I really do like Mtashed as a content creator for Genshin Impact. However, the above is emblematic of what I had written previously. I am not surprised there was no “last minute surprise” they were hiding (and I can’t believe there are some still holding out hope something may eventually happen). It’s time to WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE ALREADY! Larger content creators can amplify their message BOTH ways; generally speaking, the effect of multiple larger content creators have been amplifying things towards the negative with regards to the anniversary rewards “drama” and the burnout factor.
All of these folks are very aware the tight rope they are walking with wanting to make a stance, their own justifications for continuing to play (to create content that has made many of them bank), and yet, feeling more constrained with creating content for the game when many of them, burn through it quickly.
I have a simple saying; don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Now if any, is the best time to take a LONG BREAK from creating or streaming Genshin Impact IF one feels very strongly that miHoYo is “ignoring” the community regarding the first anniversary. For myself, it is par for the course with these game companies besides the occasional patronizing PR. From my personal experience, Genshin Impact has enough RPG elements, BUT it is also a deliberate design decision to not make it more complete (where you can level characters normally, where chests can respawn, where the open world they’ve designed is made to be relevant, where you have actual dungeons and a host of other endgame activities to engage in.
No, the main design premise of the game IS around the gacha mechanic, and enticing players towards pulling for characters (and then building them up with resource constrained materials). That’s the carrot that many have fallen hook, line, and sinker for because miHoYo did a decent job with the Jedi mind trick whenever they unveiled a new character. I’ve long given them feedback on their surveys to make better use of the game world they’ve put time into creating and producing; it’s fallen on deaf ears because it is clearly not a core design objective. Each region is a means to an ends; tell the story, make it explorable generally once, and utilize it for daily commissions. That’s also why you have these one and done domains versus making them replayable (as an alternative method to acquire materials).
Once you come to this realization, you “learn” how to play the game within these parameters. It’s why I kept my main account self-capped at AR35 over this first year or why I didn’t speedfarm all of the chests; Mondstadt and Liyue aren’t even close to 85% complete for me on this account. My AR56 account however has both of those regions mostly complete because I use that account as a test account for whatever characters end up being pulled (and yes, it has been the luckier one with RNG except losing the 50/50 for Zhongli on both original and re-run banners). But I haven’t even started Inazuma yet on this account (whereas I am only keeping up on my AR35). My AR55 is completely free to play and is falling behind with the main story quests.
Thus I actually have all of the character story quests still locked on my self-capped AR35 (giving me a whole lot of stuff to still do). I’ve taken this “no rush” approach because this gacha mechanic game requires no rushing if you aren’t a content creator (and if you are a content creator, the lack of things to do should be self-apparent). The only time you need to keep up is with these time-limited events that are thrown out as filler. And once all of the Inazuma islands and the story quests for the region are released, the game is going to be in a similar holding pattern as it was with Mondstadt and Liyue. It realistically should not take miHoYo nearly 8 months to launch a new region especially if you have multiple teams working in parallel. But their development and production pipeline is what it is.
The question that I see popping up is “does miHoYo care?” The brutally blunt answer is NO. The leadership/executives care about our money yes, giving good reviews, being positive on social media about the game. The success of the game this past year has given them the “too big to fail” attitude; I mean you see this on FULL DISPLAY with the amount of money they spend on real-life props and displays when they have a presence at some major events in China. That is called HUBRIS. Blizzard Entertainment is a state side example of what it can eventually turn into, and miHoYo is on that same path because they are clearly showing they do not value the goodwill of their player base and player communities.
Holding out HOPE is a fools game because you are only going to kid yourself that the company will actually listen. The only thing the executive leadership “listens” to is the echoing sounds of the empty coffers from customers voting with their wallet. If the larger Genshin Impact content creators want to see miHoYo take player feedback seriously, they need full stop take a break from having anything to do with the game where the numbers start being affected (where management will start to take notice). The same has to occur with those who whale (whom are we kidding though, this has a lower probability of happening because the whale/leviathan demographic operate in their own reality distortion field).
Sunk-cost fallacy is just that. The money anyone puts into a game should never be looked at as an investment. It’s an entertainment expense for ones personal enjoyment. You don’t go to a nice restaurant, spend a decent amount on drinks, appetizers, main meal, and dessert, and expect the restaurant to continue delivering all of that once you’ve paid your bill, and left. That’s called entitlement. And that’s a core part of the gaming industry where many who spend money for/in games, feel it is an investment that they cannot step away from (and they end up trapping themselves into this abusive relationship). I personally don’t expect anything back from gaming companies because they are all inherently dysfunctional and greedy. It’s one of the only industries where customers throw money at the companies regardless of how predatory they are.
Is it nice when they do give back something as a sign of their appreciation for your patronage? Of course. But I also know how the leadership/executives at these companies are greedy SOB’s who care about image, awards, platitudes, and their own bank accounts first. They know how much BS they can get away with because that’s long been a thing in the gaming industry.
Genshin Impact is fun and entertaining so long as one is cognizant of its design emphasis (gacha mechanic and business model supercedes all of the RPG elements). The cadence of actual content (like new regions and their associated story quests) is what it is, with the bulk of events in between, being filler content to hold players over. Speed running this game is speed running to get to nowhere and bored, really quickly.
Myself, I’m a nobody so I’ll continue to play as a Welkin’s and occasional battlepass player on my AR35 (because that is a rounding error as far as miHoYo is concerned when they get whales and leviathans throwing thousands of dollars at them per month) since it’s a small entertainment expense.
UPDATE: miHoYo is purging complaints from various platforms including their official Reddit, official Discord (banning users for toxicity), their Hoyolab community site, several Chinese forums. They’ve also disabled the in-game signature ability. Eventually, they will start banning those who are trolling some of the community events. The way company management is handling this is indicative of a much deeper cultural and societal issue (where it is an almost instinctual reaction to silence critics). This all proves my point that the company itself, does not care to actually engage with the community (and why hoping that they will do something, is a fools errand). The ball is in the influencers court in terms of making a dent in the metrics (MAU, concurrency, whale levels of revenues), if they really want to leverage their influence. I get Mtashed conflicted feelings (how it changed his life in terms of financial stability, loving the game but not how miHoYo has been handling all of this). It’s just better IMHO to put the game down for awhile, and cover/promote something else rather than continuing to stream and make video content for it. Normal players review bombing the game on various app stores is only a temporary measure since there are mechanisms in place for that type of feedback to be removed.
I again view all of this as unsurprising, and that miHoYo will stand its ground until they see whale/leviathan revenue (not the rounding error Welkin and battlepass stuff) fall off a cliff (which likely won’t happen). Additionally, it is a somewhat humorous sideshow for myself watching the company and the most vocal parts of the community, burning it down to the ground.
