MiHoYo just offered a masterclass in how to lose a community. It’s made over $2bn in revenue and was the third biggest mobile game in the world in terms of revenue after an incredible launch. So what happened? Well, they released an extremely lacklustre anniversary update that fans just did NOT think was fair… watch it through & let us know your thoughts on it!
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00:00 Intro
00:24 The Story – Apparent Unstoppable Success
02:07 The Story – Bungling $2Billion Of Goodwill?!
09:39 The Analysis – MiHoYo Got Complacent…
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I played GI for a month before figuring out their strategy to suck players dry. Didn't want any part of that. Had fun while I had it though, luckily I didn't spend on the game.
I stopped playing Genshin 6 months ago. Was fun at the beginning but that company is greedy as hell. Plenty of good games out there. New World is smashing it right now soooo no thanks MiHoYo.
All of this kind of crap needs to burn like gambling mechanic's in aaass game's. I wish someone would do something. But I doubt it.
I poked at Genshin briefly and was pretty quickly turned off by the "Gacha" mechanics.
You guys need to do a podcast. For YouTube. I would listen to it. Not sure how the rules are we're you guys are at. But as long as I'm subd. I would definitely listen.
I play daily, mostly f2p, daily grind doesn't actually take that much time.
Got some gems once, but only used them for the jean skin and for future skins. I don't play any other gacha, so the anger and the intensity of the complaints were really weird.
I was a bit annoyed at the meaningless gacha in some of the community events, but thats it. To me it's just a weird thing to complain about. If you want to complain, there is much more important stuff that ppl should talk about, like the little amount of end game content.
Still a lovely game, I enjoy playing, and will keep playing.
For an idea on the economy of the apologems:
1600 Primos is enough for a 10 pull. Pity is 90 pulls.
The average number of pulls for a random 5 star is 70.
You have to hit pity twice to guarantee a banner character.
So 1600 Primos is not a lot in the games economy.
Phrasing
I play Genshin regularly. I love the game, but the monetization is extremely stingy, and the per-dollar value of anything they have to offer is so low, that it's an absolute joke. I have never and will never spend money on the game, and have no qualms about not doing so despite the hundreds of hours I've sank into it.
Its funny how in their official Discord in all the channels they spammed an image of depressed Qiqi (a 5 star character), but aside another thing that was what triggered this was that the end of the last act of the main story felt like rushed; If you compare it with the other 2 regions story its way short.
Gatcha games being treated unfairly by players, what a horrible thing. Rofl.
Review bombing is one of the only ways people have to hold companies accountable, and I look forward to the development of it as a strategy.
The Genshin Impact community (The vocal one, not the entirety of it) is actually the very first community I ever had to completely distance myself from… Like… it's REALLY bad, the vocal people over there aren't acting like mentally healthy/stable individuals and it's borderline terrifying at times.
Their "relationship" (dear lord, why do we have to use this term when talking about what's ultimately a commercial product…) with the game itself seems to be as bad as those who marry their Waifu's bodypillow, legit degenerate rabid dogs that'll throw issy fits at the moment's notice.
DON'T GET ME WRONG THOUGH, Mihoyo needs to do better, that's a fact at this point, however the community's behaviour is simply making things WAY worse than it should be, How you ask? Well… Because, who would ever wants to listen to a vocal crowd of people when all you'll ever get out of them are rains of middle fingers, racial slurs and straight up harassment… enough said.
At the end of the day, BOTH need to be better, WAY better than they are right now. The community needs to get their shit together and stop this unhealthy obsession over what's ultimately, a damn commercial product, and Mihoyo need to get their shit together and introduce QoL features and worthwhile characters to the banners from now on, with multiple ways to get what you wish for.
becarefull with waifu addicts , they are quite sensitive people
Glad I avoided Genshin Impact. I avoid all gatcha games tho.
just my opinion as a non gacha player, that actually played genshin for some time, I don't think 500-600 primogems is really enough, the game is based on you wasting all your time and money, if not money too much of your time to have the chance of maybe getting a character you like in a way or another, and alotta times you don't really get it, then the thing about the events they put in the game, they do bring alotta stuff frequently, but none of that really stays in the game for a fun thing to do, and for me personally the rewards you get from said events are so little in comparison with all the effort and time you put in the game that I ultimately decided to stop playing, I actually feel like genshin is a game that isnt buy to play + sub montly fee, but it still gets ALOT more of your money than a game like that would, for alot less content and actual joy from getting a character you like. Alot of the rewards are like 40 primogems, you honestly cant do shit with 500 primogems, much less with 40 or if you add up all the steps of some events, that reach idk 140? maybe 200 primogems? at the end, thats not even close to what you need to MAYBE get a character that you like.
