How did three anime and gaming nerds turn a cash-strapped dorm hobby into a multi-billion-dollar global empire? This episode explores the fascinating history of miHoYo, the powerhouse studio behind Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Honkai Impact 3rd. Driven by their iconic philosophy, “Tech Otakus Save the World,” founders CAI Haoyu, LIU Wei, and LUO Yuhao navigated a relentless journey. Long before capturing astronomical revenues and establishing themselves as China’s third-largest gaming giant behind Tencent and NetEase, these Shanghai Jiao Tong University engineering students bonded over their love or Neon Genesis Evangelion, survived on mere thousands of downloads and faced harsh interrogation from a skeptical investment community.

This episode traces how the studio survived critical, high-stakes milestones. From winning initial funding through entrepreneurship competitions to securing their one and only angel investor, they repeatedly went “all-in,” reinvesting every cent of the company’s income into their next game in development. Bypassing standard mobile gaming strategies, they leveraged a crucial partnership with Bilibili during China’s 2013 smartphone explosion and splurged on premium Japanese voice actors to completely capture the core otaku demographic.

We also examine miHoYo’s hyper-productive live-service culture, flat organizational structure, and the dramatic split that saw CAI Haoyu step down to pursue a 2030 vision of a virtual reality world powered by emotional AI large performance models.

modern mobile game development and live-service success.

👉 Subscribe & Follow:ASCENT Podcast on Substack

📖 Episode Chapters

00:03:12 Introduction & Gathering of the Three (but Actually Four) Otakus

00:16:00 The Spirit of miHoYo: Cai’s Manifesto & the Debut Project: The Legend of Saha

00:23:10 FlyMe2TheMoon: Another Tribute to Neon Genesis Evangelion

00:40:57 Houkai Gakuen 1 (Zombiegal Kawaii) & 2 (Guns Girl Z): How Gacha Made a Real Difference

00:53:49 Honkai Impact 3: The 3D Bet That Paid Off

01:03:19 Genshin Impact: Zelda Crisis and Liyue Triumph

01:22:18 Never Underestimate Fans: Genshin 1st Anniversary Review-Bombing 01:26:42 Genshin Impact Economics Explained: Gacha

01:30:22 Investment Bucket I: Expanding The Game Portfolio, Pipelines & Failure Graveyards

01:37:55 Investment Bucket II: Philosophically Interesting Technology Bets

01:45:05 Splitting Paths: Gaming Development vs. Frontier Cutting-Edge AI Research

01:55:26 Company Culture and Our Final Thoughts on the Future of miHoYo

🚩 Correction

1:28:48 50/50 mechanism halves the chance of a time-limited 5 star character is drawn, not double