genshin Impact had become a global phenomenon, one of the highest-grossing mobile games in the world. MiHoYo's audience had expanded far beyond China, creating a need for dedicated international operations.

The company launched Cognosphere, trading as HoYoverse, as a global publishing brand headquartered in Singapore. HoYoverse manages content production and publishing outside of China, with offices in Montreal, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Seoul.

The dual structure reflects the reality of operating in both Chinese and international markets, which have different regulatory requirements, cultural expectations, and business practices. HoYoverse handles global operations while MiHoYo maintains its Chinese identity and operations.

Beyond Games

MiHoYo has expanded well beyond video games. The company produces animated series, novels, comics, music albums, and merchandise. The Honkai franchise alone encompasses multiple games, anime adaptations, and an extensive catalog of promotional videos and short films.

This transmedia approach, telling stories across multiple formats, deepens player engagement and creates additional revenue streams. A fan might play Honkai Impact 3rd, watch the anime, read the manga, and buy merchandise, each touchpoint reinforcing their connection to the franchise.

What Made MiHoYo Different

Many video game companies have started in garages and dormitories. What distinguished MiHoYo was a combination of factors that proved difficult to replicate.

First, they were genuinely part of their target audience. They weren't businesspeople calculating market opportunities. They were otaku making games they personally wanted to play. This authenticity resonated with players who could tell the difference between genuine passion and cynical imitation.

Second, they maintained creative control. That single angel investment of one million yuan was the only outside funding MiHoYo ever took. The three founders retained majority ownership, allowing them to make decisions based on creative vision rather than investor pressure.

Third, they were willing to throw away work that wasn't good enough. The decision to discard six months of development on Honkai Impact 3rd and start over required confidence and discipline. Many studios would have shipped the mediocre version rather than absorb that cost.

Fourth, they built proprietary technology. Rather than relying entirely on commercial game engines, they developed their own animation systems, rendering pipelines, and development tools. This technical foundation enabled them to achieve distinctive visual styles that competitors couldn't easily copy.

The Genshin Impact Phenomenon

While this essay has focused on MiHoYo's earlier history, no account would be complete without acknowledging what came next. Genshin Impact, launched in September 2020, became one of the most successful video games ever made. It generated over three billion dollars in its first year alone.

The game was an open-world action role-playing game that drew comparisons to Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was free to play, with revenue coming from gacha mechanics for obtaining new characters and weapons. The game launched simultaneously on mobile devices, PC, and PlayStation, an unusual approach that maximized its potential audience.

Genshin Impact succeeded in Western markets where most Chinese games had failed to gain traction. Its anime-inspired visual style, extensive voice acting in multiple languages, and regular content updates created a dedicated global community.

From Dormitory to Global Empire

The journey from room D32 to one of the world's most valuable gaming companies took just over a decade. Along the way, MiHoYo transformed from three students who couldn't find games they wanted to play into a company defining what modern games could be.

Their story offers lessons about the value of creative authenticity, the importance of maintaining ownership, and the wisdom of occasionally throwing away months of work to start fresh. But perhaps the most important lesson is simpler.

Sometimes the games that don't exist yet are the ones most worth making.