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[Unknown Soldier]

I realize that no one on GAF has phones and the average age here is 65 so a brief explanation might be helpful.

Mihoyo is a Shanghai based private company which makes games for phones, although because China is a market that has phones and computers but not game consoles, they are also notable for being a mobile dev which makes very good PC versions of their games. Genshin Impact is currently one of the world's top grossing mobile games, it's somewhere in the world top 3 at any moment and sometimes takes #1 in revenue when popular new characters are released and players spend real money to roll the gacha for a chance to obtain new characters.

Gacha, or gachapon, is of course the common mobile game mechanic where you spend money and roll a lottery for a chance to obtain what you desire. Most mobile games which use gachas have a pity system where you eventually are guaranteed a character once you have rolled enough. However, you might have to roll quite a bit before that happens.

Like most mobile games, Genshin Impact is completely free to download and play. Spending money on rolling for characters is entirely optional and up to the player. The majority of players of these kinds of games do not spend anything. The few that do are famously classified by the sea creatures scale of spending, from the people who spend $5 a month for the basic monthly pass ("minnows") to the people who spend a little money rarely on characters they really like ("dolphins"). Then there are the whales. The whales, despite being often as little as 5% of the player population, generate anywhere from 80-90% of a game's revenues. They are the big fish in the blue ocean, and they spend a LOT.

How much? How about $3.8 billion in revenue, and $2.3 billion in profits? Is that a lot? You fucking better believe it is.

If you haven't figured out why the big console platform holders are also pushing into GaaS, well this is why. Genshin Impact is a live service game which is quite literally free for anybody to play, all you need to do is download the game to your phone, tablet, PC, or PS4/PS5. And yet it generates nearly as much profit as all of Nintendo and more profits than the entirety of EA or T2.

GaaS isn't the future, it's the present, and console platform holders have been missing out for years.

 

[Sleepwalker]

The year is 20,222 and Genshin impact is still a thing, goddamn horny weebs

 

[Rykan]

If you are playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, you are actively contributing to the deterioration of the gaming industry, and you are part of the problem.

 

[feynoob]

This what happens when companies operate on predatory mtxs.

18 Year Old Uses Dad's Credit Card to Spend Thousands of Dollars in Genshin Impact

An 18 year old Genshin Impact fan manages to spend thousands of dollars in the popular gacha game using their dad's credit card.

gamerant.com

 

[Unknown Soldier]

If you are playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, you are actively contributing to the deterioration of the gaming industry, and you are part of the problem.

I play both games and I like them a lot. They are genuinely good games. I don't really spend much money on them, I do like the $5 monthly passes which yield in-game currency for me doing what I was doing anyways, which is playing daily.

 

[feynoob]

If you are playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, you are actively contributing to the deterioration of the gaming industry, and you are part of the problem.

Get this shit out of here man.

 

[lh032]

If you are playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, you are actively contributing to the deterioration of the gaming industry, and you are part of the problem.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The year is 20,222 and Genshin impact is still a thing, goddamn horny weebs

I liked that misspelling so much in the original Reddit thread that I left it here at GAF, you're welcome

 

[Comandr]

If you are playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, you are actively contributing to the deterioration of the gaming industry, and you are part of the problem.

Honkai Star Rail is a legit good game, as far as animu turn based RPGs go. Haven't spent a dime and have gotten dozens of hours of gameplay out of it. Whether its inability to maintain self control and not dump a ton of cash into something like this, or the small mindedness of being unwilling to accept that genuinely good games can manifest on mobile platforms, it sounds like you're the problem.

 

[feynoob]

Anti live service people here. I got you a nice message.

Normies outnumber you. Surrender, don't resist. The future is here. Join the normies with their live service games domination. Join the hive.

/s.

 

[Rykan]

Honkai Star Rail is a legit good game, as far as animu turn based RPGs go. Haven't spent a dime and have gotten dozens of hours of gameplay out of it. Whether its inability to maintain self control and not dump a ton of cash into something like this, or the small mindedness of being unwilling to accept that genuinely good games can manifest on mobile platforms, it sounds like you're the problem.

