Gacha For Dummies: A Guide to Genshin Impact
- alexandriagohhy
- Jan 29, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 31, 2021
Assignment 1 - Writing a Newspaper Feature (30%)
Turnitin Report: 2%
Written by: Alexandria Goh Hui Yi
January 31st, 2021
“It is what it is. If I get lucky, I get lucky. If I don’t, at least I tried.”
It all seems so magical at first. A brand new (and rare) 5-star character is splashed on the front of the banner, accompanied by three 4-star characters. The words “Rate-Up!” are in gold and followed by “Probability Increased!” so of course you’ll have a chance right?
All you have to do is just click “Wish” and these characters are guaranteed to come home!
Or so they say.
The animation begins and you hold your breath in anticipation, hoping for a glimmer of gold for a 5-star but instead you see purple - a 4-star. Sighing in disappointment, you click through your rewards and all you receive is a weapon. “One more won’t hurt right?” you tell yourself and the next thing you know, you’re a couple hundred dollars poorer and cursing the game.
Welcome to Gacha For Dummies, a guide to your journey in Genshin Impact.
What is Gacha?
Gacha is a system that uses premium in-game currency in order to obtain rare limited units such as game characters or weapons. However, here comes the catch in gacha: you have a very slight chance or most of the time, no chance at all in getting. That’s how gachas getcha (pun fully intended). The term gacha in video games originates from the root word gachapon which you might have seen around and indulged yourself in one or two.
Gachapons are the Japanese version of capsule toys. It’s simple: you pop a coin or token in, twist the metal knob, and out comes a mystery object encapsulated in a tiny plastic ball. The concept of capsule toys originated overseas, however, gachapon is exclusively Japanese. By taking the concept of gachapon, gacha video games take it a step further by adding all sorts of powerful and rare collectibles that prompts players to make microtransactions that eventually become addictive. These microtransactions eventually continue and the next thing players know, they’ve already spent more than a few hundred.
“Just one more.”
Today we have hundreds of gacha video games, most hailing from Japan and China. Japan is especially huge with gacha video games, with titles such as Love Live and Fate Grand Order being some of the most popular titles and successfully draining the wallets of many players. Genshin Impact is the latest game on the road of wallet destruction for many players.
Local gamer and cosplayer, Emma Elizabeth, described how in her careless youth, she had spent over RM2000 over the course of two years for a gacha game known as Ensemble Stars, and more recently RM1000 on Genshin Impact. Another gamer from the same community, Nabil, admits to spending RM600 exclusively on Fate Grand Order.
In a poll of Japanese gacha players, the majority reported spending about $13 a month, with 2% of the players hitting the $380 mark. Then there are the few minorities, such as Japanese VTuber (Virtual Youtuber), Kanae, who spent around $866.92 “whaling” for Diluc, a 5-star character from Genshin Impact. Whaling refers to the act of players spending a great amount of money on in-app purchases. You could say that gacha is definitely part of an otaku’s DNA.
Gambling Impact
Crowned as the most successful international launch of a Chinese game ever, Genshin Impact, a free-to-play game created a fortune of $1.84 million on the iOS App Store merely two days after its launch. Since its release in Fall 2020, Chinese video game developer miHoYo has made a giant impact on the gaming industry, earning over $393million from mobile devices in just two months.
Genshin Impact takes players through the fictional world of Teyvat where players are free to explore at their own pace while completing quests and fighting bosses without being prodded to pay for stamina refills. How has this simple game enticed so many players to spend (or gamble) most of their money away? The answer lies in Genshin Impact’s personal casino, known as Wishes that cleverly utilizes gacha.
Players are given a free-to-play team upon the download of the game and while it is enough to carry you through the story without having to pay to upgrade, the game entices players with powerful characters or just really well-drawn characters. It’s simple, a banner with an SSR (Super Super Rare) 5-star character is splashed on the front screen, and alongside it are 3 other SR (Super Rare) 4-star characters. The emphasis on Limited Time makes you hover your cursor over the button and all you have to do is click. With that, the game of chance begins.
Not everyone is lucky. Most players are often left receiving lackluster 3-star weapons instead of the characters they wanted and that’s where the quote-on-quote gambling addiction begins. Emma describes how easy it is to succumb to the wishing system of Genshin Impact,
“Humans are humans, they are greedy. I am greedy when I see a hot man or lady that I want - that’s where money gets spent.”
Luckily for Genshin Impact players, a pity system exists where the game “literally takes pity on you” and gives you a character for free.
But even with the pity system, not everyone can be satisfied with a pity character. We live in a time where social media is our go-to for any life achievement and hence, gamers Emma and Nabil expressed how they’ve felt their share of disappointment when seeing others from the community “pull” the characters they’ve been grinding their effort for or spending money on. It is said that most of the time, some people receive such characters out of pure dumb luck and that really rubs salt in the wound for them; and for others, it leads them to another round of rolling.
