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GI.biz: Genshin Impact makes $3.7 billion in mobile lifetime revenue in two years

Himura Kenshin

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Keep in mind this is solely the mobile earnings and doesn't even include money coming from their PC launcher and PSN.

From GamesIndustry.biz,

The title, which came out September 28, 2020, is ranked as the third most profitable mobile game globally since that date, according to new data from Sensor Tower.

In terms of territories, China is the No.1 revenue generator for Genshin Impact, accounting for 33% of the game's total lifetime earnings, $1.2 billion, just on iOS in the country (Sensor Tower does not track third-party Android stores in China).

Japan came in second, accounting for around 24% of the game's total revenue, while the United States came third, making up 17% of all global player spending.
 
$1.7billion in year two? Only on mobile? That's mighty impressive and there's no sign of things slowing down...

It's also nice to see that money flowing through in to the game. The last two updates have been great!
 
For 60 dollar full price game, it is 61.666.666 sales with 0 zero dlc MTX etc.
yes, they spend high too but that's just what they earn from the phone. There is PS + PC+ Merchandise.
Can we say it is the biggest game made after GTA5?
I don't know of any other phone or console game that earns this much.
Maybe the AC is close if you included its influence to console sales(and software sales with new people on Switch) and online service sales + dlc + many times cheaper to develop(%99.9)
 
For 60 dollar full price game, it is 61.666.666 sales with 0 zero dlc MTX etc.
yes, they spend high too but that's just what they earn from the phone. There is PS + PC+ Merchandise.
Can we say it is the biggest game made after GTA5?
I don't know of any other phone or console game that earns this much.
Maybe the AC is close if you included its influence to console sales(and software sales with new people on Switch) and online service sales + dlc + many times cheaper to develop(%99.9)
Well we can count PUBG (Mobile) and Honor of Kings since they are the two titles that sell more than Genshin Impact on mobile. There's probably other mobile games that have made this much over the past 9 years as well
 
For 60 dollar full price game, it is 61.666.666 sales with 0 zero dlc MTX etc.
yes, they spend high too but that's just what they earn from the phone. There is PS + PC+ Merchandise.
Can we say it is the biggest game made after GTA5?
I don't know of any other phone or console game that earns this much.
Maybe the AC is close if you included its influence to console sales(and software sales with new people on Switch) and online service sales + dlc + many times cheaper to develop(%99.9)

You mean non-FTP right?
 
Well we can count PUBG (Mobile) and Honor of Kings since they are the two titles that sell more than Genshin Impact on mobile. There's probably other mobile games that have made this much over the past 9 years as well
For some reason I thought PUBG was older than GTA5. But Honor of Kings don't have pc and console edition.Can it close the gap?
You mean non-FTP right?
no, but As I said above, I forgot that GTA5 is ps3 game(old).
Edit: I am talking about same timeframe earning, so first 2 year
 
To note, it is down YoY from launch.
It earned $2 billion in its first year, but down to $1.7 billion in its second.

Big part of the decline is in Q3 looking at the article. Which seems to be showing a decline in all three markets.

As I've been tracking for a while, the game is down a lot in NA (mobile, NPD) but CN has been up from previous years. Large decline in one market can only be offset for so long by others unless you expect infinite growth.

The current banner for how good it is, is showing that same NA weakness/decline on mobile.

For 60 dollar full price game, it is 61.666.666 sales with 0 zero dlc MTX etc.
yes, they spend high too but that's just what they earn from the phone. There is PS + PC+ Merchandise.
Can we say it is the biggest game made after GTA5?
I don't know of any other phone or console game that earns this much.
Maybe the AC is close if you included its influence to console sales(and software sales with new people on Switch) and online service sales + dlc + many times cheaper to develop(%99.9)

I'm actually curious how big non-mobile actually is, PS is a fairly small subsection of the market. There's not that many PS in the bigger markets like JP or CN and in those markets mobile is king. PC is probably fairly large in the west.
 
I'm actually curious how big non-mobile actually is, PS is a fairly small subsection of the market. There's not that many PS in the bigger markets like JP or CN and in those markets mobile is king. PC is probably fairly large in the west.
PS is not insignificant.
Genshin Impact won the 2021 Grand Award, which goes towards titles that are developed in Asia, that earn the most revenue on the platform (worldwide).
Most things probably don't have that notable a draw, all things considered, but it does stand alongside Resident Evil Village.

