[HN Gopher] Genshin Impact made more money in its first year tha...
___________________________________________________________________
Genshin Impact made more money in its first year than any other
game
Author : eunos
Score : 113 points
Date : 2021-11-04 16:49 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gamerant.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gamerant.com)
| rowanG077 wrote:
| This makes me really, really depressed.
| eunos wrote:
| I'm just surprised that Genshin impact beats company like Las
| Vegas sands and almost Bet365.
| slg wrote:
| I noticed that the EA Sports titles aren't on the list. The FIFA
| franchise pulls in at least $2b every year (31 million units
| sold[1] which is $1.5b at roughly $50 per unit plus a likely
| majority of the $1.6b of EA's annual Ultimate Team revenue[2]) If
| each yearly CoD release counts as a new game for this metric, I'm
| not sure why the yearly FIFA releases wouldn't.
|
| [1] - https://www.earlygame.com/fifa/ea-fifa-21-most-succesful-
| all...
|
| [2] - https://www.vg247.com/ultimate-team-ea-1-62-billion
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I like playing gacha games when they're F2P friendly. It's a neat
| game mechanic. The resource conservation and gambling aspect is
| fun. But people who spend money on these games... are just so
| strange to me. The value of money spent is incredibly low.
| Genshin is one of the stingiest games. Yet on its recent first
| anniversary, people were surprised that they were, yet again,
| very stingy. The lack of self awareness of what they're playing
| on the gacha communities is so odd to me.
|
| I'm not super familiar with genshin specifically, but in a lot of
| these games, players don't really play the game. Like, they'll
| just lookup pre made team setups that allow them to win with no
| skill or input. This is the strangest thing to me. Why do people
| like just following along a game if they're not going to take any
| accountability. It's like the MMORPG grind of enjoying the
| numbers going up from yesteryear, but somehow, even one step
| further removed than before.
| falcolas wrote:
| > Like, they'll just lookup pre made team setups that allow
| them to win with no skill or input.
|
| Winning gives you a dopamine hit. Regardless of what it took to
| win.
|
| Entire videogame genres (colloquially known as soshage in
| Japan) are built around giving this dopamine hit to 1) people
| who play a lot ("alot" here is on the order of unemployed
| people playing constantly) and 2) people who pay. They quite
| intentionally don't allow people to win if they don't pay or
| play extensively. Losing to those people pushes them to pay so
| they can win.
|
| Genshin Impact is an evolution on this game model.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Imo I find the dopamine hit to figure out your own team comp
| and build to be much higher. And sometimes it's not possible
| to use the best teams.
| falcolas wrote:
| That's serving a different niche. And fewer people find
| tolerating frustration to find dopamine hit to be worth it.
|
| Comparing Dark Souls sales numbers and its ilk gacha games
| and their ilk shows that the number of people willing to
| tolerate the frustration is much lower than those willing
| to buy their way through it.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The thing about F2P games is that the vast majority of
| revenue is made from a tiny majority of players. In
| reality you'll find that the majority of players did not
| spend any money, a certain portion spends some money but
| around as much as Dark Souls costs, and a small minority
| spends massive amounts of money which makes up most of
| the revenue.
|
| So indeed, most people that do play Genshin Impact do
| find the frustration worth it. I'd say a fair few of
| those find that the frustration makes it better.
| falcolas wrote:
| > most people that do play Genshin Impact do find the
| frustration worth it
|
| That's a hell of a conclusion from assumptions that have
| a shaky base.
|
| As per [1] below, the "tiny minority" of players
| typically accounts for over 20% of the playerbase.
|
| And per [2], the average amount spent by a mobile player
| in F2P games is over $85.
|
| And I bet Genshin Impact does better than this - they
| have better marketing, better art, and lots of experience
| milking players for money.
|
| [1] A developer sharing his revenue breakdown per player:
| https://medium.com/building-the-metaverse/game-economics-
| par...
|
| [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160913155032/https://in
| tellige...
| slightwinder wrote:
| Genshin is very hard optimized on using the right team-
| combinations. To the point that it becomes impossible to solve
| tasks if you don't have the matching elements for it. But of
| course this only comes into play on later levels, when people
| have become addicted.
| CDSlice wrote:
| While this is true they also give you a character of every
| element (anemo, pyro, cyro, hydro, electro, and geo) for free
| so you aren't actually locked out of any of the content or
| puzzles. In fact there is a famous Genshin YouTuber bwaap who
| has completed the game using only the 4 starter characters to
| prove that you can. It's not the easiest task but it also
| isn't super hard, especially since some of the free units
| they give you are comparable to the top tier 5 stars you can
| wish for. In fact one of the strongest teams in the game is
| made up of only 4 stars which are really easy to get since
| the rate for them is much higher than 5 stars.
| eunos wrote:
| As a non player (potato PC+phone -_-) I'm still happy they
| released free and excellent OSTs and orchestra.
| itg wrote:
| Some people will spend a few dollars here and there because
| they feel they got value from it due to the amount of time
| spent playing. Compare that to a $60 single player game that
| you complete in 20 hours and never touch again.
|
| Whales on the other hand I will never understand.
| patio11 wrote:
| When I was younger I had both aesthetic disgust and strong
| moral intuitions against monetization being driven by whales.
| These days, am far less sure of both.
|
| One of the claims which Kongegate's CEO made, repeatedly, in
| presentations is that they actually got their whales on the
| phone and they were simply professionals who liked to spend
| money on their hobby. That has become increasingly plausible
| to me as I've grown older and have more money than time.
|
| I spent $X00 on Genshin in something like 6 weeks. I quit
| because of the time "commitment" and because I had gotten
| through most of the interesting bits, but if I had kept up
| habits, I would have played less than typical American
| watches TV and spent $X,000 a year. Which... does not strike
| me as unreasonable for what would have been my main hobby,
| given comparables like e.g. golf.
|
| It's a great game in a lot of ways. I don't regret either
| time played or money spent. (The first one would have been
| untrue in a year, hence stopping.)
| AlexandrB wrote:
| While some whales are definitely high-earning professionals
| who can afford it, not all of them are. I'd be curious to
| see research on what the split is. It's hard not to notice,
| however, that gacha games heavily rely on the same kind of
| skinner-box gambling systems as actual gambling uses with
| little of the regulation around payouts, transparency, and
| age restrictions. People who have problems with gambling,
| report having problems with gacha as well. See also this
| video of some testimonials:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-DGTBZU14
| jwatte wrote:
| > That has become increasingly plausible to me as I've
| grown older and have more money than time.
|
| Indeed.
| HanaShiratori wrote:
| To be honest 60 dollars for 20 hours is great value in my
| opinion.
| diegoperini wrote:
| > Whales on the other hand I will never understand.
|
| There are always underground account transfer markets for
| these kind of games. It becomes an investment if you know
| what you are doing.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I'd rather spend $60 on a 20h game I love than spend $0.01 on
| a game that doesn't require it. I don't understand whales,
| but I definitely don't understand people paying for cosmetic
| things in a game either.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I find paying for cosmetic things in a video game
| disgusting. They used to be a reward for playing and
| enjoying the game, something that would be part of the
| experience, allowing you to customize your play. Now I'm
| supposed to pay $15 to make my gun a different color?
|
| Some people say it's to "pay for server costs blah blah
| blah" but one look at Epic or EA's balance sheet will show
| you how bullshit that is
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| This view doesn't make much sense to me. Epic's game is
| free. Non loot box, Non pay to win, purely aesthetic
| optional purchases feels like the least offensive
| monetization scheme possible. You say you used to be able
| to unlock the content in game, but that was predicated on
| your paying money to buy the game already.
|
| Server costs and ongoing dev costs are totally a thing,
| but I'm not sure why it's so problematic that they make a
| profit on top of that.
| mattnewton wrote:
| It's like the slots in Vegas; gambling itself is addictive.
| rjeli wrote:
| In college I would pirate everything and think paying for in
| game items was stupid. Now I will happily spend $1-5 for a
| few hours of fun in a well balanced game, e.g. hearthstone.
| But when I tried to get into Genshin Impact I quickly gave up
| after realizing I would have to spend at least $50 if not
| hundreds to roll a good team, or just stick with a completely
| f2p grind (which I don't have time for anymore).
