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A serious critique of Genshin Impact [video]

observer23 5y ago
Gatcha is very similar to reality. Games without gatcha are arguably more about grinding from an equal starting point and only unless the gamer uses bots/cheats or pays someone for what they want like level/progress an account or their account when not grinding themselves. Gatcha brings the unequal reality we live in, well into the game world and where someone can spend their way to the goal without grinding as much. The reality we live, very much reflects the new game worlds that are now in existence thanks to gatcha and it's kind of remarkable that people are upset about it. We live everyday outside of games where one's misfortune or fortune reflects their life from the start to the end. The shortcuts that can be taken, what can be quickly achieved with funds, and that goes for anything from healthcare to lifestyle to even academics.
echelon 5y ago
Genshin is a pretty stunning example of how quickly Chinese development and animation studios have grown to develop world-class media. Many consider this game better than Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is one of Nintendo's crowning achievements.
- thewarrior 5y ago
  The other day there was a thread about how many HNers enjoyed using TikTok. They are progressing quickly and many seem unwilling to acknowledge it.
  - echelon 5y ago
    TikTok is far and away superior to US social media. Twitter is full of rage and hate, and I can't stand it. Instagram is posers and people being fake. Facebook is people posting fake news, baby photos, politics, and inspiration quotes for a life most are unwilling or afraid to live. Reddit is going after the lowest common denominator. YouTube is losing its edge and making it harder to succeed as a new creator. TikTok embraces collaborative world building and positivity in a way I've never seen before. It's a total breath of fresh air. It feels good, wholesome, and truly creative.
    - lofatdairy 5y ago
      I'm not defending any of these social media corporations, but the worst people are on every platform and tiktok is not exception. Tiktok also can appeal to the lowest common denominator, it also has rage, hate, conspiracy theories. I think where tiktok's advantage is that that vine wasn't ready to leave this world so its creative medium hasn't run its course, and its algorithm actually feels well designed as apposed to instagram and youtube
      - ItsMonkk 5y ago
        It's about the long tail. If I look at the people that I have subscribed to on YouTube, and then take the mean of their count of subscribers, the mean is probably over a million. When I do the same on TikTok it's about 10k. There were probably the same people posting the same content on YouTube, but because there is no discovery, I never found them, and they never found viewers, so they stopped. What you are subjected to on each platform is based on the discovery methods of that platform. There are probably very good reasons that American sites tend to have really bad discovery, it means that Ads are more impactful and it gives the creator of the algorithm all the power. So it's not that bad people don't exist on TikTok, but because their discovery system is so good I end up watching content that I like. Whereas on YouTube, because the discovery system is so poor, I am subjected to watch things that the platform favors. YouTube favors high-energy, face-contorting, lowest common denominator content. Up until now because YouTube has been the only source of internet video, I had to go along with it as it was the best we had. Suddenly I don't.
        pushrax 5y ago
        I find it very easy to tune my YouTube recommendations. If I open my homepage I see quality content on machining, optical physics, ML, jazz theory, battery tech, chip fab, interior/exterior design, rocket nozzles, etc… and not a single contorted face.
    - bassman9000 5y ago
      There's literally thousands of raging and berating tiktoks in the SJW category alone. What are you talking about.
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    So which stage are we in? One- anger or have we progressed to four- depression? Perhaps it doesn't matter it's all fuel to China's nationalism.
    - esturk 5y ago
      Anger is actually stage 2. Stage 1 is denial.
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  What exactly is so controversial or disagreeable about the parent's comment as to warrant so many downvotes?
  - kibwen 5y ago
    I didn't downvote it, but the comment exemplifies the problem in both how right and wrong it is. Genshin Impact has the potential to be a great game, but it's utterly ruined by the gacha garbage that infests it. It's extremely disappointing, and makes you depressed at wondering what an excellent game it could be if it didn't have such a predatory and self-defeating business model.
    - FooBarWidget 5y ago
      That seems like an unfair reason to downvote the post. One could dislike gatcha as a business model but the post is about China's capacity to design a game irrespective of the business model. The quality of the artwork, music, etc stands on its own regardless of whether one personally dislikes the business model.
      - wpietri 5y ago
        How can one have a great game that is harmful to the players? To me that sounds like: "This food is truly excellent so let's honor the chef. Whether it's full of rat poop and heavy metals is a totally separate issue."