I played Gensin around the time of release and also played Guardian Tales, as both were considered the top F2P games out there a year ago. After seeing how bad the Gatcha rates were in Genshin and needing to choose only one game to stick with, I stuck with Guardian Tales.
After a year in Guardian Tales, I feel that they actually do Gatcha in a way that isn't so bad. Yes, the banners are limited time and rates are low, but they have a ticket-based pity system that lets you eventually get anything you want. They listen to their players and are constantly doing things to either add new content or improve quality of life and when it came time for their anniversary, they gave out tons of free multi-pulls (which they tend to do for every holiday) and added a very reasonably priced pack to their store to let anyone buy any unique character or weapon that they wanted, no gatcha roll required. Yes, you can whale to an extreme extent if you want to, but the game is designed so well that it's actually viable to be a F2P player in it.
It's a shame that Genshin went for such a bad monetization strategy and then bungled their anniversary so badly, the core gameplay of it is very solid and you can get a good bit of fun out of it as a F2P player, but it really does eventually push you to the shop if you want to progress. I totally agree that if they did a "complete" pack like Smite did in the MOBA space, I'd buy it and play the hell out of the game.
Raiden’s success is not just her personality, aesthetic and kit. The fact she is released with a double top-up reset is the best opportunity to pull her. So the players that used their double top-up before her will mostly likely purchase it again to pull for her.
After all, this is the first double top-up reset since the game’s release. Not to mention the games accumulated players leading up to Inazuma. So in most part Mihoyo planned this very well.
I get I’m late comment here, but this gatcha stuff had me quit in the first week of this game. It was nearly impossible, if not totally impossible, to get all the content with out paying. While the game was well polished, if I struggle at low levels, I’m out.
It's this bizarre situation where the worst payment model is inside an excellent game that is played by a young audience
It took them doing the concert to have the playerbase back on the palm of their hand with all sins forgiven and forgotten…
watch the mmd scene people love the characters they would lose their minds over slights
Random note that applies all acts of acting, not just games. If you are bullying the actor because you don't like the character/story/director/write/studio etc: STOP! You have a fucking problem.
Have you ever seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?
Remember the scene near the end where Chevy Chase's character opens his Christmas bonus, which he hoped to use to buy his family a pool, and it's a membership to a jelly-of-the-month club?
I don't remember anyone suggesting that it was HIS fault for expecting a bonus, and not his greedy, asshole boss for being a greedy asshole.
i was playing genshin blissfully unaware until this video…hmm. sounds like what people were saying when wow was bought out by activision at the end of tbc.
I took a long break from Genshin. So it won't be much of an issue when I go back. I played it for the game play and didn't spend a single cent.
It's shit like this why executives should have zero say on game development and monitization. Just sit in your fancy seat, shut the fuck up, and let the money come in.
Communication is the one thing Mihoyo does not do,i've even heard they ignore the western player base alltogether but at least the chinese playerbase seems to agree with us though i dislike the reviewbombing of other games that had nothing to do with this.
And the anniversery rewards truly are stupid, a raffle that u can only get into if u spread their name on social media with rewards not worth getting and other stuff i have already forgotten.
Though i will say, the concert really was epic.
in thuth i never don or ever will play gambleing macanic in a game. i normaly only will play the game to play it if its fun, sure it was fun but i only played it once and never played it since. i have tomany games in the back bunner
Well said Matt …society is now turning on its own soul …
Genshin Impact is a predatory gacha game, change my mind.
"They are putting in really either a lot of money, or a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot of time into grinding. And that creates this level of attachment to the game."
I think you can replace attachment with entitlement, at this point. And I think it's fairly normal, it's to be expected.
Gacha editors are all too happy to keep increasing their player base because gachas bring in lots of money without needing much investment in the first place, it's easy cash. But these people who play, who put money and time into that game in bulk, of course they feel entitled to results, how would they not?
Most of them won't quit, because every dollar and hour they put in increases the incentive to stick around so it wasn't all for nought. But they will still feel angry if the game doesn't treat them well. And since they won't stop playing, they have to direct their rage elsewhere. Is it fair to the people who are attacked for being remotely linked to the editor? Of course not. It is about the editor not being responsible.