I'm not arguing whether they are or aren't good games. At least, from a mechanical point of view. From what I've played of Genshin Impact, it's a solid action RPG, and from what I've seen of Honkai Star Rail, it looks pretty good too.

That doesn't change the fact that both of these games are riddled with exploitative systems that encourage addictive behavior, strip away your ability to choose the specific item/object you want to purchase, and heavily endorse gambling mechanics.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Anti live service people here. I got you a nice message.

Normies outnumber you. Surrender, don't resist. The future is here. Join the normies with their live service games domination. Join the hive.

/s.

I honestly don't think it's an issue of normies or whatever. It's simply generations. Most of GAF are a generation or two older than the people in their 20's and younger who have long accepted this is a completely normal business model for games. For them, it's great that they can play for free and a few people who like spending can subsidize their free play.

Also, in general the East was much quicker to accept this business model and you'll find people of all ages in Asia playing these games. In the West, the older generations have resisted but they are also aging out of gaming or growing old and dying and young gamers in the West are also accepting this business model as normal.

 

[bender]

I am playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail.

 

[Topher]

I don't think anyone is under the impression that Gaas is a current business model or that it *can* make a lot of money. I do think people see this as a business model first and foremost and really are not interested in a games designed to nickel and dime gamers to death. That's where I'm at. Obviously these are games that many enjoy and that is fine too.

 

[Griffon]

 

[L*][*N*K]

If you are playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, you are actively contributing to the deterioration of the gaming industry, and you are part of the problem.

Okay Captain America chill, its just video games.

 

[Pejo]

GAF doesn't like to see that this type of game can make money, or that they can be high quality games at the same time. I play Genshin daily and it's still one of the best gaming experiences of the past 5 years in terms of variety, depth, and quality. Only toward the end of a "version" does the quality dip while they're working on the next big x.0 release, which is coming in a few months.

Most publishers would kill for this kind of revenue, but it's not like they're depending on predator mtx. The game, music, assets, etc. are all super high quality and they're clearly putting money back into the game. Do I love everything about it? Absolutely not. Are there flaws, absolutely. But considering the amount of content you can play for totally free, it's pretty crazy.

They've even done free concerts of their OST for the past 2 years, and will likely continue into this year:

 

[SirTerry-T]

Presumptuous fucker...I've got a good decade and a bit before I get my free bus pass.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

GAF doesn't like to see that this type of game can make money, or that they can be high quality games at the same time. I play Genshin daily and it's still one of the best gaming experiences of the past 5 years in terms of variety, depth, and quality. Only toward the end of a "version" does the quality dip while they're working on the next big x.0 release, which is coming in a few months.

Most publishers would kill for this kind of revenue, but it's not like they're depending on predator mtx. The game, music, assets, etc. are all super high quality and they're clearly putting money back into the game. Do I love everything about it? Absolutely not. Are there flaws, absolutely. But considering the amount of content you can play for totally free, it's pretty crazy.

They've even done free concerts of their OST for the past 2 years, and will likely continue into this year:

They did this just to celebrate the release of Honkai Star Rail. You can say what you want about Mihoyo, but one thing they have done and continue to do is reinvest heavily into their games and also make new ones. They don't sit around counting money or whatever.

 

[Loomy]

If you are playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, you are actively contributing to the deterioration of the gaming industry, and you are part of the problem.

This is a dumb fucking take.

 

[Rykan]

This is a dumb fucking take.

Why?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

you act like this is a shocking news to you.... but everyone knows about it.

go and look at the net income of King for example; is as twice as Blizzzard and activision combined.

 

[hemo memo]

Genshin Impact was good. I have put a lot of hours as the quality is honestly on par with full priced games. Total amount spent on MTX = 0

 

[Loomy]

Why?

The gaming industry relies on people spending money on and playing games. Playing games makes people happy, and spending money on games keeps developers employed. That's good for the industry. At least in China. Speaking of China, Mihoyo is also a company that does a lot of good in there.