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Isn't Hearthstone one of the most spendy games, though? I
| haven't touched it in a few years, but back then, if you
| wanted to have a deck with any sort of competitiveness,
| you'd have to spend EUR50-100 or more on packs every
| extension (2x/year).
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > It's like the MMORPG grind of enjoying the numbers going up
| from yesteryear, but somehow, even one step further removed
| than before.
|
| Speaking of MMORPGs, the mentality has spread there too. Lots
| of players don't ever experiment with different builds for
| their character or just play the way they like, instead
| following an online guide for achieving hyperoptimization. Even
| questioning that way of playing gets you marked as a bad
| player.
|
| It's also become much more normal to pay significant sums of
| money for in-game currency that is then used to buy high end
| competitive content runs from other well geared players for
| gear and achievements. This especially seems entirely pointless
| to me... what good is the gear obtained this way? It's not
| being used for anything that calls for it so at best it's a
| trophy for your character to wear that you didn't even earn
| yourself.
|
| It's so far divorced from the seemingly endless font of
| exploration, discovery, and character progression that defined
| seamless open world MMORPGs back in the early-mid 2000s.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > It's also become much more normal to pay significant sums
| of money for in-game currency that is then used to buy high
| end competitive content runs from other well geared players
| for gear and achievements
|
| What does this mean? Like paying people in game gold to carry
| you?
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Yes that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's always been
| a thing in MMORPGs, but prior to MMO companies selling in-
| game currency themselves it was a lot less common and
| carried a stigma because those buying carries often bought
| illicit currency to do so because carries are expensive.
|
| Now that there's no friction on the path between a player's
| wallet and those offering carry services, carry purchases
| have exploded in popularity.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| That's super weird. It really recontextualizes the term
| pay to win. Traditionally it's meant "pay to get an
| unfair advantage", but now it's quite literally pay to
| become a winner of a non competitive experience. What
| mental gymnastics are required to make this seem
| rewarding? Would it be perceived differently if you were
| unable to pay other players but could pay NPCs to
| accommodate the same task; in which case it is a direct
| 1:1 exchange with the game company? Or if you could pay
| to just auto complete it, sans the experience of being
| carried? Bizarre.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It's at least partly because in WoW you oftentimes can't
| get into a raid unless you've already beat the raid.
| People can lookup your achievements online and/or ask you
| to link them before allowing you in. So for some it might
| simply be "pay (more) to play" rather than pay to win.
| VRay wrote:
| At least in WoW, I think a big part of it is that there
| are tons of spammers blasting out ads to escort you
| through dungeons and raids. It's hard to find actual
| groups of normal people with all the noise
|
| Particularly if you're just one guy applying to random
| groups, the last few slots get applications from tons of
| insanely-powerful characters. You can sit there trying to
| join a group as a new player for hours and not get
| anywhere unless you apply to mostly-empty groups or start
| your own with a friend or two
|
| If you don't know that, it's easy to think you'll need to
| pay for achievements and loot in order to have a shot at
| getting a group
|
| Hey, so long as I'm mentioning WoW here: That game is
| still taking in 200 million dollars a year or more, but
| it's only getting a small fraction of that reinvested. I
| think the market is ripe for an actual WoW-killer. Gather
| a team, make a polished AAA version of WoW, and rake in
| the dough
| Shaddox wrote:
| Of course, this is just an anecdotal observation, but I think
| what changed weren't the games, but the players.
|
| I was playing Dark Age of Camelot back in the day and we'd
| spend hours just waiting around, chatting, meeting new
| people, trying to group up and try to clear a dungeon. Of
| course, our compositions were less than ideal but we'd try to
| make it work. Hey we have no one durable but if we take
| little Timmy's mercenary here and put some high armor gear on
| him and dual wield shields maybe it would work. Of course
| someone would go to bed or to dinner and then off to find a
| new player we go. Trying to make it work was the name of the
| game. With time, you'd amass a big friend list of reliable
| people you know you could call on a moment's need if they
| were online and most of the time they would be happy to help.
|
| Modern players are borderline obsessed with time. No one
| wants to waste time experimenting with content so they look
| for guides to clear as fast as possible. Getting wiped
| immediately results in remarks of "you're wasting my time".
| The human aspect of the MMO has been stripped away by bots,
| fast travel, people generally being rude and the
| mumble/teamspeak server or discord group chat. Somehow, it
| feels like the MMO is a reflection of our current society.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| I have a theory that wiki sites are what killed the WoW MMO
| formula, rather than mechanics fatigue.
|
| Players descend like locusts, then optimize and share their
| builds until they discover some emergent tug of war or rock
| paper scissors meta.
|
| What remains is a cat & mouse game between players and
| developers, to find the reductive meta and then patch the
| game to shake it up. The players are highly coordinated
| thanks to wikis, and they consume content quicker than devs
| can create it. So the business model is no longer viable.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I think that's probably correct. Perhaps the only way to
| combat such an effect is some combination of reducing the
| game's competitiveness (so being optimized isn't as
| important to begin with) and elements of nondeterminism in
| the game's combat systems, making it much more difficult or
| impossible to pin down a "most correct" build.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Players tend to hate randomness in PvP; they use the
| pejorative 'RNG'. PvE games increasingly monetize with
| social proofing, but this can create a sense of PvP even
| in PvE content. E.g. players get mad that the wizard
| class isn't as viable as the rogue class.
|
| Your first strategy might explain the emerging success of
| sandbox games and battle royale games.
| TillE wrote:
| There's been a very strong homogenization of MMOs ever since
| World of Warcraft, towards mostly mindless loot grinds. Early
| pioneers ranging from Ultima Online to A Tale in the Desert
| have effectively been completely forgotten.
|
| It's wild because if you discard your preconceived notions,
| the possibilities of what you can do with a massively
| multiplayer persistent world are absolutely vast. There's
| this huge unexplored territory and 99% of MMOs are stuck in
| this one tiny corner.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > Yet on its recent first anniversary, people were surprised
| that they were, yet again, very stingy.
|
| The anniversary controversy was due to the rewards being
| unusually stingy to the point where the initial rewards were
| worse than the typical biweekly event, whereas in every other
| gacha anniversary events offer _substantially_ better rewards
| than usual.
|
| If they had included the bonus 1600 Primogem reward initially
| it wouldn't have been as much of a mess.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It amuses me that _Game Informer_ publishes something about
| _Genshin Impact_ every month even though Gamestop, the parent
| company of _Game Informer_ doesn 't make a dime off it.
| garmaine wrote:
| Should a magazine only write about stuff that directly profits
| it's owners?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| No, but it's a case study for how Gamestop is getting written
| out of the script for games in the 2020s.
|
| I have been a fan of refurbished hardware and used games from
| Gamestop for a long time, but short of buying Valve it's hard
| to see what they can do to stay relevant.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I assume their main revenue is ads they run alongside the
| content, and so if people want to read genshin content and will
| do so alongside ads they are making money
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Interesting. I searched on their website and couldn't find any
| premium currency that other games like Fortnite and NBA 2K
| sells. I wonder why they don't make it purchasable in stores,
| and how they made so much money without a physical aspect.
| TMWNN wrote:
| My understanding is that _Game Informer_ has always done a very
| good job of remaining editorially independent from its retail
| owner.