        FooBarWidget 5y ago
        And how exactly is it "harmful"? Your comparison isn't even right. This is free food that comes without ustensils and without a table. You have to pay for a table and ustensils, but the food is edible without them, and the ingredients and the way they're prepared stand on their own. Especially if you consider that not long ago, this part of the world couldn't prepare such a meal at all, even if they provided all the tables and ustensils in the world. I've been playing this game for almost a year now and I just don't see the parts where they "harm" you if you don't pay. If you can point out concrete examples of this "rat poop and heavy metals" that you get unless you pay, please do let me know.
- 2bitencryption 5y ago
  > Many consider this game better than Zelda: Breath of the Wild Is Genshin Impact a pretty and technically impressive BotW-like game? Yes. But Breath of the Wild is, by many accounts, considered one of the greatest games of all time [0]. I have never heard anyone suggest this of Genshin Impact. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_considered_the_best#cite_note-292 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_considered...
  - bserge 5y ago
    I don't have a Nintendo and will never buy one, but I do have a phone. And yeah, the first time I played Genshin I was amazed at the quality for a mobile game. It quickly ran out of content so now it just sits there, quick fun for half an hour. imo Dragon Raja was better (amazing pvp, damn addictive) but was absolutely ruined by the microtransactions and small servers aspects.
- cwizou 5y ago
  Another Chinese game that I've been very impressed with is Dyson Sphere Program (a Factorio-like game on galactic scale), it's still in Early Access on Steam, by a fairly small team but it's already insanely impressive in scope, and they are improving it constantly.
burlesona 5y ago
We’ll, I’m curious to know what this is all about, but at 1h 41m runtime this video is less a critique of the game and more a documentary about it. I couldn’t find a written summary anywhere - does anyone know of one?
- firekvz 5y ago
  He is just against gacha style games, as everyone should be (gambling addiction enforced by gaming addiction) So the whole video sums up his experience in how without having to pay a bunch of money, you couldn't win/have fun properly But this video could be about any new game (online mmorpg) nowdays and be still the same
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    "how without having to pay a bunch of money, you couldn't win/have fun properly" The story of life. Many such cases.
  - whoknew1122 5y ago
    > But this video could be about any new game (online mmorpg) nowdays and be still the same Let's go ahead and address the smaller point here first. Genshin Impact isn't an MMORPG. But that's not the biggest issue here. The biggest issue here is that Genshin's gambling model is not the same as any new game. --- The difference between Genshin Impact (which I played for a week, and spent about $100 on) and other games, is that you must gamble for a chance to progress in a meaningful way. To say this is an issue endemic to all new games simply isn't correct. Most games these days to have some sort of microtransaction model. That's true. However the core gameplay and progression system in Genshin is locked behind loot crates. This isn't the model 'any new game' uses. There are two main ways games use microtransactions: cosmetic, and game-impacting. Cosmetic microtransactions make cosmetic changes in your character or the world around it. No impact on gameplay other than you find something new more aesthetically pleasing. Then we have the game-impacting transactions. Most games that allow game-impacting transactions (i.e. are 'pay 2 win'), allow you to essentially sacrifice time for money. You can spend hours in game grinding for an objective, or you can spend real life currency to automatically unlock the objective. What Genshin does is different from most games. There are certain important ways in which you simply cannot progress without spending money. And everything is locked behind a loot box. That's the problem. The problem is with the loot boxes and gambling; not exchanging time for money. There was a game that I spent over $2,000 on. It was an online 'free-to-play' game with over 70 characters. Each character was around $15-20. Or you could play the game for about 40 (real) hours to grind up enough currency to unlock one. This was fine though, because you picked which character you unlocked and it was unlocked. Genshin makes you buy boxes with a chance to drop what you want it to drop. That's what makes it pernicious.
cardosof 5y ago
I wonder how I would be today of if my toys were helping me get addicted to gambling.
- Jxl180 5y ago
  Have you never opened packs of baseball or Pokémon cards hoping for a specific high value card? Have you never been to an arcade with token/coin pushers? That just replacing the gambling machine’s quarters with tokens. Ticket and prize redemption games at Chuck-E-Cheese are 100% modeled after casinos.
ryneandal 5y ago
A new Never video. I'm all in, I know what I'm doing this AM.
CDSlice 5y ago
