Inside the conference room sat the elite members of the marketing department from the largest game company in China.
These were experts who understood the domestic market inside and out.
After careful and thorough analysis, their judgments had rarely been wrong in the past.
If even they unanimously declared a game company “dead,” then that company would not survive for long.
This time, in their eyes, miHoYo was no exception.
Because of this, Penguin’s marketing director classified miHoYo as a “harmless” risk based on his team’s analysis.
What he didn’t know was that this decision would soon have enormous consequences for Penguin.
And it wasn’t just Penguin.
Most mainstream game companies in the China reached similar conclusions.
Although the PV had impressed many people, these companies had a much deeper understanding of the technical difficulty behind creating an open-world game.
They all knew that taking too big a step would only lead to failure.
Time passed, and half a year went by.
With the entire miHoYo team working tirelessly, Genshin Impact was finally completed.
Over those six months, the Dragon Kingdom’s gaming industry hadn’t changed much.
Under the near-monopoly of a few major companies, the industry remained like stagnant water—developing at a snail’s pace.
Still, some things had changed.
The ridicule and insults directed at Genshin Impact had almost completely disappeared.
Seeing no response from miHoYo, most players assumed the “scam company” had already collapsed, and they gradually lost interest.
But today—
With Genshin Impact about to officially launch, those buried memories were about to resurface.
Inside miHoYo’s meeting hall, a small debate was taking place.
“President Lin, are you really going to release this game for free?” President Peng from the voice acting department asked in disbelief.
“It does feel like a bit of a waste,” Wang Xiaomei added thoughtfully from across the table.
The other department heads also looked at Lin Yuan in confusion.
Over the past six months, the development costs alone had been astronomical.
Now they were finally waiting to recover their investment.
Although the game had a gacha system, there had never been a successful example of gacha games in the China yet.
So how much money it could actually make was still unknown.
“Heh… the free ones are the most expensive,” Lin Yuan said with a mysterious smile.
In his previous life, most of the top-grossing games were the ones labeled “free.”
Paid games might make a big profit at launch—but once most players had bought them, their earning potential quickly dried up.
“Alright, let’s release it.”
Lin Yuan didn’t explain further.
“The free ones are the most expensive…?”
Hearing such a contradictory statement, the department heads were filled with confusion.
But regardless of their doubts, the game was officially launched.
To avoid revenue cuts from other platforms, Genshin Impact was released on a self-developed platform called MiYouShe.
At the moment, this platform had only one game—Genshin Impact.
Its download count was barely in the double digits, all from internal testing.
Releasing it here meant avoiding profit cuts from mainstream platforms—but also meant having almost no traffic.
As a result, downloads would depend entirely on their marketing efforts.
Of course, compared to having no traffic, Lin Yuan cared more about not losing half the profits to platform fees.
Some platforms even took as much as 70%.
Releasing on those would essentially mean working for someone else.
Even though MiYouShe lacked traffic, they could attract users through other means— like streamers.
On Shark Live.
While streaming, Dai Xiaomei quickly learned from chat that Genshin Impact had been released.
“Genshin?
What was that again?”
She scratched her head, trying to remember.
After half a year, she had completely forgotten about it.
But after thinking for a moment and reading chat hints, she finally recalled:
That scam company!”
“It’s been half a year—I thought they were already dead.
Didn’t expect them to actually release a game!”
“Guys, let’s go and roast these little scammers.
We’ve gotta show them how harsh reality is!”
“Hehehe…”
Dai Xiaomei grinned mischievously, full of anticipation.
She had been worrying about lacking content lately—and now it had delivered itself.
Sometimes, playing bad games created even better entertainment than good ones.
After all, she played good games every day, and viewers could get bored.
But bad games were new and unpredictable.
Plus, they were often full of bugs—perfect for hilarious moments.
Like a ghost boss getting stuck in a wall in a horror game…
Or a horse glitching and flying into the air in a racing game…
Moments like those always filled the stream with laughter.
So when viewers heard she was going to try Genshin Impact, they were excited.
“Damn, I also thought this company was dead.”
“My buried memories are coming back to haunt me.”
“After getting roasted that hard before, they actually dared to release it?”
By then, Dai Xiaomei had already found the MiYouShe platform and opened its only game: Genshin Impact.
“Wait—hold on!
This game is free?!”
“Guys!
This game is FREE!”
She repeated it twice, still unable to believe it.
Following the usual routine of those scammy developers from the past…
They would use hype to attract attention, then set an absurdly high price to cash in before disappearing.
But making it free?
That completely caught her off guard.