 
PS is not insignificant.
Genshin Impact won the 2021 Grand Award, which goes towards titles that are developed in Asia, that earn the most revenue on the platform (worldwide).
Most things probably don't have that notable a draw, all things considered, but it does stand alongside Resident Evil Village.


That's not a very high bar I feel like given the many caveats on said metric.

That said, my suspicion is that PS is a falling market share for this game in general. Especially with the title's fall out of NPD tracking and PS major market being the Western focused now.
 
Big part of the decline is in Q3 looking at the article. Which seems to be showing a decline in all three markets.

As I've been tracking for a while, the game is down a lot in NA (mobile, NPD) but CN has been up from previous years.
The current banner for how good it is, is showing that same NA weakness/decline on mobile.
I wouldn't be surprised if Genshin revenue on mobile continues to decrease YoY with the way the game is currently structured (before anyone gets mad, even if Genshin earns less than 1.7 billion on mobile next year Mihoyo would be very successful and still earn an enormous amount of money with what they make).

Installing Genshin on my phone is practically impossible for me now with the file sizes continuing to grow with each update. It forces current users to either delete other apps/ photos/ message logs on their phone, or to upgrade / get another device just to play one game. So on that front, with older Genshin users getting funneled out due to burnout/ fatigue and being unable to store a game of that size on their phone, I can see less returning Genshin users = less revenue.

And when it comes to new users joining Genshin, I feel the game structure will also inhibit their progress and motivation to stick to the game and be a continued spender like veteran users. There will be some users who are fine with unskippable dialogue scenes of 3+ regions before they can tackle current content, but I know several friends of mine who got bored and dropped the game before making it to the limited-time event.
 
That's not a very high bar I feel like given the many caveats on said metric.

That said, my suspicion is that PS is a falling market share for this game in general. Especially with the title's fall out of NPD tracking and PS major market being the Western focused now.
NPD tracking is only for mobile, provided by Sensortower.
Since the only monetization is through in-game transactions, it wouldn't be on the PS rankings.
 
NPD tracking is only for mobile, provided by Sensortower.
Since the only monetization is through in-game transactions, it wouldn't be on the PS rankings.

Oh my mistake. I thought they were discussing PSN tracking for the top earners in that report.

Now that makes that report actually sound a lot worse, I thought it had been just a decline on PS which I was expecting. But if it's out of Top 10 on mobile, that's quite the drop in the NA market. That's their primary market too unless NA is some strange inversion of all other markets (which I doubt).

I don't believe the NA market is as particularly top-heavy as JP market, for example, so the Top 10 should be a fairly high but not unreasonably large barrier.
 
Oh my mistake. I thought they were discussing PSN tracking for the top earners in that report.

Now that makes that report actually sound a lot worse, I thought it had been just a decline on PS which I was expecting. But if it's out of Top 10 on mobile, that's quite the drop in the NA market. That's their primary market too unless NA is some strange inversion of all other markets (which I doubt).

I don't believe the NA market is as particularly top-heavy as JP market, for example, so the Top 10 should be a fairly high but not unreasonably large barrier.
The US was never Genshin Impact's top market.
It is very crucial, but right now, China and Japan are a bigger factor, and the disparities have grown as it's fallen in the US (whereas China and Japan may be seeing growth).
 
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I wonder how much of that money goes back to Genshin, and how much is redirected towards their other projects. They are working on two new games after all (Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero) plus Honkai Impact 3rd, which feels like miHoyo's big passion project (though Genshin is the more popular game).

Also hi there, it's my first post.
 
The US was never Genshin Impact's top market.
It is very crucial, but right now, China and Japan are a bigger factor, and the disparities have grown as it's fallen in the US (whereas China and Japan may be seeing growth).

Not NA for Genshin as it's top market (it's a Top 3 market nevertheless but wasn't what I meant). Mobile, as in mobile in NA was it's top market. Whole post was about NA.

Apologies if that was unclear.

Also I don't see indication that JP is growing, I think it's entirely CN growth. JP from what I can gather is nominally flat.
 
Not NA for Genshin as it's top market (it's a Top 3 market nevertheless but wasn't what I meant). Mobile, as in mobile in NA was it's top market. Whole post was about NA.

Apologies if that was unclear.
Yeah, ever since about February, it's gone into a steady decline phase in the US.
I imagine here, the general influx of large open-world games has taken a lot of the wind away, regardless of whether or not those other games have a lasting impact.
 
Yeah, ever since about February, it's gone into a steady decline phase in the US.
I imagine here, the general influx of large open-world games has taken a lot of the wind away, regardless of whether or not those other games have a lasting impact.