And before I'm accused of being a CCP shill. I'm not.

 

[Robb]

Not surprised by the numbers, I’m never touching it though.

 

[Rykan]

The gaming industry relies on people spending money on and playing games. Playing games makes people happy, and spending money on games keeps developers employed. That's good for the industry. At least in China. Speaking of China, Mihoyo is also a company that does a lot of good in there.

And before I'm accused of being a CCP shill. I'm not.

It seems it's now my turn to respond accordingly: This is a really dumb fucking take.

Your argument is incredibly shallow and lacks substance. It basically boils down to this: People spending more money = more money for developers = more developers employed. So that's good for the industry.

The way you try to justify and defend blatant gambling and predatory mechanics all for the noble cause of "keeping developers employed" is straight up absurd. It's only "good" for the industry if the only criteria you use are profits and revenue. Oh, excuse me, "keep developers employed."

It's certainly not good for the quality of games. Locking progression or content behind gambling mechanics is not good for games. Encouraging gambling practices and using sleazy tactics like FOMO to encourage even more spending is not good for games. Games trying to nickel and dime you is not good for games. Unless you're actually working for those companies and you gain a piece of the profits, you don't benefit in any single way.

 

[Pejo]

Unless you're actually working for those companies and you gain a piece of the profits, you don't benefit in any single way.

What about the millions of players playing totally for free at the expense of the spenders? Isn't that a benefit?

 

[Rykan]

What about the millions of players playing totally for free at the expense of the spenders? Isn't that a benefit?

If you want to only focus on the fact that a large amount of people get access to some form of free entertainment: Sure, but that is an oversimplifcation.

What does “Play for free” really mean? It means that you can access the game, play through it and interact with it in a limited fashion. Now, Genshin Impact is actually fairly generous at first: There is a sizeable amount of game that you can play through. However, this being a Gatcha based "RPG", the end goal is to obtain the characters you want and to focus on the progression of your characters, and it is here where the monetization heavily influences the game.

We know that most people playing GI play for free or pay little. Yet this game makes an absurd amount of revenue. This means that there is a large amount of whales who spend a lot of money on the game. And if there's people spending a lot of money on the game, that means that there are a lot of things you can spend money on.

Most people playing Genshin Impact will never have access to everything the game has to offer. They will never obtain every collectible character in the game, and they will never get those characters to where they want. In fact, most people playing Genshin Impact won't even get access to the characters they want. Even if they are willing to pay for the characters: Genshin Impact straight up won't let you buy them, because it wants you to gamble for them to extract more money from you. Gambling rates are, of course, studied and adjusted to a T to encourage the maximum amount of spending.

I genuinely don't understand why so many people are okay with this and aren't concerned. The fact that most people will get to play an incomplete version of the game with no chance to experience everything the game has to offer, all while the game is being sustained by a small group of people spending absurd amount of money.

This kind of predatory mechanics used to be in low quality mobile RPG games. But Genshin Impact and Honkai are not low quality mobile RPG games. They are good games. Very good even, and that only helps in normalizing these kinds of predatory practices. Because you can bet that every other major developer and publisher is taking notes here.

 

[Pejo]

If you want to only focus on the fact that a large amount of people get access to some form of free entertainment: Sure, but that is an oversimplifcation.

What does “Play for free” really mean? It means that you can access the game, play through it and interact with it in a limited fashion. Now, Genshin Impact is actually fairly generous at first: There is a sizeable amount of game that you can play through. However, this being a Gatcha based "RPG", the end goal is to obtain the characters you want and to focus on the progression of your characters, and it is here where the monetization heavily influences the game.

We know that most people playing GI play for free or pay little. Yet this game makes an absurd amount of revenue. This means that there is a large amount of whales who spend a lot of money on the game. And if there's people spending a lot of money on the game, that means that there are a lot of things you can spend money on.