We all know how cachas work. How they tap into people's triggers to bypass players' rationality and access the quickest way towards their wallets. It is really not the place to play dumb and hide behind a "we are just a game editor" smokescreen.
Engineering a game purposely so that players, especially players who are emotionally weak, have gambling or spending additions or not financially mature, to pump in hundreds, thousands of dollars, sometimes more, and then letting them feel like you don't value them as customers? I wouldn't be surprised if death threats were sent.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
So .. it was tough for me to really grasp the details of this story: i technically dont mind the discussion format, but the facts kinda suffer here.
Why exactly did the review bombs happen? Because of a sub par anniversary? If that's all the reason behind the bombs, then long story short, the players got not all screws loose.
The way genshin is built, they got more greedy month by month with the game so players should expect this much by now. Demanding proper rewards for an anniversary seems like the players just now started to realize who they are dealing with, but its not like mihoyo were the good guys to begin with.
But given players were used to that before, going berserk cuz of an optional thing for the company to do is rather a bad view on the player base, because thats just baseless entitlement.
What I did not get out of the story is, why do players suddenly think mihoyo are the bad guys? The anniv seems just like a way too weak reason.
They literally didn't give us,the players, anything for the anniversary,and no,those 1600 primos+the glider are just damage control to keep things cool for a while,then they stated to gamesradar that they hear everything the players have been rampaging about throughout the internet and stated "…With more rewards incoming…"
Where? They didn't give us any info regarding the "Anniversary"… Literally nothing besides that stupid theater web event+100 primogems
No,im not angry because didn't give us the real anniversary stuff, im angry because of how fckn quite they are after all theses backlashes,they didn't give out any statement or clarify about why they're silent…
If they just stated like a week ago that they have surprise/ they have some technical issues or whatnot,when the REAL anniversary on 28th September took place,none of these crazy bombing would've happened… Wtf mihoyo
I played Genshin because there was nothing else to play that kept my interest; it's not even like Genshin is great. Pretty? Yes. But great? Hardly. The core gameplay is mundane and repetitive. the only reason to get new characters is because there is literally nothing else to do but to play new characters. The 5 star rates in the game is horrendous and takes extremely long to even attempt a pull and more often than not, it's 5 star or bust. Having said that, 1600 primogems for 10 pulls hardly means anything to anyone – if I stuck with a game through its ups and downs (and much more downs for Genshin), I'd expect some reward for being loyal to the game and continuing my support but a 10-pull is not it. This isn't even considering the fact that Mihoyo, much like the Chinese government, has been censoring any bad-mouthing or complaints against them. I see little reason to support a company that can't take even the smallest criticisms but is greedy beyond belief – I'm glad I quit playing and I'm glad I quit while I was ahead and didn't give them a dime.
I play Genshin Simpact every now and then as a filthy casual free-to-play. This is the first I've heard of this, but hey, free Primo gems? Cool.
The complicated metaphor you used here is basically that gatcha games are riding a tiger
"Genshin Impact Turned On Their Players"
Idk anything about gacha games since the only one I've played is Pokemon Go. But my friends play GI. It appeared to me that it was basically a botw clone crossed with rwby. So i had not much interest :/
I lost interest on Genshin a while ago. Too much grind, too little you could actually do and the scheme of paying lots of money for new character plus the booster to levle them up faster was way too obvious.
It could be a nice zelda-clone if it wasn't designed to do the same things over and over to farm resources to level up characters ans their gear. How asians like these repetitive-chore-like-time-eaters i will never get.
I've played genshin since release day and according to my aniversary highlights I played 362 out of the 365 days of the year from the 28th of September in 2020 to the 28th of this year. Yeah this whole thing feels like a slap in the face. I won't disclose how much I spent, but let's say it's enough, but like they said here, the quality is there. The game is great, but the amount of money they made compared to what they are giving back is laughable. The wings that were going to come with the concert bundle is another slap on the face. The fact that it is free doesn't outweigh the fact that it was going to be a paid thing during the anniversary when the rewards were basically water and bread crumbs at a buffet.
I've been on 4chan I've played Yu-Gi-Oh with heroin dealers and the genshin impact global community fb page is the worst place I've ever seen
relatively new, F2P player. i haven't been affected by any of this. The 400 primos per day with glider was cool. The game is a great game to play, and u can sink hours of time into it. its a gatcha sure, but with my 10 pools as long as i get something useful im ok. And u can earn the stuff just by playing the game anyway soo… eh. it is what it is ig
Geez why do people insist in playing chinese games? It is always the same stuff, same issues, same predatory pratices etc etc…