Yes, the decline started around the beginning of the year and correlates strongly with various live services and Elden Ring taking up a lot of air in the room in NA. Especially notable that this impact would be outsized in NA vs other markets like JP or CN where these titles either didn't release or the market is much smaller.
 
Not sure if its by chance or if Sony had an exclusivity deal, but like with Rocket League, Fall Guys and now Genshin, they've managed to associate of one the biggest GaaS titles with Playstation.

I'm actually curious how big non-mobile actually is, PS is a fairly small subsection of the market. There's not that many PS in the bigger markets like JP or CN and in those markets mobile is king. PC is probably fairly large in the west.

Some of the biggest multiplat F2P titles are multiple times bigger on Playstation than on PC. Like it's not even close for many of these titles:
  • Fortnite -> PS 47%, PC 9% [court case]
  • Warzone -> likely PS 47+%, PC <<25% [FY report on total revenue]
  • GTA Online -> T2 game revenue = 75% on consoles
  • Destiny -> PC 39%, PS 34% [warmind.io]
  • Rocket League -> PS 40%, PC 8% [court case]
It depends on the split between China and RoTW for Genshin. Genshin is huge on Playstation, top 5 F2P on PSN by revenue according to Sony.
 
I tried it and don't really get its popularity with gamers not just casuals, it's literally everything gamers complain about mobile games yet they seem to be getting the game.

In NA though the decline is expected, mobile hits don't last that long since there's a large PC and console market, and there are many F2P games trending here that share the spotlighr.
 
I tried it and don't really get its popularity with gamers not just casuals, it's literally everything gamers complain about mobile games yet they seem to be getting the game.

In NA though the decline is expected, mobile hits don't last that long since there's a large PC and console market, and there are many F2P games trending here that share the spotlighr.
It's not really anything like how gamers complain about mobile games. Gamers complain about shallow gameplay and pay-to-win mechanics.The main gameplay doesn't really require any money put in so it's basically akin to a free AAA game. There's basically nothing actually pay-to-win in it. What requires some money to be put in is the endgame content (and even then, most of the characters will work for it so you can get by with free currency and some investment in the weapon gacha). Gamers aren't usually complaining about the actual tedious part - the grinding. The people that are paying are more invested in the community i.e. getting characters because they are "meta" or getting characters because they inspire a lot of fan content or they are simply attracted to that character.

Also, a lot of F2P games do last a long while once they get over that launch year hill. Like for instance, the Japanese Play Store Top 20 currently is made up of a mix between games a little under two years old and games as old as Monster Strike (celebrating its 9th anniversary). The games that did have hit launches usually only go down to the 40s or 50s. On the US Play Store Top 20, we got Candy Crush Saga maintaining its number one position in near perpetuity and aside from Royal Match, every game is over 2 years old. I'm seeing a lot of them (from both regions) launched in 2017 or so.
 
I tried it and don't really get its popularity with gamers not just casuals, it's literally everything gamers complain about mobile games yet they seem to be getting the game.

In NA though the decline is expected, mobile hits don't last that long since there's a large PC and console market, and there are many F2P games trending here that share the spotlighr.
There are many other factors that lead to this popularity (AAA production values, more traditional action RPG gameplay, their open world design, etc.), but I'm going to focus on the part I've italicized.
Something that Genshin does that, to my knowledge, no other gacha game (or any game with lootboxes) does is that its guaranteed SSR and spark (i.e. A guaranteed featured unit) roll counters do not reset between banners. This transforms the gacha into essentially a glorified progress bar where anyone, including F2P players, can guarantee the unit they want. In traditional gacha systems, where the GSSR and spark counters do reset between banners, these systems are typically inaccessible whaling on premium currency (or if an F2P player or light spender is really, really patient).
Basically, what I'm saying is that they took a lot of the risk out of impulse rolling the gacha -- and they've benefited a lot from it.
 
It's not really anything like how gamers complain about mobile games. Gamers complain about shallow gameplay and pay-to-win mechanics.The main gameplay doesn't really require any money put in so it's basically akin to a free AAA game. There's basically nothing actually pay-to-win in it.

Yeah, I can't stand the vast majority of mobile games, and Genshin and its business model are just fine by me. I was able to play for months and get through all the story content without ever feeling pushed to pay a dime. The overworld content is really quite easy, I was able to breeze through it with minimal grinding and unoptimized builds. Even the abyss, which is the only sweaty content, can be beaten by ftp players with good builds. And the abyss is hardly the high point of the game anyway. Its large, beautiful ever expanding world with great art direction and its absolutely banger OST are like nothing else on mobile, and its coupled with very competent combat.