| [deleted]
| dandotway wrote:
| One of the worst things about the freemium model is that the
| games tend to be very grindy time suckers those who don't pay-to-
| play. Millions of souls spend hours each day just farming in-game
| treasure and it actually ends up being _work_ rather than fun. So
| many of these people are missing out on the joy of crafting or
| farming actual things in the real world and selling them on eBay
| or Etsy or locally. These grindy games in particular end up
| preying on millions of kids who don 't have wads of cash, but do
| have free time and get sucked in. This is perhaps why addiction
| to games like Genshin Impact has gotten so severe in China that
| authorities have taken action to limit play hours.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Nah. If you want to get a good team in Genshin you _will_
| grind. You can 't buy the most cumbersome progress items. The
| actual hours of grind are the same no matter what.
|
| If you pay, you'll be able to farm for these items longer in a
| day. But it will still take the same amount of runs.
|
| The longest grind are artifacts. To get the best artifacts for
| one character you will need to clear a level 2000-3000 times.
| That will take you 80-300 hours pretty much no matter what. Now
| those could be over 100 days or it could be in twenty days, but
| you'll have to run the level as many times.
| azurezyq wrote:
| It seems that you don't play Genshin impact game. You can't buy
| ascension materials with money. You pay for stronger characters
| with more versatile playstyles, but it won't make the game less
| grindy. You still have to fight for materials by yourself.
|
| Also as other said, different f2p games work differently. In
| Genshin, you can easily complete the main request with free
| characters. Most people (like me), just pay to pull for
| particular characters they love. (Just check Hu Tao's character
| demo from their official yt account and you may get a glimpse
| how the characters (regardless of strength) are attracting
| themselves.))
| Gunax wrote:
| I don't see how these numbers are possible. $12B means you need
| to have 1.2B players paying $10 each, or 120M players $100 each.
| That just does not seem feasible--there are only so many people
| in the world and most are not going to play your game. And the
| nature of these games is that most people never pay anything.
| mattnewton wrote:
| The numbers are crazy still, but I think it's probably
| something very top-heavy, like you have 50m players paying $200
| each and 1m players paying 2,000 each. It is very easy to spend
| a _lot_ of money - see
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/09/07/what-spend...
|
| Edit: the article seems to say that the number is actually 2.3
| billion to $3.5 billion. So, at the low end of 2.3 billion you
| are looking at "just" 1m "whale" players paying 2,000 each, and
| 1-3m players paying a few dollars. Google search shows me
| estimates of about 8m-9m MAU, so this seems possible.
| NathanKP wrote:
| If you take a look at top Twitch streamers for Genshin Impact
| you'll see a lot of them dropping big money. They see it as an
| investment to get more viewers (not as many people want to
| watch you play with low level characters and equipment).
| Additionally, top end streamers make the money back in
| subscriptions and donations anyway.
|
| Then these streamers also actually prime their audience to
| spend more. If you see a streamer drop a couple thousand
| dollars on stream to get that cool new character, you might
| feel okay with dropping $100 to see if you can get lucky.
|
| Streamers feed this kind of ecosystem, and keep it running. I
| suspect that a large percentage of the money that Genshin
| Impact makes goes back out into marketing and sponsoring
| streamers and YouTubers to keep the influencer engine running
| as well.
| pwinnski wrote:
| And a surprisingly high number of people pay quite a bit, even
| thousands of dollars.
|
| The curve for games like this is steep.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| AFAIK, IAPs are not uniformly or normally distributed. The vast
| majority of players pay nothing or close to nothing, while a
| few "whales" pay a ton.
|
| "Yet, only 5% of total app users make any in-app purchase
| (Sterling, 2016), and 70% of those in-app purchases appear to
| come from big spenders or 'Whales' who account for only the top
| 10% of the paying users (Shaul, 2016)." [0]
|
| 0. What Causes Users' Unwillingness to Spend Money for in-App
| Purchases in Mobile Games? a Structured Abstract;
| https://easychair.org/publications/preprint/HxVC
|
| Maybe they have proportionally way more whales than other
| games?
|
| (I strongly dislike the "whales" term. Is there a less
| condescending synonym?)
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I read an article (or HN comment?) a bit ago with someone with
| insider knowledge and explained that some of the biggest whales
| are SA royalty kids who spend RIDICULOUS amounts to flash a
| skin in front of their friends. The cash means nothing to them.
| Some even give the companies money to get new things added to
| the game. 1-5% of their users are subsidizing the whole
| experience for everyone.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| The scales for these games are heavily HEAVILY tilted by weak
| minded, vulnerable whales. They spend thousands of dollars a
| month because they are addicted.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fxfuWhff0
| notfaang wrote:
| Posting under a throwaway account. I have spent around $2000+
| on the game. I'm a high net-worth individual (few mil), so that
| amount of money is ok with me as I'm being quite entertained.
|
| Yes, the game is predatory as you have to spend around $100-120
| for a 50/50 chance of getting the banner character you want.
|
| High powered weapons are another story. The chances are less
| than 50/50 and thus require more spend to obtain.
|
| They made it that getting duplicates of the same character
| enhances it in powerful ways that incentivizes people to spend
| more for more power.
|
| GI is not a play to win game since it is mainly a single player
| experience, but there are events with multiple plays
| cooperating with each other, and they can join your world but
| the quest interactions are limited.
|
| Streamers will spend in the five digits to increase their
| viewership.
| Gunax wrote:
| I want to thank you for responding and being honest. I
| understand there is a tail-centric distribution, I guess I am
| just surprised how tail-heavy it is. I think the media likes
| to write stories about people dropping 5- or 6-figures on a
| game. And while I am sure that does happen, I suspect their
| main revenue comes from the $100-$300 crowd.
|
| Of course it's also possible I am underestimating the
| popularity and there really could be over 100 million
| players.
| awill wrote:
| I hate that the gacha model (free game with millions of IAPs) is
| working. I refuse to play/buy them, and I worry that it's just
| the future. Why would Sony spend so much making a single player
| offline game to get a one-time purchase when they can milk their
| customers tens of dollars a month for years.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Gacha model is the worst of F2P and not that prevalent on
| traditional gaming platforms.
|
| Most console & PC games are offering a mix of cosmetics, DLC,
| and battle passes which are incredibly straightforward about
| what you get for your money. Battle passes are just
| subscriptions rebranded with the auto-renew turned off.
|
| I also think the success of Genshin will dampen gacha in the
| future. You now need a triple-A game budget to command the
| gacha prices Genshin asks for. In the past, you could make that
| money selling pngs in a mobile game.
|
| If anything, I think F2P has been improving its value
| proposition over time.
| Macha wrote:
| Yeah, I feel like we're just being left behind. Voting with
| your wallet is way less effective when companies give a way for
| whales to outvote you many times compared to a single purchase
| game.
|
| I feel like in 20 years I'm just going to be playing indie
| games and games that are then 25 years old.
| feoren wrote:
| In 20 years, indie games are going to be _amazing_! The tools
| just keep improving at an accelerating rate.
| jack1243star wrote:
| > making a single player offline game
|
| Current-gen gamedev is so expensive it's not worth taking the
| risk anymore for triple-A studios.
|
| I'd say indie games are truly the frontier of game design at
| this point.
| idiegbjs wrote:
| Indie games have been for a long time. I havent played a new
| AAA game with a real interesting innovation or fun new
| mechanic in a long long time. Indiegames do all the time
| bogwog wrote:
| > Why would Sony spend so much making a single player offline
| game to get a one-time purchase when they can milk their
| customers tens of dollars a month for years.
|
| Probably because when those mobile casinos get regulated,
| Sony's model will pull ahead.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > Why would Sony spend so much making a single player offline
| game to get a one-time purchase when they can milk their
| customers tens of dollars a month for years.
|
| Because releasing a game with a games-as-a-service model is a
| _massive_ technical and logistical challenge if you want to
| retain players and isn 't free money. A good recent example is
| The Avengers, which was sunk from the forced-GaaS model.