Since this video is 1h 41m long and many people here on HN probably don’t know much about Genshin I’ll try and provide a brief summary of the game. Genshin is an open world game in the style of Zelda BotW in which you play as an otherworldly traveler who was separated from their twin sibling by an unknown god when they arrived in the world of Teyvat. The sibling you picked then is kept asleep for 500 years until you wake up and begin your journey to find your sibling. This journey takes you across the world of Teyvat as you save people from dragons, Abyss monsters, and other threats. Gameplay wise you play with a team of four characters each with their own elemental skills and abilities. To beat the enemy mobs and bosses you have to combine these different elements to create reactions to amplify your damage. There are also a massive amount of open world puzzles to solve as you explore the world of Teyvat. The main problem people have with Genshin is that it is a gacha game so you gamble with premium currency to get new units and weapons. Although I do understand why people are extremely against this, in practice it isn’t that big of a problem in Genshin because of the pity system that guarantees that you will get the 5* unit you want after 180 pulls but will normally happen after 150-160 pulls because of the soft pity system that greatly increases your chance of getting a 5* after 74 pulls (the hard guarantee is at 90 pulls). You are also guaranteed a 4* character or weapon after every 10 pulls and these are also very strong compared to the 5* units. You can easily beat the game with only 4* units, and in fact one of the strongest team compositions in the game is made entirely of 4* units. So any claims about the game being P2W aren’t really accurate since there is no PvP content and the PvE content in the game is beatable by 4* units which are obtainable without spending money or a bunch of time grinding. So overall, I really enjoy Genshin and would recommend other people try it as well. It does have problems but they aren’t as extreme as people make them out to be.
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  > gacha game Parent knows this, but maybe other readers might not: Gacha is the Japanese name for those machines on the street where you put in a coin and a plastic sphere with a random toy comes out. Collecting a set of toys can get obsessive for some, in the same way collecting whatever in micro transaction games. I also have a question: other than the graphic styles isn’t genshin impact closer to the online final fantasy games or even modern jrpg such as xenoblade? I’ve never played genshin, but from the little I’ve seen it just seems it’s only the graphic style that matches BoTW
bserge 5y ago
I play it. Besides the main story and occasional events, there isn't much to do in this single player game. Login every week and do some exploring and fighting, like Black Desert and other games, pretty much. Or just wait for some event, which usually has some entertaining story or game mode (there's a tower defense thing going on now). Other than that, there ain't much to do. Think of it more like an unfinished, constantly updating version of the old Fire Emblem GBA games. Others here said it "can't be enjoyed without paying" - no, it actually can't be enjoyed much at all. I.e. if you don't like it in the first hour, you won't like it no matter how much you spend. Whether you pay or not, it's literally the same experience, but fewer characters (they're all the same basic types, so who cares). People who spend on games with gacha elements are very interesting as I fail to see the point of it.
- kemayo 5y ago
  ...why are you playing this game when your comment seems to boil down to "I don't like it"?
  - bserge 5y ago
    "Play it" is a stretch for two hours a week. I do like the story and events, which are rare.
keewee7 5y ago
Chinese apps and games dominating the West makes me feel like a Soviet citizen in 1991 watching Coca-Cola and McDonald's ads pop up everywhere. We are truly in China's century.
- politelemon 5y ago
  Chinese media in general definitely making a larger footprint. In seeing literature as well as TV shows and movies becoming more known. I am half wondering if I ought to be learning mandarin now.
- Hjfrf 5y ago
  Are they really? There are a few popular mobile games, but mostly predatory skinner boxes at high risk of regulation. Translations of Chinese books/films/comics are still consistently awful.
- subjectsigma 5y ago
  If we're talking about nearly anywhere else in the world, American culture dominates. If you're talking about influences on America, Japanese culture has had (and continues to have) a much bigger impact. I just don't see Chinese media "popping up everywhere." Chinese media is poorly translated or culturally impenetrable to Western audiences. I say this as someone reading a Cixin Liu book right now and really enjoying it - even so I recognize that it's niche and the translation is rough. I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese movie and I can think of exactly one Chinese pop song that got popular in recent years (made by a Chinese-American in America, of course). America created or popularized rap, hip-hop, country, most pop music, esports, and many regular sports. American companies made Digg, Myspace, Napster, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitter, and a plethora of other popular apps and products. But because China made TikTok/Douyin/Genshin it's suddenly "China's century"? TikTok is a Vine clone. Genshin's artstyle, stories, and game mechanics are ripped straight from Japanese games. The genre of gatcha is Japanese!