The only reason I stopped playing it is that I really don't like typical anime character design and tropes, which Genshin is full of, and the "uwu" style writing got very tiresome after a while. I would love to see Sony or Microsoft take their own stab at a ftp open world game like this, hopefully with better writing and an aesthetic more in line with my tastes
 
There are many other factors that lead to this popularity (AAA production values, more traditional action RPG gameplay, their open world design, etc.), but I'm going to focus on the part I've italicized.
Something that Genshin does that, to my knowledge, no other gacha game (or any game with lootboxes) does is that its guaranteed SSR and spark (i.e. A guaranteed featured unit) roll counters do not reset between banners. This transforms the gacha into essentially a glorified progress bar where anyone, including F2P players, can guarantee the unit they want. In traditional gacha systems, where the GSSR and spark counters do reset between banners, these systems are typically inaccessible whaling on premium currency (or if an F2P player or light spender is really, really patient).
Basically, what I'm saying is that they took a lot of the risk out of impulse rolling the gacha -- and they've benefited a lot from it.
To add to that, the "hard pity counter" (the number of gacha pulls needed to guarantee the targeted SSR drop) is at 180 pulls. That may seem like a lot, but games like Fate/Grand Order have a pity counter at 330 pulls - almost double. Bang Dream! has a 300-pull pity counter (well, an equivalent), and it resets between banners. To the bolded though, miHoYo's other game, Honkai Impact 3rd, also has a 100-pull counter that doesn't reset.

While it may make them less money from mega-whales, I believe it's a good strategy to incite more players to become low-to-mid spenders.
 
Something that Genshin does that, to my knowledge, no other gacha game (or any game with lootboxes) does is that its guaranteed SSR and spark (i.e. A guaranteed featured unit) roll counters do not reset between banners.
Epic seven technically does this with their mystic banners with the moonlight heroes. The pity counter, which is flipping high at 200 pulls of a rare currency, stays between the different rotations and new ML characters released. Granted it has to since the currency is so tedious to get that people would burn down the developers building if the pity counter reset between banners.
 
To add to that, the "hard pity counter" (the number of gacha pulls needed to guarantee the targeted SSR drop) is at 180 pulls. That may seem like a lot, but games like Fate/Grand Order have a pity counter at 330 pulls - almost double. Bang Dream! has a 300-pull pity counter (well, an equivalent), and it resets between banners. To the bolded though, miHoYo's other game, Honkai Impact 3rd, also has a 100-pull counter that doesn't reset.

While it may make them less money from mega-whales, I believe it's a good strategy to incite more players to become low-to-mid spenders.
Thanks, I didn't want to bloat the post with examples.

More examples:
The Bandori game's cousin, D4DJ Groovy Mix, also has a 300-pull spark for most banners and a 100-pull GSSR.
Fate/Grand Order technically also has a far older spark system that doesn't reset between banners, but you'd be crazy to whale enough to actually take advantage of Unregistered Spirit Origins.
Uma Musume: Pretty Derby has a 200-pull spark.

The list goes on and on, Genshin not only doesn't reset its GSSR and spark counters, its thresholds (90/180 iirc) are also really low.
 
A "spark" that carries over isn't unique to Genshin.

The summon count for a spark is also not really relevant in absolute terms without referencing the income of said counter. Genshin has a very slow income of pulls compared to games with higher spark counts. Higher the spark, generally, higher the budgeted income against said spark.
 
A "spark" that carries over isn't unique to Genshin.

The summon count for a spark is also not really relevant in absolute terms without referencing the income of said counter. Genshin has a very slow income of pulls compared to games with higher spark counts. Higher the spark, generally, higher the budgeted income against said spark.
I suppose that the more important part here isn't the actual rate at which you can accumulate a spark, it's that you aren't punished for impulse rolling, and that you get rewarded in less rolls to boot (making the gacha rates appear less garbage).
 
speaking of mobile games revenue, do we know how much honkai impact, arknights and azur lane generated?
This Bilibili channel (https://space.bilibili.com/179948458) posts monthly videos on Chinese gacha game revenue estimates worldwide.

