[Mobile Games] Everyone hates Genshin Impact for the same reason and I've always thought it's unfair: A single problem makes almost no one take it seriously

[#Steeven.™]

Genshin Impact's monetization has caused many to invalidate it as a video game, but it's worth talking about seriously.

At this point, saying that Genshin Impact has been successful only makes you the messenger of the obvious. Three years after its launch, there are still millions of active players and it's only been a couple of months since the HoYoverse title broke its revenue record. Some formidable figures that arrive almost in a paradoxical way, because it seems that the world is divided into two categories: those who regularly play the video game and those who hate it like no other. It is a particularly curious situation, especially when we think about the main critics of this second group of people.

 

Genshin Impact is controversial from day one
At its time of release, the sticks to Genshin Impact came from several fronts. Some mechanics too similar to Breath of the Wild were questioned, those who tried it were not always satisfied with an open world that did not fully take advantage of its full potential and a monetization system based on random rewards was questioned. The evolution of the HoYoverse video game has led to a good part of the arguments that supported the first two theses being dismissed and, since then, almost everything has focused on the monetary section.

Go ahead, I hate systems with random rewards and I am very clear that Genshin Impact is worse and impossible to recommend to everyone because of this issue. However, one can only get a certain sense of injustice after hearing the constant criticism of the 'gacha' system. It's very tempting to defend this from the perspective of "yeah, but so many other video games do the same thing." This never seemed like a valid argument to me because things that are bad don't get better because a lot of people do them.

The real difference is that when we talk about FIFA or Counter-Strike 2 we refer to the monetization system as a part of the title. Something that many of us would point out as a negative section or that we do not like. However, here the perspective is different. Genshin Impact seems to be invalidated from any discussion about whether or not it is a good game because of the random rewards. It's not a part you'd want to change or an element you'd want to never see again in future HoYoverse releases. It becomes something that goes much further, an unexpected representative of what many players like least.

An inevitable clash between realities
This is the section where there really seems to be some injustice. The discussion about whether Genshin Impact's monetization systems are good or bad is not on the table, because it is clear that there are much more friendly models for consumers. However, I don't understand why you have to make it the greatest exponent of a practice in which, moreover, it comes out much better than most of its competitors. There's a reason the game has been so successful and it doesn't just have to do with production values that, monetization system excluded, play in another league compared to most 'free to play' of its year of release. premiere.

The greatest ambition of a 'free to play' game is accessibility. The companies want everyone to try it without barriers because "it's free" and then there will be someone who ends up spending money. On PC we have already gotten used to the fact that this system is quite neat, offering very interesting titles with better or worse practices in terms of monetization, but not very intrusive. However, there are two key elements that differentiate Genshin Impact: it is a video game also released on mobiles and much more similar to a 'singleplayer' experience than to a conventional multiplayer.

It escapes no one that a free game is always going to be more attractive for people with less income who don't have a whole sea of possibilities before them. This is where Genshin Impact's strengths come in. Mobile games with high production values are very rare. Almost none offer a connected world and the experience breaks every few minutes with the return to an interface from which the adventure is managed or the appearance of ads. However, HoYoverse opted for a more ambitious idea. If you played on mobile, the jump from almost any other free to play to Genshin was like going from one console to another two generations more advanced.

In addition to this, we must take into account a cultural factor. HoYoverse is a Chinese developer whose main area of influence is Asia. Mobile gaming is very powerful in this region and, hard to believe, players are not particularly critical of their monetization systems. Even League of Legends, managed in Southeast Asia by Garena until the beginning of 2023 (this company was in charge of monetization), had a whole assortment of 'lootboxes' and other similar mechanisms in the Indonesian area. Some complaints from time to time, but in general, users understood this system as "normal" and some even appreciated it since more cosmetics could be obtained.

Due to the global economic reality, video games have historically excluded a large part of the po[CENSORED]tion. Europe, North America and Japan account for approximately 18% of the world's inhabitants. However, they accumulate 80% of the historical sales of PlayStation 4. Players from other latitudes have standardized monetization systems that are not beneficial because for years this has been their only way of accessing video games. In this sense, the current position depends a lot on the lack of interest in the not so distant past.

Perhaps in this sense the term 'gacha' has hurt and, honestly, I've never liked it. Turning the word that refers to a monetization system into a kind of subgenre of video games is a harmful practice. A reductionism that is not carried out in the titles developed by large Western companies and that sins of creating stereotyped profiles. It denatures these titles from a perspective partly motivated by ignorance.

Due to the global economic reality, video games have historically excluded a large part of the po[CENSORED]tion. Europe, North America and Japan account for approximately 18% of the world's inhabitants. However, they accumulate 80% of the historical sales of PlayStation 4. Players from other latitudes have standardized monetization systems that are not beneficial because for years this has been their only way of accessing video games. In this sense, the current position depends a lot on the lack of interest in the not so distant past.

Perhaps in this sense the term 'gacha' has hurt and, honestly, I've never liked it. Turning the word that refers to a monetization system into a kind of subgenre of video games is a harmful practice. A reductionism that is not carried out in the titles developed by large Western companies and that sins of creating stereotyped profiles. It denatures these titles from a perspective partly motivated by ignorance.

 

https://www.3djuegos.com/juegos/genshin-impact/noticias/todo-mundo-odia-genshin-impact-motivo-siempre-he-pensado-que-injusticia-solo-problema-hace-que-casi-nadie-se-tome-serio