smukherjee19 5y ago
I have only played this game for 50 hours or so, and have yet to reach middle game, so what I write will be biased likewise. I'm sure others will be talking about the system and how it's a mix of an open world RPG and a gacha game. 1. For the money aspect, I did not spend a single cent in the game (nor do I plan to). Yet the experience has been wonderful so far. Yes, if you spend thousands of dollars every month on this, you'll be able to get the latest and greatest characters. But for a free-to-play player like me, I need to plan out the way I spend the gacha currency called "primogems" very wisely. The game gives you quite some primogems when a new area and new quests are released and you play through that content (we've had 3 areas so far in 1 year including the one at the beginning), and after that you get a limited amount regularly by doing daily quests and so on. Usually a free-to-play player can save up enough to get 90 pulls in a couple of months or so? Therefore, advance planning is needed. I enjoy planning like that so I like it. 2. About progression: I feel it doesn't matter whether you're F2P or a paying player. Because, the whole grinding system is gated behind a system called the "resin", which is a thing that replenishes to full in about 24 hours, and it's the same regardless of how far you are into the game. And if I'm not wrong, EDIT: as someone below pointed out, you can buy resin with money, but the exchange rate of the amount spent becomes awful very very quickly. That means, as you go to end game, either you'll run out of things to do, or you won't have enough resin to accomplish all you want to do. At that point, it'll be more like: log in, do the dailies that take 20 minutes, kill some bosses using raisin for another 20, and some other stuff and you're done. That is, once you've cleared ALL the story and world quests, and that'll take atleast a few hundred hours in my honest opinion. 3. For pay2win: I don't think it's a pay2win game. There are some units that the game gives you for free, and once you reach a certain level called Adventure Rank, you get to participate in events that give free 4*s. Some of the units are really really strong even in end-game (Xiangling comes to mind). Besides, even if you don't have the "best" team for a given character, there are characters you can substitute in. It just depends on how brain-dead you want to be when choosing your team builds and actually attacking the monsters (my favorite example for this is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTrRZEZ0wO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTrRZEZ0wO4 where the guy literally takes the free characters the game gives out, and uses the game system, skills, and so on to beat abyss 3, which is quite hard for a beginner. I was able to clear this stage at the early game thanks to this person's proof that it's possible to actually clear content even with starting characters.) That out of the way, here's what I love about the game: 1. The story. I am a sucker for great stories, and Genshin is done quite well. I actually decided to start with a new account after sinking dozens of hours into an old one because I went through the story too fast (one chapter in a week). This time, I've decided to take my time and enjoy the story like fine-aged wine. 2. The graphics. The graphics in this game are of an extremely high quality when it comes to non-physical rendering (NPR). If you're somewhat acquainted with anime-style toon shading, this game does it very well. No, it doesn't look like a cinematic Hollywood movie, and it's not meant to look like one. But its art style might be the best I've seen so far when it comes to NPR. 3. Maybe a bit niche, but the Japanese voice acting is top-notch. MiHoYo have good taste when it comes to choice of voice actors/actresses. Note I don't know anything about the English/Korean/Chinese ones. Lastly, I'll just rant a bit about how I feel when I hear people say "there's nothing to do in this game". Sorry for sounding rude, but no game has infinite content for anyone to consume; this isn't Netflix binge-watching. To me, the best way to consume this game is slowly and steadily. Think of it as dining a full-course meal at a nice restaurant with a nice atmosphere. Of course it's different from gobbling down a Big Mac at McD's and washing it down with Cola. You slowly take bites of each food that is served, a sip of the drinks that are served, and relish the taste. I feel that's the best way to get maximum enjoyment out of this game. Come back home after a long day and unwind with it for an hour or two, and then put it away for the next day. It'll easily last a few months, and the game's updated every 6 weeks with new content with small events in-between. TL;DR: This is a fantastic hybrid of single-player open-world RPG and a gacha game with fantastic graphics and story that I feel would be best enjoyed slowly. If you have the chance to, I highly recommend to try it.
specialist 5y ago
Wow. I love the toon (non-photorealistic) rendering. Add some wiggle and bounce, you practically have a Disney movie. I've been out of the loop for a long time. Is this now (finally) common? Are there articles, papers for how it's done? Mid-90s, I had a lot of video game concepts predicated on toon rendering. My young son was infatuated with Doom and I had hoped us parents would have better alternatives. I may have to try this game, just for the eye candy alone.

