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Why Genshin Impact Doesn’t Listen To You
Doro44
Overview
This video explores why Genshin Impact, a popular live-service game, often appears to disregard player feedback. It argues that the game's design and monetization strategies are driven by a business model that prioritizes revenue and player retention over direct player requests. The analysis traces historical instances of community outcry, developer responses (or lack thereof), and the underlying financial and strategic motivations behind these decisions, suggesting that change only occurs when it impacts the company's bottom line.
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Chapters
- Genshin Impact is a live-service game that must balance player happiness with the need to encourage continued engagement and spending.
- Hoyo, the developer, is a business, and its decisions are primarily driven by financial goals, not solely by player satisfaction.
- Sometimes player desires and company goals align (e.g., new regions), but often they conflict (e.g., player desire for more free pulls vs. Hoyo's desire to sell pulls).
- The game operates with a specific design philosophy that the community has often pushed back against since its launch.
Understanding Genshin's core identity as a business is crucial to interpreting its design choices and player interactions.
Players want more free pulls, but Hoyo wants players to buy more pulls, creating a fundamental tension.
- Early player frustration centered on limited 'resin,' the energy system, as players wanted to play more.
- Mihoyo's response to resin complaints was a small increase in the cap, establishing a pattern of minor adjustments rather than fundamental changes.
- Friction, such as limited daily activities and timed banners, is intentionally built into the live-service model to encourage daily logins and create urgency.
- While some annoyances might be due to legacy code or technical limitations, many are deliberate design choices to maintain engagement and monetization.
Recognizing intentional 'friction' helps distinguish between genuine design flaws and features that serve the game's business model.
Limited daily commissions bring players back each day, while limited-time banners create FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).
- Upon launch, the character Zhongli was widely considered underpowered and disappointing for a 5-star character, leading to significant backlash.
- The strong negative reaction, particularly from the Chinese player base, prompted Hoyo to rework Zhongli's kit, making him exceptionally strong.
- This event created a precedent, making players believe their feedback could lead to significant character buffs.
- However, this was an exceptional case, influenced by Zhongli's importance to the Liyue region (inspired by China) and the game's early stage, where Hoyo felt more pressure to appease players.
The Zhongli buff demonstrated player power but also taught Hoyo a lesson about managing expectations and the potential risks of easily buffing characters.
Zhongli's shield was reworked to scale with HP and his kit was enhanced with resistance shred, transforming him into a top-tier support.
- Years later, the character Dehya was released with a kit considered weak, leading to another wave of player complaints and demands for buffs.
- Unlike Zhongli, Dehya did not receive any buffs, indicating a change in Hoyo's approach to post-release character adjustments.
- Hoyo became wary of enabling a system where every character release could become a 'war zone' of demands for buffs, potentially impacting future banner sales.
- The company now prioritizes fixing bugs and improving systems over direct character kit reworks.
Dehya's situation highlights a strategic shift by Hoyo, moving away from direct character buffs to maintain control over their monetization and character design.
Despite global #fixdehya campaigns, the character's kit remained unchanged post-release.
- The first Genshin Impact anniversary (2021) offered extremely meager rewards, causing widespread player outrage, review bombing, and a significant drop in the game's rating.
- Hoyo's eventual compensation was perceived as minimal and included items that were already planned for release, not genuine new rewards.
- This event taught Hoyo that while insufficient rewards cause riots, overly generous rewards set unsustainable expectations for future events.
- Consequently, Genshin's anniversary rewards have become more controlled and less extravagant, aiming for a balance that avoids both player anger and future entitlement.
The anniversary backlash and Hoyo's response illustrate how the company manages player expectations and uses rewards as a strategic tool.
The initial anniversary rewards included a web event with a small chance for a $5 Welkin Moon, 100k Mora for most, and a raffle for an iPhone, which was widely seen as insufficient.
- The game's increasing complexity, with more characters, team compositions, and specialized roles, demands more resources (pulls) from players.
- The amount of free pulls provided per game patch has not scaled adequately with the game's growing demands, particularly for free-to-play (F2P) or low-spending players.
- Modern character kits often require specific premium supports and weapons ('wheelchair comps') to be effective, making each pull more critical.
- The era of easily accessible powerful 4-star supports (like Bennett and Xiangling) is fading, replaced by a meta that increasingly favors expensive 5-star units.
This disparity between resource generation and game demands creates a significant challenge for F2P players, impacting their ability to keep up with the meta.
A patch offering only 60-65 pulls is insufficient to guarantee a single limited 5-star character, let alone the multiple premium units needed for new meta teams.
- Players have long requested more challenging, permanent endgame content beyond the Spiral Abyss.
- Hoyo stated they wouldn't create more endgame content similar to Spiral Abyss because it might cause 'excessive anxiety' for players who don't engage with it.
- This excuse is seen by many as illogical, as players who avoid current endgame content would likely ignore any new optional modes as well.
- The developer's stance suggests a primary focus on Genshin as a casual game, overlooking the desires of players who invest heavily in character building and combat.