Most people playing Genshin Impact will never have access to everything the game has to offer. They will never obtain every collectible character in the game, and they will never get those characters to where they want. In fact, most people playing Genshin Impact won't even get access to the characters they want. Even if they are willing to pay for the characters: Genshin Impact straight up won't let you buy them, because it wants you to gamble for them to extract more money from you. Gambling rates are, of course, studied and adjusted to a T to encourage the maximum amount of spending.

I genuinely don't understand why so many people are okay with this and aren't concerned. The fact that most people will get to play an incomplete version of the game with no chance to experience everything the game has to offer, all while the game is being sustained by a small group of people spending absurd amount of money.

This kind of predatory mechanics used to be in low quality mobile RPG games. But Genshin Impact and Honkai are not low quality mobile RPG games. They are good games. Very good even, and that only helps in normalizing these kinds of predatory practices. Because you can bet that every other major developer and publisher is taking notes here.

Your first mistake is assuming that everybody is playing to collect everything. The vast majority of the english speaking playerbase (can't speak for the other playerbases) have spreadsheets upon spreadsheets calculating how long it will take and how much free premium currency you get each patch to guarantee that they get the character that they want. People temper their expectations and plan accordingly, that way no amount of bad luck can screw them over, since you are guaranteed to get the character you are aiming for after a certain number of rolls of the dice.

Are there players that spend a lot and collect everything? Absolutely. The lion's share of the revenue come from them, but old gacha numbers say that like the top 10% of the playerbase generates 70% of the revenue. But the vast majority of the players pick and choose what they aim for, or just hoard for the sake of hoarding. The game has pretty decent value low spender options, including the customary live service "battle pass" and a cheapskate pass with very good value that you get daily currency just from logging in. Are there predatory practices? Of course. But as an adult it's your job to think that through and make your own decisions. We don't need a nanny state in gaming telling you what you can or can't spend your money on.

The other mistake is that the characters are the main draw to the game. It's very content rich in not only standard open world exploration and puzzle solving content, but also battle/combat related content, fully voiced story quests (in 13 languages via text and 4 fully voiced options), and miscellaneous events that are constantly rotating and being introduced. The events introduce all sorts of time limited randomized gameplay, we've had stuff like rhythm games, pac-man, tower defense, building puzzles, pokemon battling, etc. And as far as power creep, the customary method used to keep people trying to get the new hottest characters, Genshin so far (after 3 years) has had negative power creep. A vast majority of the starter cast is significantly more powerful than the latest characters, with a few exceptions.

And the thing about this, is as long as you are responsible (or cheap), all of this is completely free. So yes, the spenders are spending, but that does in fact open up the game to everybody with an extremely high quality free game.

 

[01011001]

IN THE YEAAAAAR 20222... IF MAN IS STILL ALIVE... IF GENSHIN WILL SURVIVE... THEY MAY FIIIIIINNNNDDD...

 

[NanaMiku]

Chinese goverment is probably also enjoying that money

Their 2021 Chinese New Year lottery was really massive

Genshin Impact - miHoYo Gifts Employees RTX 3070 Cards, PS5 and Switch Consoles Through Lottery Prizes For Chinese New Year

Following the success of free-to-play JRPG Genshin Impact, miHoYo is gifting several consoles and hardware to employees for Chinese New Year festivities.

www.dualshockers.com

 

[Esppiral]

The most relevant info is that they have a time machine.

 

[Ozriel]

This what happens when companies operate on predatory mtxs.

18 Year Old Uses Dad's Credit Card to Spend Thousands of Dollars in Genshin Impact

An 18 year old Genshin Impact fan manages to spend thousands of dollars in the popular gacha game using their dad's credit card.

gamerant.com

Oof at that article.
You can come to terms with this if it’s a kid, but an 18 year old racking up thousands of dollars debt?

More like addict than ‘whales’

 

[Sakura]

If you are playing either Genshin Impact or Honkai Star Rail, you are actively contributing to the deterioration of the gaming industry, and you are part of the problem.

Literally playing Star Rail right now. Sorry man.