|
| Also, after EA released Anthem and Star Wars: Battlefront II
| which had massive backlash due to their flawed GaaS, EA
| released Jedi: Fallen Order as a single-player game with no
| gimmicks, and it sold incredibly well.
| criley2 wrote:
| Over 3 years of Fallen Order sales, they've made at max $600
| million in revenue.
|
| EA is on track to make something like $1.75 billion this year
| from FIFA Ultimate Team microtransactions alone.
|
| It is what it is, but EA and their investors know exactly
| where the profits are coming from
| minimaxir wrote:
| Certainly the ceiling is much higher for GaaS games but it
| shows that single-player games aren't done for, especially
| for portfolio diversity.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| You don't change any gameplay with skins from Fortnite, CS:GO,
| or TF2. What you're describing though was why Kojima left
| Konami after they turned to gatcha games (including MGS) and
| Konami is focusing on pachinko.
| vmception wrote:
| I didn't realize this was a real game lol. I've seen it mentioned
| in the comments of practically _every_ Instagram ad by people
| saying Genshin was better or how the advertised game is "like
| Genshin Impact"
|
| The same has been going on all year with Appstore reviews
|
| I don't download any of the games but I am on the lookout for
| something intruiging
|
| Seems I am out of the loop, but also that I don't want to be in
| the loop of an IAP riddled freemium game.
| devindotcom wrote:
| This is difficult to judge either way, since on one hand Genshin
| is a deplorable gacha-style addiction machine and the worst of
| what gaming has to offer. Gambling-powered GaaS is a pretty scary
| combo.
|
| But on the other, it's a fabulously beautiful and well crafted
| open world with tons of things to do and explore, offered
| completely for free, no strings attached. It's almost entirely
| single-player so there's no competitive pressure, money is only
| needed if you don't have enough in-game currency to snag a
| character you want.
|
| I've played happily on and off for months and only experimentally
| paid $5 to see if it was worth it. I have more characters and
| resources than I know what to do with and have had a great time.
|
| But the business model is definitely predatory on people who are
| willing to pay hundreds or thousands to score a character or
| optimal item. Of course we've seen that happen with in-app
| purchases of crystals and smurfberries for years. The model
| works, which is the best and worst you can say of it.
| searine wrote:
| > it's a fabulously beautiful and well crafted open world
|
| Is it really though? Almost all aspects of it are cloned from
| other games/media.
|
| Gameplay cloned from MMOs. World design cloned from BotW.
| Character designs cloned from the worst of anime.
|
| It is the game equivalent of a street cart hotdog. They sell
| lot of them, but it is not innovative, good or a particularly
| thoughtful food/game.
| crate_barre wrote:
| It's particularly predatory on parents since it's the cereal-
| aisle version of marketing to kids who in turn pressure their
| parents to buy them things.
| puzzlingcaptcha wrote:
| Yeah, it's easy to have a knee-jerk reaction and dismiss it as
| an exploitative Chinese mobile game, but in reality there is a
| lot of love put into the product.
|
| I'd recommend watching one of their recent expansion previews
| with the developers talking about their process and influences:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8YXe7EkmoU
|
| 3:29 introduction by the CEO 9:57 dev team introductions,
| combat design 20:57 concept / writing lead 47:30 environment
| art direction 57:58 music production
| notTheAuth wrote:
| How is this different than instigating demand for Lamborghinis
| and 30 room mansions?
|
| Gaming people to do things of nonsense utility is about all
| humans have to do after basic life supporting logistics.
|
| Seems like mining fake objects, while power consuming, is less
| literally damaging than rocket ships and garages full of cars,
| boats, and 5 mansions that never get used.
|
| It's not outside the realm of possibility pretend loot is what
| the masses have to look forward to "owning" aside from basics
| down the line.
| TheDong wrote:
| I think the main difference is that when buying a home or
| car, the person knows what they're getting and for how much
| money.
|
| There is no intentional sunk cost fallacy or gambler's
| fallacy at play.
|
| What you've posted would be valid if the topic of discussion
| were NFTs or skins where a person gets exactly what they pay
| for, no more or no less.
|
| A gacha-style game operates differently from an NFT or car or
| house. It's not "If you pay $200 you get this digital item in
| the game", it's instead "If you pay $2, you get a 0.6% chance
| of getting the item." After you spend $100, the next chance
| is still 0.6%, and our human brains are really bad at
| realizing that. That's how it preys on us.
|
| If the game were instead "Pay $200 and you get this digital
| item", I would consider it less predatory, and I bet it would
| also have far less profit.
| CDSlice wrote:
| Genshin (and many other gacha) are actually more like the
| second option since they feature a mechanic known as pity
| where after a certain number of pulls the chance to get the
| item goes up to 100%. In Genshin that is at 180 pulls but
| because they also ramp up the chance to a featured item as
| you pull more realistically it is more likely to happen at
| around 150-160 pulls. This is still crazy (especially if
| you buy all of these pulls with money because the dollar to
| pull exchange rate is absolutely ludicrous) but it does
| mean that an F2P player can guarantee that they will get a
| character they want after a couple of months of saving.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > But the business model is definitely predatory on people who
| are willing to pay hundreds or thousands to score a character
| or optimal item.
|
| At this point so many busnisses exploit unreasonableness of
| some of their customers. Aren't people being sold this season's
| handbag for few thousands of dollars exploited?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Nonfunctional Jewelry has been around has been around since
| prehistoric times.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| And it was, generally, valued. Last year's handbag is
| worthless, but next year's handbag? Priceless.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| Nike somehow managed to f**k up sewing a piece of canvas
| to a piece of rubber and now a $40 pair of Converse
| sneakers is functionally equivalent to or worse than a
| $10 knock off. The only value in those shoes is literally
| the brand name.
| phreack wrote:
| The difference is how they manipulate you psychologically to
| not realize how much you're spending. You can't just buy the
| thing, you need to buy a particular currency, and possibly do
| some in-game work, and also gamble with loot boxes where
| you're not very aware of the odds.
|
| By the time you realize the thing you wanted was actually
| $600 (which you wouldn't have spent upfront) but you've
| already spent $500 without getting it, it feels unavoidable
| to go and spend another hundred. And then the cycle happens
| again and again, making you feel very much like you have a
| sickness.
|
| Many people can effectively avoid all of this and be very
| happy not spending a dime and not feel any pressure at all,
| but the problem is the large, very large, sometimes underage,
| base of vulnerable people who are spending money they can't
| really afford on these games.
| falcolas wrote:
| That there are other exploitative businesses in no way
| justifies or ameliorates the impact of gambling mechanics in
| a videogame.
|
| This business practice is pure dogshit. Especially given how
| much it targets children and those with gambling addictions.
| overthemoon wrote:
| I play Magic: The Gathering, and I think about this a lot: ht
| tps://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/j38nv9/former_art...
|
| I'm a pretty frugal player and not competitive at all, but I
| still feel a little spark when I see the fancy, expensive
| cards.
|
| IMO There's a balance. People are responsible for themselves,
| but that doesn't necessarily remove culpability from the
| seller. I think it's easy to assume that everyone is a
| perfectly rational agent capable of avoiding bad deals
| through reason alone, but desire is a funny thing. The most
| extreme example is the drug dealer (or the cartel, or the US
| government, however high up you want to go on the chain) and
| there's definitely a gradient of moral responsibility from
| there.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| I used magic workstation, you just download MTG images and
| play against others online with your decks. There is
| nothing to buy and it can play the Warcraft TCG as well.
| https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Workstation
| derivagral wrote:
| does workstation do rules enforcement like xmage?
| http://xmage.de/
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| Not when I used it, it was just a simple program that
| relied mostly on honesty (just like IRL).