Their latest video is for August 2022, which is this: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1AU4y1C7oU/
All figures are in 10,000 Chinese Yuan. For that specific video, HI3 is at 0:26, Arknights is at 1:27, and Azur Lane is at 2:20. Genshin is at 0:48.
I remember seeing a graph for AL, but don't remember where I saw it...
 
This Bilibili channel (https://space.bilibili.com/179948458) posts monthly videos on Chinese gacha game revenue estimates worldwide.

Their latest video is for August 2022, which is this: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1AU4y1C7oU/
All figures are in 10,000 Chinese Yuan. For that specific video, HI3 is at 0:26, Arknights is at 1:27, and Azur Lane is at 2:20. Genshin is at 0:48.
I remember seeing a graph for AL, but don't remember where I saw it...
Thank you.
 
I suppose that the more important part here isn't the actual rate at which you can accumulate a spark, it's that you aren't punished for impulse rolling, and that you get rewarded in less rolls to boot (making the gacha rates appear less garbage).

I am not sure this is true. Genshin's hard pity is quite high relative to it's income. It can take 3-4 months of play for a full 150 pity guarantee. The soft-pity may produce useless things or unwanted things and as such that isn't really a "high value".

The game also has terrible 4* (lower rarity) probability management as well as a god awful and predatory weapon banner system.

The game is very predatory but I think many brush it off because they themselves don't necessarily engage with it, but the systems are there.

It's clear I'm out of touch with mobile loot games when people talk about sparks and banners and I have no clue what they are saying.

Spark is basically a term that means being able to pick a unit or item in the gacha/rng pool if you do not get it by a certain number of rolls. It's a guaranteed payout on the slot machine, to put it another way, after you've rolled enough times.

Different games have different 'spark #s'.

A banner is "these characters/items are available for a set amount of time" usually with increased probability. Games like this have a base probability for various rarities and when a unit is on a "banner" it has higher probabilities.
 
It's very clear your knowledge of Genshin is limited.

I am not sure this is true. Genshin's hard pity is quite high relative to it's income. It can take 3-4 months of play for a full 150 pity guarantee.

Pity is 90, not 150. If you are pulling on a limited character banner, you can theoretically lose a "50/50" at 90 pulls, and have to go another 90 before you hard hit pity again. Therefore making a "full hard pity with 50/50 loss" guaranteed at 180.

So, hard pity is either 90, or 180. "150" has nothing to do with anything. There is a belief that soft pity begins at 76, though this has never been stated by HoYoverse.

The soft-pity may produce useless things or unwanted things and as such that isn't really a "high value".

The soft pity would produce the exact same thing the hard pity would produce. It simply costs you less wishes to get there.
 
It's very clear your knowledge of Genshin is limited.



Pity is 90, not 150. If you are pulling on a limited character banner, you can theoretically lose a "50/50" at 90 pulls, and have to go another 90 before you hard hit pity again. Therefore making a "full hard pity with 50/50 loss" guaranteed at 180.

So, hard pity is either 90, or 180. "150" has nothing to do with anything. There is a belief that soft pity begins at 76, though this has never been stated by HoYoverse.



The soft pity would produce the exact same thing the hard pity would produce. It simply costs you less wishes to get there.

~150 is the correct number because that is the most guaranteed hard pity (rounded, as the percentage spikes after 75 and 90 pulls is practically impossible and would be a statistical aberration, the pity scaling has been simulated it is unlikely a player will ever exceed 75-80). Hence I said soft pity as well, which is the half pity but it isn't a hard guarantee. Statistically it would be lower, likely around 120 pulls on average to get the guarantee but the hard ceiling is 150-180.

If you want to statistically break it down, it's a coin flip and a 75ish follow up hard spark. Most games just have hard sparks, some games have sparks and resetting pities for random rare units, etc. The hard pity is what people define as the spark ceiling. Genshin's is not 75/90.

A fifty/fifty coin flip is not the same as the sparks of other games (the weapon banner is also different as a 75/25 focus split and then. 50/50 split until you hit pity three times to spark). So either the comparison needs to change or Genshin's pity needs to be recategorized in these discussions. It is an unfair comparison to say other games have higher sparks/guarantees while using a coin flip as Genshin's guarantee value.

It suddenly doesn't look as favorable to compare Genshin's 150-180 hard spark with, say, Uma Musume's 200 or Princess Connect's 200. Pokemon Masters has a spark of ~100. Or the Korean Counterside at 150. The former three do not have rolling sparks banner to banner, the latter does. Looking at it like this, Genshin becomes "just another gacha" in this department... which it is, in this aspect of the game.
 
