Are you a fan of the critically-acclaimed gacha mobile game Genshin Impact? You’ll be glad your pulls for the latest anime characters funded a great cause: bringing the power of the sun in the palm of our hands.
On June 23, 2024, Yahoo Finance reported that China switched on its Tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. It is part of the country’s Energy Singularity project, which received funding from the Genshin creator.
READ: China might build ‘floating’ nuclear reactors
Energy Singularity wants to make nuclear fusion into a viable energy source. As a result, the world could gain affordable, near-limitless
Genshin Impact makes a positive real-world impact
MiHoYo is the company behind the wildly successful gacha game, Genshin Impact. It puts you in the shoes of The Traveler, a celestial being banished from their heavenly realm.
Your mission is to reunite with your sibling. Along the way, various characters help in your quest, but you may only play most of them via ten-pulls.
Think of them as “raffle coupons” that provide random characters and items you purchase with primogems. This game mechanic is called a gacha mechanic, so Genshin Impact is a gacha game.
You buy primogems with real money, providing MiHoYo with its main source of income. Statista says the game generated roughly 51 million USD in July 2023.
Game statistics tracker ActivePlayer says the game had 59,762,591 players within the last 30 days, at the time of writing.
The website reveals the Philippines is its third-largest player base. If you’re one of the Filipino gamers, you’ll be glad to know that your pulls funded the Chinese firm’s main goal: Tech Otakus Save the World.”
READ: The world’s biggest nuclear fusion reactor activates
“Otaku” is Japanese slang for enthusiasts of Japanese comics and cartoons called manga and anime respectively. IGN says these otakus raised $63 million for the Energy Singularity project.
Zhao Yang, Ph.D., from Stanford University, founded Energy Singularity “to develop fusion energy by leveraging recent breakthroughs of and strong synergy among HTS magnets, advanced tokamak physics, and AI technologies.”
How does the nuclear fusion reactor work?
The Genshin Impact-funded nuclear fusion reactor uses a tokamak, a “donut-shaped” device that contains heated plasma. It applies extreme heat and movement to cause hydrogen nuclei to fuse into a heavier element, helium.
This process releases heat and light that people can harness into energy. The Sun and other stars burn bright and hot due to nuclear fusion.
On the other hand, modern nuclear reactors use fission, bumping neutrons into other atoms to produce energy. However, Yahoo Finance says modern tokamaks aren’t commercially viable yet.
They consume more energy than they produce, requiring more research and development. Nevertheless, the International Atomic Energy Agency says nuclear fusion might provide the world with near-limitless energy if harnessed successfully.
“Fusion could generate four times more energy per kilogram of fuel than fission (used in nuclear power plants) and nearly four million times more energy than burning oil or coal.”
Nuclear fusion doesn’t emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gasses so that almost neverending energy could also be green.
READ: US nuclear fusion lab achieves net energy gain
Energy Singularity’s reactor hasn’t become commercially viable yet at the time of writing. Still, MiHoYo and its other investors would help further its research and development via funding.
Genshin Impact and MiHoYo’s latest title, Honkai: Star Rail, continue to gain revenue from pulls. Have fun pulling for the latest characters knowing you’re helping humanity “pull off” clean, near-unlimited energy for everyone!