| emsy wrote:
| >But on the other, it's a fabulously beautiful and well crafted
| open world with tons of things to do and explore
|
| It's a repetitive adventure game with shallow gameplay. I
| played it for about 5 hours waiting for it to become good
| before recognizing they copied the least interesting parts of
| BOTW and slapped a gacha-mechanic on it. At least the graphics
| are nice. I think gacha mechanics are bad because the random
| element means it's effectively gambling. The skinner box
| mechanic aims right for that sweet dopamine hit. The fact that
| Genshin Impact is so financially successful is deeply worrying.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The gameplay really isn't shallow. If you want to be a casual
| and not get too much into it, it is. Otherwise, there is a
| lot of depth you can get into. It's just that in your first 5
| hours there is not much incentive, which is fine, at that
| point you haven't even unlocked half of the map.
|
| The thing with Genshin that makes the mechanics rewarding
| durably is a consequence of the gacha for a free to play -
| each account is different. So you can't just use the same
| tactics as other people, you have to take what you get and
| make it work. In the process you have to learn the combat
| mechanics - animation cancelling, ICD, energy recharge,
| character switching, geo reactions and shields, crit-rate
| optimization, i-frames, stamina consumption, character
| grouping, resistances, swirling, elemental mastery, etc...
| jaaron wrote:
| I disagree that the gameplay is particularly shallow. The end
| game requires both mechanics and tactics. That said, the end
| game may or may not be _rewarding_ as it's very grindy and
| there's a good question (for many of these sort of games) of
| what you're grinding _for_. But the gameplay mechanics get
| deeper than what you seem to have experienced.
| foobarian wrote:
| Honestly I feel the opposite. Genshin is what BOTW should've
| been graphics/gameplay/art-wise. Given that I paid $60 for
| BOTW I feel it would be fair to pay a similar amount into
| Genshin's store given how much more enjoyment I got out of
| it.
|
| My main two concerns with the game are that there is the
| "Soylent is people" aspect where if you dig deeper you
| realize the game is funded by a small addicted minority. And
| second, I shudder to think what kind of 996 sweatshop that
| company must be given that I don't know a single western
| company that achieved this level of polish (and they are
| already known as cruel employers).
| ricardobayes wrote:
| People I know who play it say the 'pity' system works pretty
| well. How they explained to me if you save up your wishes in
| free to play, you are guaranteed to get the character you want
| after a while.
| minimaxir wrote:
| That is correct. Pity mechanics are relatively new to gacha
| games due to complaints about having a deterministic way to
| get characters.
|
| Albeit, Genshin Impact's pity mechanics are less generous
| than other gacha. Usually it's about 80-90 pulls for a
| guaranteed on-banner pull. For Genshin Impact, it's 90 pulls
| for a guaranteed 50/50 chance at an on banner pull, but if
| you lose the 50/50 you will get an guaranteed on banner pull
| after the next 90 pulls. Both guarantees persist across
| banners.
| jabbany wrote:
| Actually I think it's mostly regulatory pressure. Chinese
| market gacha/lootbox games are required by law to have pity
| mechanics, must disclose all drop rates, and even provide
| you with your pull history as well as purchase history. It
| really shows in the games that come out of there...
|
| When it comes to regulating what is effectively gambling,
| this is actually a pretty healthy set of rules more
| countries should follow.
|
| (AFAIK there are no such regulations in the US, which is
| why lootboxes here usually do not come with drop rates,
| don't give you any way to view your pull history, and
| almost never have pity mechanisms)
| AlexandrB wrote:
| It's pretty sad that "western" lawmakers seem to be
| mostly asleep at the wheel in regards to all this. The
| industry's self-regulation by the ESRB has mostly been a
| joke as well - amounting to a "may contain lootboxes"
| sticker.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > How they explained to me if you save up your wishes in free
| to play, you are guaranteed to get the character you want
| after a while.
|
| This is true in theory, but the rapid rate of new characters
| being introduced means that re-runs are far less common than
| new "banners". Indeed, some characters released nearly a year
| ago have never had a rerun. This means that there is a strong
| sense of FOMO - if you don't have the gems to guarantee the
| character you want this time around you may have to wait a
| year or more to get another chance.
|
| Genshin Impact also has a very poor gatcha "rate" compared to
| many gatcha games (0.6% to get a "5 star" character, and
| there's no guarantee it's the featured one until your second
| "5-star" roll).
| alex_c wrote:
| Well... I don't really know anymore. I'm with you on the ethics
| of gambling mechanics. But I'm less certain about the predatory
| part than I used to be.
|
| I spent some time a few years ago playing some of the
| multiplayer "strategy" mobile games (FF, GoT, etc). I only ever
| sunk about $100 into any of them, the fun part for me was the
| politics and the intrigue on each server and that was roughly
| the ticket to entry. Got to know some of the whales a little -
| people who drop $5K-$10K+ on the game without a second thought.
| No real life names, just some conversations here and there. One
| was a VC, another a race car driver, lots of people from Kuwait
| for some reason...
|
| My point is that I'm having trouble applying the "predatory"
| label when it's high net worth individuals throwing around sums
| that are ridiculous to me but trivial to them. I probably spend
| way more on some of my hobbies as a percentage of my income
| than they do on these games.
|
| Now lower down on the scale, the people spending $100, $200,
| $500 on these games... that's where I get more uncomfortable.
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| Do you often enjoy being cannon fodder for people who are
| already more influential/successful than you IRL?
| alex_c wrote:
| Enjoy? Not particularly, but isn't that just reality?
| There's always a bigger fish.
|
| In-game I had no illusions about personally competing or
| winning given that those games are purely pay-to-win, as I
| said I just enjoyed watching the server dynamics and the
| drama. I felt I got enough value out of, say, the $100
| spread out over a few months until I got bored with the
| game.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Enjoy? Not particularly, but isn't that just reality?
|
| That's kind of the disappointing thing about all this. In
| retrospect "classic" (as opposed to gacha) games are
| somewhat egalitarian. It didn't matter how much money you
| had, if you could master the gameplay and mechanics you
| could beat anyone else in the world.
|
| It's a shame that the industry is turning so hard towards
| re-creating real world inequality in these fantasy
| spaces. This is an ironic reversal of imagined post-
| scarcity society from sci-fi like Star Trek - instead of
| creating post-scarcity in the real world we're
| artificially introducing scarcity to our virtual worlds.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Post scarcity is physically impossible as it assumes
| infinite energy, infinite space-time, and no entropy
| generation. Whereas in reality its the opposite, the most
| energy, resources, and thermodynamic headroom mankind can
| ever have access to is based on the co-moving light cone
| centred on Earth.
|
| Not everything imaginable is realizable.
| VRay wrote:
| We're already a post scarcity society by the way an
| ancient peasant would measure it
|
| We have so much food available that it's a problem that
| poor people suffer from eating too much
|
| It's easier and more convenient to throw electronics,
| clothing, and furniture away than to bother repairing
| them
|
| I wouldn't bend over to pick up a quarter, even though it
| could buy me a day's rice or flour
|
| Once we've moved industry into space, we could well be
| ten or a hundred times as wealthy as this. Maybe
| employment will only be something for overachievers in
| that distant future
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I disagree. One of the largest industries right now is
| creating demand. People being content with what they have
| is an economic problem. A significant amount of
| consumption is simply socio-economic signaling and zero-
| sum games that have little correlation to the finite
| nature of resources.
|
| There is little the average person truly wants that we
| cannot provide.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| With the rise of professional gaming it's foolish to
| think you could beat anyone else in the world. Unless
| you're a professional gamer.
|
| When it comes to those of us with a 9-5 job, there's
| usually no practical difference between facing off
| against people being paid to play a game vs people paying
| to be good in a game.
| Daiz wrote:
| > offered completely for free, no strings attached
|
| I would say that isn't really true. To play Genshin Impact on
| PC, you are required to install kernel-level always-online DRM
| on your computer. And the kernel anti-cheat (which exists
| solely to protect the integrity of their lootbox gambling
| monetization and has zero benefit to players) isn't even one of
| the usual ones like EAC or BattlEye (which I personally don't
| have much trust in either, for the record), but rather one
| developed in-house by the game's Chinese developers. And
| considering how involved the Chinese government is in the local
| game industry, that means you could effectively be giving the
| Chinese government kernel access to your computer in exchange
| for being able to play Genshin Impact. That's a pretty heavy
| price to pay in my books.