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~150 is the correct number because that is the most guaranteed hard pity (rounded, as the percentage spikes after 75 and 90 pulls is practically impossible and would be a statistical aberration, the pity scaling has been simulated it is unlikely a player will ever exceed 75-80).

I'll say it again, it's clear your Genshin knowledge is limited. I exceed 75 all the time, so to say it is "unlikely" exposes you as someone who talks about Genshin, but doesn't do enough rolling - or any at all - to know what they're talking about. People who are actively involved in the gacha spot these inconsistencies out quite easily and can tell who really knows the game specifically and who's just generalizing gacha knowledge. I exceed 75 all the time, so you are incorrect. I also go below 75 quite a bit, that does not change the fact that hard pity is 90 and 180.

If you want to talk about "percentages" and "likelihoods" and "statistical aberrations," say that. But that's not what you said. You gave the patently false statement of:

I am not sure this is true. Genshin's hard pity is quite high relative to it's income. It can take 3-4 months of play for a full 150 pity guarantee.

There is no such thing as a "full 150 pity guarantee" and anyone actively involved in the game would be looking at that statement as crazily as I looked at it.

I see you also ignored my reply to the other piece of false information you spread that made no sense:

The soft-pity may produce useless things or unwanted things and as such that isn't really a "high value".

If the 150 "guaranteed pity" didn't give it away the above certainly did.
 
I am quite confused. I play the game regularly and know how the gacha works.

75-90 is not the spark, 150-180 is and that should be the comparison and was my point, whether you define it at 75 or 90 as the exact level and as such 150 or 180 is mostly arguing small fractions. A coin flip is not a spark by definition. It is more favorable odds but is not a hard guarantee. The comparisons before were unfairly comparing a coin flip to hard sparks.

For the rest, you are arguing with statistics and probability. Yes you can exceed 75 pulls, but the rate spikes after 75 with each pull such that it is increasingly unlikely to pass very far beyond that soft limit and you'll find that most of your pulls form a histogram gaussian around 77-83. So 90 becomes a near statistical impossibility hence I do not say 180 but 150.

In practice, you'll win the flip half of the time and also hit random probability before that occasionally. So it won't actually be 150 but in average around ~120.

Edit: am also on mobile, I may honestly just be confused and missing something. And if I don't respond to everything it's not that I am ignoring it, mobile is annoying for typing detailed responses.
 
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75-90 is not the spark, 150-180 is and that should be the comparison and was my point, whether you define it at 75 or 90 as the exact level and as such 150 or 180 is mostly arguing small fractions. A coin flip is not a spark by definition. It is more favorable odds but is not a hard guarantee. The comparisons before were unfairly comparing a coin flip to hard sparks.

Now you've expanded your guarantee to "150 to 180," when before I corrected that you stated very loudly and very wrongly that it was 150. After adding a full 30 wishes to your initial incorrect statement, you still go on to argue against me. Why? Because this is the internet.

Guess what? You're still wrong. Guarantee is not "150 to 180," it is just 180. Stop trying to add "150" to make your initial statement sound correct. It is either 90 pulls, or 180. Those are the guaranteed pity numbers, end of discussion.

whether you define it at 75 or 90 as the exact level and as such 150 or 180 is mostly arguing small fractions.

Now you've made some wildly incorrect statements, but this may be the biggest and or certainly the most insulting. Trying to downplay the difference between 150 or 180 wishes as "mostly arguing small fractions."

Those "small fractions" of 30 wishes cost exactly 4,800 primogems or to put it more plainly $64.97. The $49.98 Genesis Crystals package plus the $14.99 one. But sure, "arguing small fractions."
 
I guess if we're talking in the context of mobile gacha games and a pity system, $65 might really be considered "small fractions". But sure, others may vehemently disagree as that is the price of a full game.
In Diablo immortal you might not even get an upgrade at All for that price depending how deep you're already in the game. As a F2P player, i'm already so "heavily invented", that $50 spend at this point would not give me anything of substance.

I find the topic and arguments from you two quite interesting, so keep going.
But don't forget to be nice to each other.
 
Now you've expanded your guarantee to "150 to 180," when before I corrected that you stated very loudly and very wrongly that it was 150. After adding a full 30 wishes to your initial incorrect statement, you still go on to argue against me. Why? Because this is the internet.

Guess what? You're still wrong. Guarantee is not "150 to 180," it is just 180. Stop trying to add "150" to make your initial statement sound correct. It is either 90 pulls, or 180. Those are the guaranteed pity numbers, end of discussion.