- Later, after significant drops in revenue and player count, Hoyo introduced new endgame modes like the Imaginarium Theater and Stygian Onslaught, contradicting their earlier reasoning.
The 'excessive anxiety' explanation reveals Hoyo's reluctance to cater to high-difficulty endgame players, prioritizing a broader casual audience until financial pressures mounted.
Hoyo's official statement about not adding more endgame content due to 'excessive anxiety' for players.
- Hoyo's other game, Honkai: Star Rail, launched with notable generosity, including a free 5-star character (Dr. Ratio) for all players.
- This generosity in Star Rail contrasted sharply with Genshin's perceived stinginess over its first three years, leading to community frustration.
- The difference is attributed to market competition: Star Rail entered a more crowded genre and needed to be generous to attract and retain players, while Genshin faced less direct competition.
- Hoyo can be generous; they simply chose not to be with Genshin for a prolonged period because they didn't have to.
- The Zhongli buff and later QoL improvements were often exceptions driven by specific business needs, not a consistent pattern of listening.
Comparing Genshin to Star Rail highlights that Hoyo's generosity is strategic, not inherent, and is heavily influenced by competitive market pressures.
Giving away Dr. Ratio for free in Honkai: Star Rail while Genshin players felt limited to 4-star weapons as their best free rewards.
- Player feedback is only acted upon when it directly impacts Hoyo's revenue, reputation, or player retention (RRR).
- Annoyances that don't significantly hurt these metrics are often ignored, even if players complain loudly.
- Quality of Life (QoL) improvements have been added over years, but often feel slow and overdue, leading to frustration.
- Hoyo's focus on creating new content every six weeks may come at the expense of revisiting and improving older systems.
- The recent backlash over character designs in Natlan, despite significant player outcry and even internal employee support for change, was ignored because the associated character banners were highly profitable.
Understanding the RRR framework provides a clear lens through which to analyze Hoyo's responsiveness to player feedback.
The Natlan character design controversy, which garnered massive backlash and a petition, was ignored because the associated character banners generated significant revenue.
- Hoyo paid a $20 million settlement to the FTC for misleading players about loot box odds and violating children's privacy.
- The period of increased generosity in Genshin (free 5-stars, new endgame modes) largely coincided with the FTC investigation and a significant drop in revenue.
- This suggests that Hoyo's improved behavior was partly a response to regulatory scrutiny and financial pressure, rather than a genuine shift in philosophy.
- When external pressures (like regulators or declining profits) align with player demands, Hoyo is more likely to respond positively.
The FTC settlement and subsequent 'generous' period suggest that external forces, not just player voice, can compel Hoyo to change its practices.
The introduction of free 5-star selectors and new endgame modes occurred around the time of the FTC investigation and a revenue dip.
- The current F2P resource generation (60-65 pulls per patch) is insufficient for the game's demands, especially with new meta-defining premium 5-star characters and supports.
- The 'dollar value' of being F2P is decreasing, as players need more premium units to keep up, making the math of playing without spending no longer work.
- When the math of the game's economy breaks down for F2P players, it can lead to wallets closing, which directly impacts Hoyo's revenue.
- Hoyo doesn't ignore players out of malice; they ignore them because the cost of ignoring is lower than the cost of listening, until financial metrics force their hand.
- The community's power lies not in loudness, but in making ignoring them the more expensive option, primarily through financial impact.
The current economic imbalance in Genshin highlights that sustained player engagement and spending are directly tied to the perceived value and fairness of the game's resource system.
A patch offering insufficient pulls for new meta-defining characters forces F2P players into difficult choices, potentially leading them to stop spending or quit.
Key takeaways
- Genshin Impact's design is a strategic balance between player satisfaction and business objectives, with the latter often taking precedence.
- Intentional 'friction' in the game's systems (like resin limits and timed events) is a deliberate part of its live-service business model.
- Player feedback only reliably leads to change when it demonstrably impacts Hoyo's revenue, reputation, or player retention.
- The Zhongli buff was an anomaly, not a precedent, and Hoyo has since become more resistant to direct character power buffs post-release.
- Hoyo's generosity is strategic and influenced by market competition, as seen in the contrast between Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.
- The game's resource generation (free pulls) has not kept pace with its increasing demands for premium characters, creating a challenge for F2P players.
- External pressures, such as regulatory investigations and declining revenue, can be more effective motivators for change than direct player feedback alone.
- Ultimately, for Hoyo to 'listen,' ignoring player feedback must become a more expensive business decision than addressing it.
Key terms
Live Service GameMonetizationFriction (in game design)ResinGachaConstellationsQuality of Life (QoL) improvementsEndgame ContentF2P (Free-to-Play)MetaRRR (Revenue, Reputation, Retention)
Test your understanding
- How does Genshin Impact's business model influence its design decisions regarding player requests?
- What is 'friction' in a live-service game, and why does Hoyo intentionally include it in Genshin Impact?
- Explain the significance of the Zhongli buff and why it was an exception rather than the norm for character adjustments.
- What factors determine whether Hoyo responds to player feedback, according to the video?
- Why has the amount of free pulls provided in Genshin Impact become a point of contention for players, especially F2P users?