|
| And of course, because the integrity of the gambling machine is
| the ultimate priority, things like modding and other popular
| single player pastimes are completely out of the picture as
| well. And because it's a live service game, every single penny
| you put into it will eventually be lost to the void as servers
| are shut down and nobody will ever be able to play the game
| again.
|
| I'd be happy to pay for Genshin Impact as a regular single
| player game with no lootbox gambling mechanics that I could
| play offline without DRM and do whatever the hell I want with
| it after purchase without having to worry about a built-in
| killswitch disabling the game one day. But as that is not the
| reality we live in, I'm fairly certain I will never be
| installing the game on my computer, as the price is simply too
| high.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > To play Genshin Impact on PC, you are required to install
| kernel-level always-online DRM on your computer.
|
| True of a lot of things, such as World of Warcraft and Steam.
| Daiz wrote:
| Absolutely untrue for Steam. A game on Steam might require
| kernel anti-cheat, but you're obviously not obligated to
| buy or play those games just by installing Steam.
|
| And as mentioned, I don't put much trust in kernel anti-
| cheats in general, which is a big reason why I primarily
| play single player games. Which is why I'm extremely
| annoyed that a single player game that I might otherwise
| play comes with a kernel-level always-online DRM, all to
| protect the sanctity of predatory lootbox gambling
| monetization.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You don't have to - you can use an Android Emulator. But it
| will suck.
|
| If you don't like it, it's not very hard to make Genshin
| single-player only. Most of the game is client-side, except
| for the spawning of enemies and resources. If you can figure
| out how to replicate it, you can get a 100% server-less
| Genshin Impact. I can definitely help with that if you want.
|
| People have tried in the past to get the game running in
| single-player mode, and managed to get everything working
| except for mob spawns.
|
| You'd also need to figure out some progression system to
| unlock characters, but that's not too hard.
|
| If we could find some people to maintain the patch I'd be
| very willing to contribute to this too.
| VRay wrote:
| Being online and unnecessarily punishing makes the game
| feel more real to people
|
| You may as well not bother.. people with self control and
| awareness will play non-toxic games, and people without it
| will avoid your patch since it's not the real game to them
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The majority of Genshin players have enough self control
| to not spend any money.
|
| Certainly, if you make such patch you can't have it be
| too easy, it should be a challenge to get 5* characters
| and there should still be some RNG.
|
| Really the biggest obstacle is that updates may happen
| and prevent new content from being available.
| billiam wrote:
| Saying that sucking billions of dollars out of whales who are
| almost entirely people with a serious disease
| (gambling/attention addition) is balanced out by pretty
| graphics and all is like saying the packaging on the fentanyl
| pills justifies the cost. These games are created only to allow
| predatory behavior, and need to be regulated like gambling is
| regulated, at least.
| cogman10 wrote:
| At least in the US, the worst parts of gambling still exists.
| People still shit themselves playing poker or slots for 20
| hours a day in Vegas. Those are the people every casino is
| trying to hook.
|
| The issue is gambling VERY easily moves underground.
| wheelie_boy wrote:
| I have two main problems with the freemium model. First is that
| it necessarily compromises the game design. Instead of
| optimizing for fun, or a memorable experience, or an artistic
| vision, you are optimizing for profit, which compromises those
| other things.
|
| Second, if we've learned anything from social media and other
| ML-optimized user experiences, it's that optimizing solely for
| profit (or engagement) isn't healthy for your users. Some of
| them will be more affected than others, but if you do it wrong,
| you're converting human suffering into profit. Some of the
| stories of gem-game whales are just awful.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > I have two main problems with the freemium model. First is
| that it necessarily compromises the game design. Instead of
| optimizing for fun, or a memorable experience, or an artistic
| vision, you are optimizing for profit, which compromises
| those other things.
|
| Those aren't mutually exclusive. Making a good game is
| important for user _retention_ and keeping them spending, and
| being too aggressive with monetization can alienate them and
| result in less revenue overall.
|
| Genshin Impact could be far more aggressive with the
| monetization to put it on par with other gacha, but it's
| relatively subdued.
| wheelie_boy wrote:
| But could you make a better game if you didn't need to
| funnel people into buying gems at all? The answer is always
| yes - you always need to give up something to make people
| buy gems.
|
| Apple Arcade is a good example of this. With the
| subscription, they have a bunch of games which used to be
| gem games, but had that part of the monetization removed.
| And all of the games are better for it - they removed a lot
| of the frustration, gambling, unnecessary delays, which had
| been added to push people to buy gems.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| Why is it always yes? Games with cosmetics you can buy
| don't change the core gameplay at all. Answer this
| question: what are players who don't buy cosmetics giving
| up in gameplay?
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| " _Kids who play Fortnite say they get bullied and shamed
| if they can 't afford paid skins, according to a damning
| report on gaming habits_" -
| https://www.businessinsider.com/kids-feel-poor-if-they-
| dont-...
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| >Kids who play the massively popular free game Fortnite
| say that paid skins are a major status symbol, and that
| they get "scorned" and feel "poor" if they stick with the
| default free skin.
|
| Maybe they are poor, they can't afford the skin, and feel
| poor because they are poor and reality reflects it.
|
| >according to a damning report on gaming habits
|
| Reads like another moral panic from fake news they blow
| out of proportion and citing "some kids" to sample bias
| only from anyone who already agrees, like saying "Kids
| love Linux" with only interviews of Linux loving
| preteens.
|
| >Another is quoted as saying: "Sometimes if you are
| wearing the default skin you can get bullied."
|
| You get bullied for losing or making mistakes, but you
| don't hear articles about:
|
| "Kids who play Fortnite say they get bullied and shamed
| if they are killed in the game, according to a damning
| report on gaming habits"
| wheelie_boy wrote:
| It's always yes because paying money is not a really fun
| gameplay mechanic.
|
| That said, I don't have a problem with cosmetic-only
| purchases. It's really the gambling and other dark
| patterns that are the problem.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| >It's always yes because paying money is not a really fun
| gameplay mechanic.
|
| Gamblers and stock traders beg to differ.
| fuyu wrote:
| > But could you make a better game if you didn't need to
| funnel people into buying gems at all? The answer is
| always yes - you always need to give up something to make
| people buy gems.
|
| This ignores the fact there aren't unlimited resources to
| develop and maintain a game. Not requiring people to buy
| gems would improve some areas of the game for sure, but
| making less money is certain to impact other areas of the
| game - you always need to give up something in order to
| fit things in budget.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > But could you make a better game if you didn't need to
| funnel people into buying gems at all? The answer is
| always yes - you always need to give up something to make
| people buy gems.
|
| IMO Genshin Impact has the right balance which is rare
| for gacha. Content is not balanced around the assumption
| that players spend real money (the game itself is
| relatively easy too).
|
| > Apple Arcade is a good example of this. With the
| subscription, they have a bunch of games which used to be
| gem games, but had that part of the monetization removed.
|
| So there's a funny of example of that with the
| Castlevania game recently released for Apple Arcade. They
| 5x-ed the earnings of the formerly paid-for currency to
| compensate for the lack of payment...
|
| ...and it's still _far_ more difficult and grindy to get
| anything worthwhile than in Genshin Impact.
|
| I had to do two weeks worth of time manipulation to get
| something useful that could actually end up finishing the
| current content.
| ksaun wrote:
| Maybe this is just semantics, but I disagree with your
| mention that the goals aren't mutually exclusive.
|
| The number of parameters you can optimize for is limited
| (to one, in my opinion).