 

[Rykan]

Your first mistake is assuming that everybody is playing to collect everything.

No, I am not making an assumption about everybody wanting to collect everything. The point is not whether people want to collect every character; it's that they can't. They don't have a reasonable way to obtain every character, nor can they pick and choose the content they want to purchase. The fact is that the option simply isn't available.

The vast majority of the english speaking playerbase (can't speak for the other playerbases) have spreadsheets upon spreadsheets calculating how long it will take and how much free premium currency you get each patch to guarantee that they get the character that they want. People temper their expectations and plan accordingly.

Are there players that spend a lot and collect everything? Absolutely. The lion's share of the revenue come from them, but old gacha numbers say that like the top 10% of the playerbase generates 70% of the revenue. But the vast majority of the players pick and choose what they aim for, or just hoard for the sake of hoarding. The game has pretty decent value low spender options, including the customary live service "battle pass" and a cheapskate pass with very good value that you get daily currency just from logging in. Are there predatory practices? Of course. But as an adult it's your job to think that through and make your own decisions. We don't need a nanny state in gaming telling you what you can or can't spend your money on.

But here's the thing: When you say "temper their expectations" or "pick and choose what to aim for," what you're really saying is this: People settle. They settle for the fact that they have no reasonable way to obtain every character or max them out at a reasonable cost. They are playing what is, for all intents and purposes, an incomplete game that they will never fully experience. There are many characters they will never obtain or experience. Yes, you can use spreadsheets to optimize some aspects, but that alone won't be enough to obtain all of them.

I would also like to point out that Genshin Impact is specifically marketed and targeted towards children. This is not a game that only adults play or even one with adults as the primary target audience. At best, they target teenagers and young adults.

The other mistake is that the characters are the main draw to the game. It's very content rich in not only standard open world exploration and puzzle solving content, but also battle/combat related content, fully voiced story quests (in 13 languages via text and 4 fully voiced options), and miscellaneous events that are constantly rotating and being introduced. The events introduce all sorts of time limited randomized gameplay, we've had stuff like rhythm games, pac-man, tower defense, building puzzles, pokemon battling, etc. And as far as power creep, the customary method used to keep people trying to get the new hottest characters, Genshin so far (after 3 years) has had negative power creep. A vast majority of the starter cast is significantly more powerful than the latest characters, with a few exceptions.

Characters are undeniably one of the main attractions of the game. We jokingly refer to players as "waifu collectors" for a reason. While Genshin Impact does offer a lot of content, it serves as a vehicle to lead players into the character progression treadmill, which is where most of the monetization occurs.

And the thing about this, is as long as you are responsible (or cheap), all of this is completely free. So yes, the spenders are spending, but that does in fact open up the game to everybody with an extremely high quality free game.

We've already established that all of this isn't completely free. You can't access all the content in the game for free.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

We've already established that all of this isn't completely free. You can't access all the content in the game for free.

No, we haven't. In the imaginary game you invented in your head, all the content in the game cannot be accessed for free. You have never played the game so of course you wouldn't know. There is no content in Genshin Impact which is gated by having or not having any particular character. All the open world is accessible. All dungeons are accessible. All events are accessible. In terms of having or not having particular characters, yes that is to some extent paywalled.

It's not as paywalled as you might think, because the pace of new characters being released isn't fast. A player who is extremely determined, good at planning, and also reasonably lucky could obtain a significant number of characters without paying just by playing daily and accumulating in-game currency by doing free activities. Genshin is an extremely lenient game as gachas go, and quite frankly they can afford to be this generous because why the fuck not, people are willingly spending billions of USD yearly anyways!

 

[Pejo]

I would also like to point out that Genshin Impact is specifically marketed and targeted towards children. This is not a game that only adults play or even one with adults as the primary target audience. At best, they target teenagers and young adults.

A poll was done with the largest English speaking communities and received over 1600 responses, and here was the shakedown for ages. The playerbase isn't as young as you think:

Age Range	Frequency
< 12	1.53%
12 - 14	0.89%
14 - 17	9.22%
18 - 21	23.47%
21 - 29	50.32%
30+	14.57%

We've already established that all of this isn't completely free. You can't access all the content in the game for free.