Gatcha is very similar to reality. Games without gatcha are arguably more about grinding from an equal starting point and only unless the gamer uses bots/cheats or pays someone for what they want like level/progress an account or their account when not grinding themselves. Gatcha brings the unequal reality we live in, well into the game world and where someone can spend their way to the goal without grinding as much. The reality we live, very much reflects the new game worlds that are now in existence thanks to gatcha and it's kind of remarkable that people are upset about it. We live everyday outside of games where one's misfortune or fortune reflects their life from the start to the end. The shortcuts that can be taken, what can be quickly achieved with funds, and that goes for anything from healthcare to lifestyle to even academics.

echelon 5y ago

Genshin is a pretty stunning example of how quickly Chinese development and animation studios have grown to develop world-class media. Many consider this game better than Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is one of Nintendo's crowning achievements.

thewarrior 5y ago
The other day there was a thread about how many HNers enjoyed using TikTok. They are progressing quickly and many seem unwilling to acknowledge it.
- echelon 5y ago
  TikTok is far and away superior to US social media. Twitter is full of rage and hate, and I can't stand it. Instagram is posers and people being fake. Facebook is people posting fake news, baby photos, politics, and inspiration quotes for a life most are unwilling or afraid to live. Reddit is going after the lowest common denominator. YouTube is losing its edge and making it harder to succeed as a new creator. TikTok embraces collaborative world building and positivity in a way I've never seen before. It's a total breath of fresh air. It feels good, wholesome, and truly creative.
  - lofatdairy 5y ago
    I'm not defending any of these social media corporations, but the worst people are on every platform and tiktok is not exception. Tiktok also can appeal to the lowest common denominator, it also has rage, hate, conspiracy theories. I think where tiktok's advantage is that that vine wasn't ready to leave this world so its creative medium hasn't run its course, and its algorithm actually feels well designed as apposed to instagram and youtube
    - ItsMonkk 5y ago
      It's about the long tail. If I look at the people that I have subscribed to on YouTube, and then take the mean of their count of subscribers, the mean is probably over a million. When I do the same on TikTok it's about 10k. There were probably the same people posting the same content on YouTube, but because there is no discovery, I never found them, and they never found viewers, so they stopped. What you are subjected to on each platform is based on the discovery methods of that platform. There are probably very good reasons that American sites tend to have really bad discovery, it means that Ads are more impactful and it gives the creator of the algorithm all the power. So it's not that bad people don't exist on TikTok, but because their discovery system is so good I end up watching content that I like. Whereas on YouTube, because the discovery system is so poor, I am subjected to watch things that the platform favors. YouTube favors high-energy, face-contorting, lowest common denominator content. Up until now because YouTube has been the only source of internet video, I had to go along with it as it was the best we had. Suddenly I don't.
      - pushrax 5y ago
        I find it very easy to tune my YouTube recommendations. If I open my homepage I see quality content on machining, optical physics, ML, jazz theory, battery tech, chip fab, interior/exterior design, rocket nozzles, etc… and not a single contorted face.
  - bassman9000 5y ago
    There's literally thousands of raging and berating tiktoks in the SJW category alone. What are you talking about.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  So which stage are we in? One- anger or have we progressed to four- depression? Perhaps it doesn't matter it's all fuel to China's nationalism.
  - esturk 5y ago
    Anger is actually stage 2. Stage 1 is denial.
FooBarWidget 5y ago
What exactly is so controversial or disagreeable about the parent's comment as to warrant so many downvotes?
- kibwen 5y ago
  I didn't downvote it, but the comment exemplifies the problem in both how right and wrong it is. Genshin Impact has the potential to be a great game, but it's utterly ruined by the gacha garbage that infests it. It's extremely disappointing, and makes you depressed at wondering what an excellent game it could be if it didn't have such a predatory and self-defeating business model.
  - FooBarWidget 5y ago
    That seems like an unfair reason to downvote the post. One could dislike gatcha as a business model but the post is about China's capacity to design a game irrespective of the business model. The quality of the artwork, music, etc stands on its own regardless of whether one personally dislikes the business model.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      How can one have a great game that is harmful to the players? To me that sounds like: "This food is truly excellent so let's honor the chef. Whether it's full of rat poop and heavy metals is a totally separate issue."
      - FooBarWidget 5y ago
        And how exactly is it "harmful"? Your comparison isn't even right. This is free food that comes without ustensils and without a table. You have to pay for a table and ustensils, but the food is edible without them, and the ingredients and the way they're prepared stand on their own. Especially if you consider that not long ago, this part of the world couldn't prepare such a meal at all, even if they provided all the tables and ustensils in the world. I've been playing this game for almost a year now and I just don't see the parts where they "harm" you if you don't pay. If you can point out concrete examples of this "rat poop and heavy metals" that you get unless you pay, please do let me know.
2bitencryption 5y ago
> Many consider this game better than Zelda: Breath of the Wild Is Genshin Impact a pretty and technically impressive BotW-like game? Yes. But Breath of the Wild is, by many accounts, considered one of the greatest games of all time [0]. I have never heard anyone suggest this of Genshin Impact. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_considered_the_best#cite_note-292 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_considered...
- bserge 5y ago
  I don't have a Nintendo and will never buy one, but I do have a phone. And yeah, the first time I played Genshin I was amazed at the quality for a mobile game. It quickly ran out of content so now it just sits there, quick fun for half an hour. imo Dragon Raja was better (amazing pvp, damn addictive) but was absolutely ruined by the microtransactions and small servers aspects.
cwizou 5y ago
Another Chinese game that I've been very impressed with is Dyson Sphere Program (a Factorio-like game on galactic scale), it's still in Early Access on Steam, by a fairly small team but it's already insanely impressive in scope, and they are improving it constantly.