Now you've made some wildly incorrect statements, but this may be the biggest and or certainly the most insulting. Trying to downplay the difference between 150 or 180 wishes as "mostly arguing small fractions."

Those "small fractions" of 30 wishes cost exactly 4,800 primogems or to put it more plainly $64.97. The $49.98 Genesis Crystals package plus the $14.99 one. But sure, "arguing small fractions."

I was actually trying to be generous to Genshin since the nature of it's "spark" is a bit weird with 90 being a statistical anomaly unlike other gacha where hitting 200-300 is not outside of variance ranges.

But, uhm, we agree? My point was always that the spark was higher than was being presented in this thread. The soft pity was a misleading number, and the actual full spark is the value that needs to be used. That number is 180 for the character banner and 240 for the weapon banner. (I.e. Genshin is a normal gacha and is not outside of any norm. It is the same, deep predatory gacha system as any other gacha out there.)

And it was probably improper for me to call the difference a "small fractions" as it is quite expensive, even if statistically the variance is small.
 
I am not sure this is true. Genshin's hard pity is quite high relative to it's income. It can take 3-4 months of play for a full 150 pity guarantee. The soft-pity may produce useless things or unwanted things and as such that isn't really a "high value".

The game also has terrible 4* (lower rarity) probability management as well as a god awful and predatory weapon banner system.

The game is very predatory but I think many brush it off because they themselves don't necessarily engage with it, but the systems are there.
What are you comparing Genshin to, though? The pity counter/income ratio being high or not is something that should be judged relative to other games.

IMO, there's a bigger discussion to be had about spending in gacha games, where I've identified two trends from my experience:
- a "predatory" gacha system, but with a rather complete F2P game outside of it if you can resist the lottery (Fate/Grand Order);
- basically free gacha, but the F2P experience is severely hampered (Azur Lane).

Now you've expanded your guarantee to "150 to 180," when before I corrected that you stated very loudly and very wrongly that it was 150. After adding a full 30 wishes to your initial incorrect statement, you still go on to argue against me. Why? Because this is the internet.

Guess what? You're still wrong. Guarantee is not "150 to 180," it is just 180. Stop trying to add "150" to make your initial statement sound correct. It is either 90 pulls, or 180. Those are the guaranteed pity numbers, end of discussion.



Now you've made some wildly incorrect statements, but this may be the biggest and or certainly the most insulting. Trying to downplay the difference between 150 or 180 wishes as "mostly arguing small fractions."

Those "small fractions" of 30 wishes cost exactly 4,800 primogems or to put it more plainly $64.97. The $49.98 Genesis Crystals package plus the $14.99 one. But sure, "arguing small fractions."
While factually correct, your post feels overly aggressive. This is a good topic, we should try to keep the conversation enjoyable.
 
What are you comparing Genshin to, though? The pity counter/income ratio being high or not is something that should be judged relative to other games.

IMO, there's a bigger discussion to be had about spending in gacha games, where I've identified two trends from my experience:
- a "predatory" gacha system, but with a rather complete F2P game outside of it if you can resist the lottery (Fate/Grand Order);
- basically free gacha, but the F2P experience is severely hampered (Azur Lane).

Yes I know, if you scoll back I brought up this very point of income vs. ceiling. Genshin's income is quite poor and it's ceiling is not very different from many other "big name" gacha and higher than some and lower than others.

It's months of saving to hit a full guarantee # of pulls.

I offered some other examples at 100-200 pulls ranges of sparks with various mechanics on carry over or not. Genshin also has another negative in it's gacha which is the split 33% probability on lower rarity units, which have no sort of pity. Every ten rolls is a 4* "guarantee" and every other has the same coin flip mechanic, but guarantee has a 33% split between three lower rarity units. It's quite bad and there is no guarantee at all. The weapon banner is also similarly bad and has an even higher pity ceiling. Many gacha games don't have weapon banners or do not split weapon/character banners.

Curiously, most games with more conventual sparks of "pull x times to get the unit for sure" also have lower rarity units in the spark pool if by some bizarre odds you get that unlucky.

When it comes to gambling pits, I think Genshin is actually one of the worst in the industry.
 
But, uhm, we agree? My point was always that the spark was higher than was being presented in this thread. The soft pity was a misleading number, and the actual full spark is the value that needs to be used. That number is 180 for the character banner and 240 for the weapon banner. (I.e. Genshin is a normal gacha and is not outside of any norm. It is the same, deep predatory gacha system as any other gacha out there.)