Then why do people still enjoy playing gacha video games? Well, for some people like Emma, character designs, storylines, and character development are part of the reasons why she still continues. “In Genshin Impact, it’s an open-world experience so I choose what to invest my time and my “money” in,” she says, using air quotes as she mentions money. Nabil on the other hand adds that the gameplay is more interesting and worth playing over the gacha aspect.
Why is it so hard to resist rolling on the gacha you might wonder? To Nabil, it’s the “satisfaction in pulling the characters you wanted, as well as peer pressure”. Emma describes the feeling of euphoria when receiving the character as “striking the lottery”. She adds that for gamers, gacha is the same reason why many still purchase lottery tickets like Magnum 4D. You never know what you’re going to get.
As Genshin Impact’s popularity grows, many find themselves sucked into the world and at the same time, succumb to the microtransactions with false hope. Emma comments on the game’s rising popularity, “I’m glad that the “horror” of gacha is being shared upon and more people are aware of it,” she explains, chuckling heartily.
“But also, a lot more people are spending on it now so that’s a concern.”
That brings us to the million-dollar question.
Should you be spending on Genshin Impact?
It can become an unhealthy addiction but players should know very well what they’re getting themselves into. If they get into it, they’re bound to spend. What Genshin Impact cleverly does is that it doesn’t explicitly guarantee players anything - however, it simply convinces you that you have a chance. It encourages gambling.
“In most instances, you can still get by the game with the units they provide for free,” Nabil explains. “SRs and SSRs are usually just stronger units with nicer costumes or better abilities - which you usually don’t need, but it’s up to one’s playing style.”
There really is no need to spend on the game’s microtransactions as the game provides organic ways of earning the premium currency. As harmless as it seems to just spend a couple bucks on the premium currency, what this could build up to is an attitude where one just spends their way through the game without a second thought about where the money could be used - such as bills, rent, necessities, etc - which ultimately, builds an addiction. Self-control is extremely important when playing gacha games and especially more with Genshin Impact where the game’s storyline is rumoured to run for another two more years with even more 5-star characters and weapons.
However, if you feel compelled to try, the floor is all yours. The gods of gacha have never been fair and may the odds be ever in your favour in your next roll.
JRN60304 Creative Writing
Alexandria Goh Hui Yi | 0338228
POINT FORM WRITE UP
AUDIENCE
Gamers (casual and professional), students, tech junkies, game enthusiasts, streamers, gaming content creators
PURPOSE To highlight the gacha system used in Genshin Impact and its spending power.
PUBLICATION POTENTIAL
WIRED Magazine - Culture section
REFERENCE LIST
Aubrey, D., 2020. Sometimes I Love Genshin Impact, And Sometimes I Hate It. [online] TheGamer. Available at: <https://www.thegamer.com/love-hate-genshin-impact/> [Accessed 12 January 2021].
Hornyak, T., 2017. Gachapon: Tracing the evolution of Japan's colorful toy capsules. [online] The Japan Times. Available at: <https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2017/08/19/lifestyle/gachapon-tracing-evolution-japans-colorful-toy-capsules/#:~:text=On%20Feb.,novelties%20made%20with%20scrap%20plastic.> [Accessed 12 January 2021].
Jiang, S., 2020. Cultivating a Healthier Relationship to 'Genshin Impact'. [online] Vice.com. Available at: <https://www.vice.com/en/article/93w378/how-to-play-genshin-impact-without-getting-gouged-by-microtransactions> [Accessed 12 January 2021].
Paez, D., 2020. How 'Genshin Impact' made a despised video game genre irresistible. [online] Inverse. Available at: <https://www.inverse.com/gaming/genshin-impact-gacha-game-meaning-definition> [Accessed 12 January 2021].
Sinha, R., 2020. Genshin Impact Generated $393 Million Revenue on Mobiles Since Launch. [online] Gamingbolt.com. Available at: <https://gamingbolt.com/genshin-impact-generated-393-million-revenue-on-mobiles-since-launch> [Accessed 12 January 2021].
Medium. 2018. The History of Gacha in Video Games. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/@john_23522/the-history-of-gacha-in-video-games-2f5640a3160d> [Accessed 12 January 2021].
Vicente, V., 2020. What Exactly Is a “Gacha” Video Game?. [online] How-To Geek. Available at: <https://www.howtogeek.com/465429/what-exactly-is-a-gacha-video-game/> [Accessed 12 January 2021].
INTERVIEWEES
Emma Elizabeth (Frostkieran)
Nabil Abdulaziz
TURNITIN REPORT - (2%)
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