burlesona 5y ago

We’ll, I’m curious to know what this is all about, but at 1h 41m runtime this video is less a critique of the game and more a documentary about it. I couldn’t find a written summary anywhere - does anyone know of one?

firekvz 5y ago
He is just against gacha style games, as everyone should be (gambling addiction enforced by gaming addiction) So the whole video sums up his experience in how without having to pay a bunch of money, you couldn't win/have fun properly But this video could be about any new game (online mmorpg) nowdays and be still the same
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  "how without having to pay a bunch of money, you couldn't win/have fun properly" The story of life. Many such cases.
- whoknew1122 5y ago
  > But this video could be about any new game (online mmorpg) nowdays and be still the same Let's go ahead and address the smaller point here first. Genshin Impact isn't an MMORPG. But that's not the biggest issue here. The biggest issue here is that Genshin's gambling model is not the same as any new game. --- The difference between Genshin Impact (which I played for a week, and spent about $100 on) and other games, is that you must gamble for a chance to progress in a meaningful way. To say this is an issue endemic to all new games simply isn't correct. Most games these days to have some sort of microtransaction model. That's true. However the core gameplay and progression system in Genshin is locked behind loot crates. This isn't the model 'any new game' uses. There are two main ways games use microtransactions: cosmetic, and game-impacting. Cosmetic microtransactions make cosmetic changes in your character or the world around it. No impact on gameplay other than you find something new more aesthetically pleasing. Then we have the game-impacting transactions. Most games that allow game-impacting transactions (i.e. are 'pay 2 win'), allow you to essentially sacrifice time for money. You can spend hours in game grinding for an objective, or you can spend real life currency to automatically unlock the objective. What Genshin does is different from most games. There are certain important ways in which you simply cannot progress without spending money. And everything is locked behind a loot box. That's the problem. The problem is with the loot boxes and gambling; not exchanging time for money. There was a game that I spent over $2,000 on. It was an online 'free-to-play' game with over 70 characters. Each character was around $15-20. Or you could play the game for about 40 (real) hours to grind up enough currency to unlock one. This was fine though, because you picked which character you unlocked and it was unlocked. Genshin makes you buy boxes with a chance to drop what you want it to drop. That's what makes it pernicious.

cardosof 5y ago

I wonder how I would be today of if my toys were helping me get addicted to gambling.

Jxl180 5y ago
Have you never opened packs of baseball or Pokémon cards hoping for a specific high value card? Have you never been to an arcade with token/coin pushers? That just replacing the gambling machine’s quarters with tokens. Ticket and prize redemption games at Chuck-E-Cheese are 100% modeled after casinos.

ryneandal 5y ago

A new Never video. I'm all in, I know what I'm doing this AM.