Ahh, ok you were attempting to be more generous. Hey I love Genshin but don't feel the need to give it any generosity lol, gacha is a cancer and even in shining examples of the genre like Genshin we can call it out. I both love the game and see very clearly the potential predatory nature of gacha and/or IAP (which is not unique to Genshin by any means).

While factually correct, your post feels overly aggressive. This is a good topic, we should try to keep the conversation enjoyable.

And if that is the case I apologize. As I've stated in one of the threads here before when revenue was being discussed, I've spent enough money in a single Genshin patch to buy the entire Famitsu Top 30 list at the time, so I might get just a tiny bit invested in Genshin Impact discussion.
 
There is something you forgot, this game has much less characters than other gachas.
For example, my little brother won every character he wanted to so far with 0$.
It's not hard to draw C0 characters if you're following banners(Of course, you shouldn't want every character, but even for this there are reruns)
C0 is enough for everything in the game, I would like to note this too.
Spiral abyss last floor is very hard, If you didn't grind for a very long time, your chances of passing are very low.
 
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Ahh, ok you were attempting to be more generous. Hey I love Genshin but don't feel the need to give it any generosity lol, gacha is a cancer and even in shining examples of the genre like Genshin we can call it out. I both love the game and see very clearly the potential predatory nature of gacha and/or IAP (which is not unique to Genshin by any means).

The 150, yes. :p It is indeed 90+90 for the absolute numbers hard pity. We agree on the gacha aspect.

There is something you forgot, this game has much less characters than other gachas.
For example, my little brother won every character he wanted to so far with 0$.
It's not hard to draw C0 characters if you're following banners(Of course, you shouldn't want every character, but even for this there are reruns)
C0 is enough for everything in the game, I would like to note this too.
Spiral abyss last floor is very hard, If you didn't grind for a very long time, your chances of passing are very low.

It's not actually that much (or at all) fewer than others. The general 2 units per (five) six weeks schedule isn't that different from Arknights or Uma's schedules. Counterside also adds only one rare unit per month and one to two 'generic' units.

Games like Fire Emblem Heroes add a plethora and Granblue Fantasy can add upwards of 6-7 per month, but these are different models. These sorts of games have very different value or dupes compared to the former three I mentioned.
 
I offered some other examples at 100-200 pulls ranges of sparks with various mechanics on carry over or not. Genshin also has another negative in it's gacha which is the split 33% probability on lower rarity units, which have no sort of pity. Every ten rolls is a 4* "guarantee" and every other has the same coin flip mechanic, but guarantee has a 33% split between three lower rarity units. It's quite bad and there is no guarantee at all. The weapon banner is also similarly bad and has an even higher pity ceiling. Many gacha games don't have weapon banners or do not split weapon/character banners.

Curiously, most games with more conventual sparks of "pull x times to get the unit for sure" also have lower rarity units in the spark pool if by some bizarre odds you get that unlucky.

When it comes to gambling pits, I think Genshin is actually one of the worst in the industry.
I dunno, I get what you're saying but at the same time I disagree. The Genshin pity system and rates feel okay to me. As a "gambling pit", it doesn't even compare to the hell that is FGO, where I start saving a year in advance for characters I still may not get.

The weapon banner is a trap and it sucks, yeah, but what if they didn't split the banners? Then you'd get spooked by a 5* SSR weapon instead of a character during your rolls, it'd feel even worse. At least this way they keep that shit away from my character pulls.

Personally, I end up paying a kind of subscription to the game (monthly Blessing + Battle Pass), because I see this as an investment for making 100% sure I'll get the SSR I really want. In exchange, I refuse to buy top-up primogems or whatever equivalent they sell, those rates are fucking gross.

gacha is a cancer and even in shining examples of the genre like Genshin we can call it out.
Gacha itself is fun, we just need a way to not pay obscene amounts to be able to enjoy it.
 
FGO is honestly the worst gacha especially the global version which is missing the spark. It has abyssmal rates, a lot of limited units and was very slow to add pity mechanics. Probably not the best comparison. If Genshin were to have the income rate of one of its contemporaries, it would probably be fine. It's just that primogems come so slowly that gacha pulls are absurdly expensive and that there's no way to get a post-launch 5 star outside of their specific banners. Most gacha games usually give enough free currency for at least one 10-pull for each event not counting an event shop or what is normally available for instance. The primogems from the monthly blessing would be free in most gacha games.
 
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