|
| While a premium game might also be attempting to optimize
| for profit, there is a greater distance between theory and
| data about what will achieve the highest profit.
|
| Therefore, we game developers (the individuals making the
| game), who may be more motivated by making a quality game
| than profit per se, are able/allowed to push harder on
| creating a fun experience. It is more difficult for
| business interests to require compromising gameplay for
| profit when not armed with the data that freemium games
| provide.
|
| I have loved working on premium video games (~20 year
| career, mostly RPGs and RTSs). I expect I would find it
| soul-crushing to work on a freemium game where I had to
| compromise player experience for the sake of profit.
|
| (I do not disagree with your later point that freemium
| games can be fun (and still must be, to some degree) and I
| cannot comment on Genshin Impact specifically.)
|
| Edit: I suppose I'm also attempting to point out that there
| can be a significant difference between what is motivating
| the corporate entity funding the game and the people who
| are actually creating it.
| minimaxir wrote:
| The balance between "what's more fulfilling for software
| developers" and "how does software generate the most
| revenue" isn't limited to gaming, and it's a topic that
| pops up on Hacker News frequently.
|
| It's a difficult question with no single answer.
| MattRix wrote:
| You're missing a key fact, which is that the best way to
| increase profits is to have more players playing. How do you
| do that? By making a game that people actually enjoy playing
| and tell their friends about.
|
| On top of that, many games have only cosmetic purchases.
| Fortnite is an obvious example of this model. Saying Fortnite
| is "optimized for profit" makes very little sense, since
| nothing you can do in the game requires purchases at all.
|
| It's just a good game that a ton of people enjoy playing,
| which is really all you need to make a profitable free-to-
| play game these days.
|
| (the other route to getting more players is advertising,
| which is a whole other thing)
| ksaun wrote:
| The resources that are spent on cosmetic purchases could
| instead have been spent elsewhere, possibly providing a
| better overall gameplay experience.
|
| I don't think anyone is arguing that freemium games can't
| be fun or that some microtransaction models are more
| player-beneficial than others. But, like with any feature,
| if you include microtransactions than some other aspect
| received less attention (assuming a fixed budget, which I
| realize is also a consideration as game X might never have
| been made without the freemium component to propel the
| business decision).
|
| Edit: Also, as others have said here, most freemium
| developers focus on extracting revenue from the "whales,"
| not the players who play for free or pay little.
| biohax2015 wrote:
| > The resources that are spent on cosmetic purchases
| could instead have been spent elsewhere, possibly
| providing a better overall gameplay experience.
|
| Those resources would not have existed had it not been
| for the sales of cosmetics.
| chongli wrote:
| _By making a game that people actually enjoy playing and
| tell their friends about._
|
| I think the thing that people miss in their discussions of
| video games is that "enjoyability" or "fun" are not
| 1-dimensional quantities. In fact, there are many different
| ways to evaluate a game: meaningfulness, emotional range,
| decision complexity, flow state, educational/pedagogical
| value, literary value, societal/social impact, etc etc etc.
|
| Furthermore, many of these criteria can be good at multiple
| ends of their range depending on individual taste and/or
| mood. For example, sometimes I'm in the mood for complex
| decisions to really sink my teeth into. Maybe a Zachtronics
| programming game or engineering game like Factorio or
| perhaps a challenging roguelike such as NetHack or Slay the
| Spire will scratch that itch for me. Other times I'm really
| burned out from work/studying and I'm just looking to
| unwind so a super relaxing, simple, flow state game like
| Stardew Valley is better for me.
|
| By pursuing the free to play model, games like Genshin
| Impact are incentivizing their developers to optimize the
| game for two things only: engagement and gambling-like
| rewards. That is very bad. These games are the junk food of
| the game industry. Even worse. They're casinos as well.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Is that true about Fortnite? You don't get any competitive
| advantage anywhere from spending money? People are paying
| billions just to get different clothes on their character?
| nkrisc wrote:
| It's very expensive dress-up dolls. Except you can't hold
| them.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Hacker News strongly underestimates the appeal of
| cosmetics.
| pupppet wrote:
| Doesn't the Battle Pass give you some kind of competitive
| advantage?
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| Battle passes in most games just give you a series of
| exclusive cosmetics to grind. And are time limited to
| urge you buy it sooner, and play more to grind it before
| it's over. Or you can spend more money to skip the grind.
| nawgz wrote:
| Fortnite, CSGO, Valorant, ... Shooter players hate paid
| advantages but certainly don't mind paid fashion
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| It's not like Magic the Gathering. They do the same model
| in TF2 and CS even going as far as calling TF2 a hat
| simulator.
| duskwuff wrote:
| TF2 is a less pure example. Some purchaseable items are
| purely cosmetic, others have effects on game mechanics.
| psyc wrote:
| Absolutely true. It's Fortnite's DNA, and you would hear
| wailing in the streets out your window the day they broke
| that promise.
| checker wrote:
| It's a paid game, but EA/DICE are certainly sacrificing
| some existing gameplay elements (and story) in order to
| push Battlefield 2042's "Specialists" as a vehicle for in-
| game purchases.
|
| Earlier Battlefields had generic soldiers per side that
| were identifiable by weapon class and customizable by
| camouflage but retained a clear distinction between the two
| large teams. This helped players to distinguish friend v
| foe and to optimize their attack/defend strategy based on
| the class of their opponent.
|
| Things started going downhill with Battlefield V (WW2). It
| has "Elites" that can be played on both sides, so it's
| possible to have a Japanese soldier fighting in an early
| battle on the Western Front. This is not great for
| immersion in a game realistically themed around a serious
| subject.
|
| From what I know about BF2042, because it's in the future,
| DICE's story is that there is a mercenary war (instead of
| country vs country). So now DICE can allow players to use
| their favorite Specialist and cosmetic on either team,
| which completely ruins friend v foe. And the Specialists
| can use any weapon which eliminates some of the strategy
| used when attacking/defending.
|
| Premium cosmetics are certainly harder to pull off in some
| game types than others. I guess EA/DICE figured the in-game
| purchases will more than offset any popularity losses from
| these gameplay sacrifices. But hopefully DICE will be able
| to find a sweet spot if they are willing refine their
| current approach.
| yorwba wrote:
| > it's possible to have a Japanese soldier fighting in an
| early battle on the Western Front. This is not great for
| immersion in a game realistically themed around a serious
| subject.
|
| The 442nd regiment composed mostly of Japanese Americans
| was deployed in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442
| nd_Infantry_Regiment_(Unite...
|
| So what's breaking the immersion? Are they wearing the
| wrong uniforms?
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I don't think he's saying that there were no people of
| Japanese descent on the western front, I think he's
| saying that no members of the Japanese Imperial Army, and
| potentially specifically infantry, that were deployed on
| the western front. I don't have enough historical
| knowledge to know if that is true or not, but I could
| believe that.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Some somebody who put hundreds of hours into BF4: Nobody,
| and I mean nobody identified their foes based on outfit.
| Specialists are take the "generic nameless soldier"
| aspect out of it, and I think that's a step backwards,
| but not fake breaking. Yet.
| Arrath wrote:
| Did you not play hardcore or friendly fire-enabled and
| no-hud modes?
|
| If you can't identify someone based on uniform and
| coloring, you're in for some nasty team kills.
| dageshi wrote:
| Yes the alternative was paid expansions for new maps and
| weapons, which people also didn't like because it split
| the player base.
| wheelie_boy wrote:
| Cosmetic-only in-game purchases are great. I'm also not
| against one-time upgrades or subscriptions.
|
| If it's not compromising the game design, and it's not so
| addictive that people are spending more than they have, I
| don't have a problem. I'm not against monetization, as long
| as the games steer away from the dark patterns / don't make
| casinos for children.