CDSlice 5y ago

Since this video is 1h 41m long and many people here on HN probably don’t know much about Genshin I’ll try and provide a brief summary of the game. Genshin is an open world game in the style of Zelda BotW in which you play as an otherworldly traveler who was separated from their twin sibling by an unknown god when they arrived in the world of Teyvat. The sibling you picked then is kept asleep for 500 years until you wake up and begin your journey to find your sibling. This journey takes you across the world of Teyvat as you save people from dragons, Abyss monsters, and other threats. Gameplay wise you play with a team of four characters each with their own elemental skills and abilities. To beat the enemy mobs and bosses you have to combine these different elements to create reactions to amplify your damage. There are also a massive amount of open world puzzles to solve as you explore the world of Teyvat. The main problem people have with Genshin is that it is a gacha game so you gamble with premium currency to get new units and weapons. Although I do understand why people are extremely against this, in practice it isn’t that big of a problem in Genshin because of the pity system that guarantees that you will get the 5* unit you want after 180 pulls but will normally happen after 150-160 pulls because of the soft pity system that greatly increases your chance of getting a 5* after 74 pulls (the hard guarantee is at 90 pulls). You are also guaranteed a 4* character or weapon after every 10 pulls and these are also very strong compared to the 5* units. You can easily beat the game with only 4* units, and in fact one of the strongest team compositions in the game is made entirely of 4* units. So any claims about the game being P2W aren’t really accurate since there is no PvP content and the PvE content in the game is beatable by 4* units which are obtainable without spending money or a bunch of time grinding. So overall, I really enjoy Genshin and would recommend other people try it as well. It does have problems but they aren’t as extreme as people make them out to be.

wodenokoto 5y ago
> gacha game Parent knows this, but maybe other readers might not: Gacha is the Japanese name for those machines on the street where you put in a coin and a plastic sphere with a random toy comes out. Collecting a set of toys can get obsessive for some, in the same way collecting whatever in micro transaction games. I also have a question: other than the graphic styles isn’t genshin impact closer to the online final fantasy games or even modern jrpg such as xenoblade? I’ve never played genshin, but from the little I’ve seen it just seems it’s only the graphic style that matches BoTW

bserge 5y ago

I play it. Besides the main story and occasional events, there isn't much to do in this single player game. Login every week and do some exploring and fighting, like Black Desert and other games, pretty much. Or just wait for some event, which usually has some entertaining story or game mode (there's a tower defense thing going on now). Other than that, there ain't much to do. Think of it more like an unfinished, constantly updating version of the old Fire Emblem GBA games. Others here said it "can't be enjoyed without paying" - no, it actually can't be enjoyed much at all. I.e. if you don't like it in the first hour, you won't like it no matter how much you spend. Whether you pay or not, it's literally the same experience, but fewer characters (they're all the same basic types, so who cares). People who spend on games with gacha elements are very interesting as I fail to see the point of it.

kemayo 5y ago
...why are you playing this game when your comment seems to boil down to "I don't like it"?
- bserge 5y ago
  "Play it" is a stretch for two hours a week. I do like the story and events, which are rare.

keewee7 5y ago

Chinese apps and games dominating the West makes me feel like a Soviet citizen in 1991 watching Coca-Cola and McDonald's ads pop up everywhere. We are truly in China's century.

politelemon 5y ago
Chinese media in general definitely making a larger footprint. In seeing literature as well as TV shows and movies becoming more known. I am half wondering if I ought to be learning mandarin now.
Hjfrf 5y ago
Are they really? There are a few popular mobile games, but mostly predatory skinner boxes at high risk of regulation. Translations of Chinese books/films/comics are still consistently awful.
subjectsigma 5y ago
If we're talking about nearly anywhere else in the world, American culture dominates. If you're talking about influences on America, Japanese culture has had (and continues to have) a much bigger impact. I just don't see Chinese media "popping up everywhere." Chinese media is poorly translated or culturally impenetrable to Western audiences. I say this as someone reading a Cixin Liu book right now and really enjoying it - even so I recognize that it's niche and the translation is rough. I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese movie and I can think of exactly one Chinese pop song that got popular in recent years (made by a Chinese-American in America, of course). America created or popularized rap, hip-hop, country, most pop music, esports, and many regular sports. American companies made Digg, Myspace, Napster, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitter, and a plethora of other popular apps and products. But because China made TikTok/Douyin/Genshin it's suddenly "China's century"? TikTok is a Vine clone. Genshin's artstyle, stories, and game mechanics are ripped straight from Japanese games. The genre of gatcha is Japanese!