I don't want to get down to brass tacks with you, but you absolutely can. You can't own everything for free, but there are trial characters in combat events where the latest and greatest characters come pre-built to acceptable levels, to allow you to play and 'experience' every character in the game. The only thing you're missing is opening your menu and seeing the character listed there and using them for anything and everything.

Anyways, I get what you're saying, but you're clearly basing a lot of your arguments off of preconceived notions instead of experience through playing the game. I have plenty of issues with Genshin and the monetization model, but the content is not one of the issues. You can 100% experience everything the game has to offer for free, at the expense of others that keep the revenue stream flowing.

I don't want to become the guy that defends Chinese gacha games, but I just wanted to try to give some information. GAF has a big hate boner for both Chinese developed games as well as gacha monetization in games, but I really feel like a lot of people write it (and its players) off without really understanding anything about it. There's enough to complain about when you actually play the game that there's no need to fearmonger "oh no its a gacha" or "oh no its Chinese".

 

[Rykan]

No, we haven't. In the imaginary game you invented in your head, all the content in the game cannot be accessed for free. You have never played the game so of course you wouldn't know. There is no content in Genshin Impact which is gated by having or not having any particular character. All the open world is accessible. All dungeons are accessible. All events are accessible. In terms of having or not having particular characters, yes that is to some extent paywalled.

You seem to not understand what the term content means: Characters in a Gacha RPG ARE content. Much in the same way that cars in a racing game are content, or characters in a fighting game.

It's not as paywalled as you might think, because the pace of new characters being released isn't fast. A player who is extremely determined, good at planning, and also reasonably lucky could obtain a significant number of characters without paying just by playing daily and accumulating in-game currency by doing free activities. Genshin is an extremely lenient game as gachas go, and quite frankly they can afford to be this generous because why the fuck not, people are willingly spending billions of USD yearly anyways!

"A significant number of characters for free" yeah I'm sure a game that makes record amount of profits, most which comes from character sales, is "extremely generous" with the number of characters given for free. Come on now.

 

[The Cockatrice]

it's still one of the best gaming experiences of the past 5 years in terms of variety, depth, and quality

Must suck not to play other games.

 

[Pejo]

Must suck not to play other games.

I play plenty of other games. Genshin has content drops and content gaps just like any other live service game. It doesn't require a massive time commitment to stay on top of it.

 

[Sakura]

No, I am not making an assumption about everybody wanting to collect everything. The point is not whether people want to collect every character; it's that they can't. They don't have a reasonable way to obtain every character, nor can they pick and choose the content they want to purchase. The fact is that the option simply isn't available.

But here's the thing: When you say "temper their expectations" or "pick and choose what to aim for," what you're really saying is this: People settle. They settle for the fact that they have no reasonable way to obtain every character or max them out at a reasonable cost. They are playing what is, for all intents and purposes, an incomplete game that they will never fully experience. There are many characters they will never obtain or experience. Yes, you can use spreadsheets to optimize some aspects, but that alone won't be enough to obtain all of them.

I would also like to point out that Genshin Impact is specifically marketed and targeted towards children. This is not a game that only adults play or even one with adults as the primary target audience. At best, they target teenagers and young adults.

Characters are undeniably one of the main attractions of the game. We jokingly refer to players as "waifu collectors" for a reason. While Genshin Impact does offer a lot of content, it serves as a vehicle to lead players into the character progression treadmill, which is where most of the monetization occurs.


We've already established that all of this isn't completely free. You can't access all the content in the game for free.

Yeah a player who doesn't spend any money probably won't get all the characters. But so what? Why does that mean the game is incomplete? In my mind it isn't really any different than DLC. Except in games like these, all the DLC except characters are free. And even the characters you have a pretty good chance of getting most of them for free. I don't really feel like I am playing an incomplete game, or that I am getting shafted or something.