| ygjb wrote:
| Optimizing for player base is at odds with optimizing for
| paying player base. I am a "whale" as a consumer - I really
| enjoy video games, but my time is at a premium. I have more
| money than time, and I am happy to use it to accelerate my
| access to free to play games, especially for cases where I
| am playing games with my family, who generally have more
| free time than me.
|
| Unfortunately in many of the games that my kids enjoy, I
| have noticed that the optimization path for the freemium
| model includes increasing the time sink required for access
| to game mechanics and content, and increasing the rewards
| for paying actual money for access to mechanics and
| contents.
|
| There are some free to play games that find a good tension
| between this early on, but longer term, I find that the
| games because less enjoyable because it is too time
| consuming for others to keep up with my "pay to play"
| approach to skipping the time intensive portions of the
| games.
|
| > Saying Fortnite is "optimized for profit" makes very
| little sense, since nothing you can do in the game requires
| purchases at all.
|
| Sure, from a mechanical perspective. My son uses a portion
| of his allowance to keep current on his emotes and skins
| because his friends apply social pressure by teasing the
| kids that don't have them. It's been a great opportunity to
| teach him about peer pressure, and the relatively harmless
| of this version of it, in contrast to more harmful ones
| related to drugs, alcohol, or risky behavior for teenagers.
| htns wrote:
| The model of the game seems to be to have steep prices, but
| then give something like $100 of premium currency monthly
| in exchange for playing the game. This will generate
| engagement even if the content is mediocre. How many
| players would do dailies for fun if they did not come with
| what's effectively a $1 coupon?
| hbn wrote:
| > By making a game that people actually enjoy playing
|
| If you're willing to pay money to experience less gameplay,
| are you really enjoying the game?
| Tenoke wrote:
| Sure, I played Lost Ark for it's PvP recently and paid $5
| to skip leveling my second character. I definitely both
| paid to skip content and enjoyed playing.
| svachalek wrote:
| This is it. You want to make the game at least a little
| fun at first, but at some point you have to make your
| users feel dissatisfied in order to get them to spend.
| Much like Facebook needs to keep their users angry and
| depressed to keep them coming back. Hyper-optimizing
| anything for profit is never about creating an experience
| your customers will love, in my experience.
| psyc wrote:
| Rightly or wrongly, the big players believe the way is to
| have more _whales_ playing. However, I agree with you that
| Fortnite is the gold standard of how to do freemium.
| CraneWorm wrote:
| yes, the game that uses fomo and artificially creates
| scarcity of collectibles to exploit people into spending
| cash via gambling is the gold standard and every one else
| is copying it
| duskwuff wrote:
| > exploit people into spending cash via gambling
|
| How so? As far as I'm aware, the free-to-play version of
| Fortnite never sold loot boxes.
| slightwinder wrote:
| > You're missing a key fact, which is that the best way to
| increase profits is to have more players playing. How do
| you do that? By making a game that people actually enjoy
| playing and tell their friends about.
|
| That's only true till the baseline. After that point, you
| need to focus on specific players, or you will risk
| compromising your game by catering for too many tastes,
| making it generic and bland. Ultimately you will drive
| people away anyway with your decisions, so there is no real
| harm in focusing on the money-pots, as long as you stay
| about the baseline of fun.
| dageshi wrote:
| Fun is subjective. People actively complain when games don't
| have grindy tedious elements.
| advice_thrwawy9 wrote:
| > Instead of optimizing for fun, or a memorable experience,
| or an artistic vision, you are optimizing for profit, which
| compromises those other things.
|
| But this has always been true of games based on whatever
| market pressures optimized revenue.
|
| In the 80s arcade games, many of the classics we love today,
| were optimized around you feeding as many quarters as
| possible into a machine in order to beat it. There's even a
| joke about this in Wayne's World
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4tmzwrdTmY
|
| The 90s home console market has some classics but every 90s
| kid remembers awful games with great cover art or movie
| licensing.
|
| Early 2000s is probably the peak of quality gaming: we were
| online enough to allow things like easy to access reviews to
| have a major impact on purchase decisions, while not online
| enough to make constant updates feasible.
|
| After that we also saw the rise of extremely addictive
| MMORPGs that not only consumed people's wallets but their
| lives.
|
| In the grand scheme of things I rather enjoy gacha games.
| Like most HNers I'm often in a position of having more money
| then time, and it's surprising how many relatively crappy
| gachas will evolve into pretty fun, well designed games over
| time.
| criley2 wrote:
| You don't use real money for characters, you use real money to
| gamble on the chance of characters. And you need several copies
| of the same character to upgrade them. So you can play the slot
| machine many times and not get anything that you want. It's
| gambling 100%
| [deleted]
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Nah, you have a 100% chance of getting the character you want
| after a set amount of currency spent.
|
| I still agree it's predatory. But it's not true that you can
| play the machine many times and get nothing you want. The
| constellation mechanism really really sucks. But thanks to
| regulation it's a lot better now than it used to.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| It seemed like Genshin went from zero to 100 in absolutely no
| time. Like they came out of nowhere, and suddenly all of reddit
| was full of fanart and they're making more money than anyother
| game.
|
| Are there any good articles on how the game started, how it got
| funded and built its now enormous fanbase?
| daxuak wrote:
| Sponsored promotional fanart is a thing, and the sponsor often
| can have the artists post the stuff at specific date with
| specific captions, which creates a feeling of a surge in
| popularity for bystanders. Once the tag/keyword becomes trendy,
| many artist wanna-bes would (have to) draw fanarts either out
| of affection/because they actually enjoy the game, or simply to
| ride on the popularity and attract followers for themselves -
| I'm not trying to badmouth this, and I feel for the rising
| artists, but this has been a pattern that I obvserved over and
| over again.
|
| Personally I absolutely hate this game for both the gatcha
| aspect and the blatant plagiarism.
| minimaxir wrote:
| It was released as a highly-polished game for mobile, by a
| company that had experience in the space.
|
| It didn't and currently doesn't do the external marketing
| tricks/growth hacks freemium games are notorious for.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Mobile, PC, and console all at once, as I recall. They really
| marketed the crap out of it and were on the necessary
| platforms to capitalize on it, too.
|
| And with a game that had not only polished content, but
| plenty of it at launch.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I'm sure I'll get a lot of hate for bringing this up, but
| it's also worth noting that they _definitely_ rode on the
| coattails of Zelda 's success. So much of that game's
| identity is lifted wholesale from _Breath of the Wild_ that
| it can almost be hard to tell the two apart in side-by-side
| screenshots. Again, none of this is particularly _bad_ ,
| but it definitely contributed to it's meteoric popularity.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Other than being cell-shaded, I've never understood the
| comparisons...
|
| But I absolutely remember _tons_ of people saying how
| alike they were, so I think you 're correct about them
| riding its coat-tails.
| slightwinder wrote:
| It wasn't really out of nowhere. They had other successful
| games already and good fanbase, as also communicated the
| development of Genshin for some time already before release.
| But for Western PC-Gamers, they definitely came from a niche
| not many people followed at the time. They were more on Mobile
| and in Asia known.
| pjc50 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiHoYo ?
|
| The plan of producing higher production quality games than most
| people expect on mobile, while also being cross-playable on PC
| due to Unity (nobody does that!) and cross-playable with
| friends on PS4 (pretty rare) worked for them.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Previous discussion on the gameplay/monetization mechanics of
| Genshin Impact (as there's a _lot_ of misconceptions around
| them): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28177763
| mattnewton wrote:
| I started to feel like I needed a spreadsheet to keep track of
| all the currencies and make sure characters were getting the
| right leveled gear and stopped immediately after that. It's
| very easy to talk yourself into the value you are getting when
| there are 3-4 levels of indirection between the actual dollars
| spent and the on game reward. I normally don't mind some level
| of "accounting" work in rpgs but the fact that the layers of
| currency could start with real dollars kinda made the whole
| experience feel like a trap to conceal the actual cost of
| playing the game a certain way. I think this is a very dark
| pattern.
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