smukherjee19 5y ago

I have only played this game for 50 hours or so, and have yet to reach middle game, so what I write will be biased likewise. I'm sure others will be talking about the system and how it's a mix of an open world RPG and a gacha game. 1. For the money aspect, I did not spend a single cent in the game (nor do I plan to). Yet the experience has been wonderful so far. Yes, if you spend thousands of dollars every month on this, you'll be able to get the latest and greatest characters. But for a free-to-play player like me, I need to plan out the way I spend the gacha currency called "primogems" very wisely. The game gives you quite some primogems when a new area and new quests are released and you play through that content (we've had 3 areas so far in 1 year including the one at the beginning), and after that you get a limited amount regularly by doing daily quests and so on. Usually a free-to-play player can save up enough to get 90 pulls in a couple of months or so? Therefore, advance planning is needed. I enjoy planning like that so I like it. 2. About progression: I feel it doesn't matter whether you're F2P or a paying player. Because, the whole grinding system is gated behind a system called the "resin", which is a thing that replenishes to full in about 24 hours, and it's the same regardless of how far you are into the game. And if I'm not wrong, EDIT: as someone below pointed out, you can buy resin with money, but the exchange rate of the amount spent becomes awful very very quickly. That means, as you go to end game, either you'll run out of things to do, or you won't have enough resin to accomplish all you want to do. At that point, it'll be more like: log in, do the dailies that take 20 minutes, kill some bosses using raisin for another 20, and some other stuff and you're done. That is, once you've cleared ALL the story and world quests, and that'll take atleast a few hundred hours in my honest opinion. 3. For pay2win: I don't think it's a pay2win game. There are some units that the game gives you for free, and once you reach a certain level called Adventure Rank, you get to participate in events that give free 4*s. Some of the units are really really strong even in end-game (Xiangling comes to mind). Besides, even if you don't have the "best" team for a given character, there are characters you can substitute in. It just depends on how brain-dead you want to be when choosing your team builds and actually attacking the monsters (my favorite example for this is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTrRZEZ0wO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTrRZEZ0wO4 where the guy literally takes the free characters the game gives out, and uses the game system, skills, and so on to beat abyss 3, which is quite hard for a beginner. I was able to clear this stage at the early game thanks to this person's proof that it's possible to actually clear content even with starting characters.) That out of the way, here's what I love about the game: 1. The story. I am a sucker for great stories, and Genshin is done quite well. I actually decided to start with a new account after sinking dozens of hours into an old one because I went through the story too fast (one chapter in a week). This time, I've decided to take my time and enjoy the story like fine-aged wine. 2. The graphics. The graphics in this game are of an extremely high quality when it comes to non-physical rendering (NPR). If you're somewhat acquainted with anime-style toon shading, this game does it very well. No, it doesn't look like a cinematic Hollywood movie, and it's not meant to look like one. But its art style might be the best I've seen so far when it comes to NPR. 3. Maybe a bit niche, but the Japanese voice acting is top-notch. MiHoYo have good taste when it comes to choice of voice actors/actresses. Note I don't know anything about the English/Korean/Chinese ones. Lastly, I'll just rant a bit about how I feel when I hear people say "there's nothing to do in this game". Sorry for sounding rude, but no game has infinite content for anyone to consume; this isn't Netflix binge-watching. To me, the best way to consume this game is slowly and steadily. Think of it as dining a full-course meal at a nice restaurant with a nice atmosphere. Of course it's different from gobbling down a Big Mac at McD's and washing it down with Cola. You slowly take bites of each food that is served, a sip of the drinks that are served, and relish the taste. I feel that's the best way to get maximum enjoyment out of this game. Come back home after a long day and unwind with it for an hour or two, and then put it away for the next day. It'll easily last a few months, and the game's updated every 6 weeks with new content with small events in-between. TL;DR: This is a fantastic hybrid of single-player open-world RPG and a gacha game with fantastic graphics and story that I feel would be best enjoyed slowly. If you have the chance to, I highly recommend to try it.

specialist 5y ago

Wow. I love the toon (non-photorealistic) rendering. Add some wiggle and bounce, you practically have a Disney movie. I've been out of the loop for a long time. Is this now (finally) common? Are there articles, papers for how it's done? Mid-90s, I had a lot of video game concepts predicated on toon rendering. My young son was infatuated with Doom and I had hoped us parents would have better alternatives. I may have to try this game, just for the eye candy alone.