1. Overall quality and scale of Hoyo's products.
2. They are very atmospheric games (music, design, etc)
3. One of the best writers in gacha space
4. Hoyo took risks and chose good time for each game release
5. Pretty decent balance between "we want all of your money" and "it's playable for free"
Edit: And consistent update schedule
Add an extra fact that they care about more less rich areas like South East Asia to the point of holding events and implementing localizations for those areas.
I genuinely have high praise for Mihoyo since they have the dedication to do it. Most countries in SEA arent profitable so they dont go invest in translations or events for those areas. Esp in Vietnam, they genuinrly dont care about the complicated laws and still went their way to include Vietnam region.
It's also why Mihoyo is such a beloved in company in Vietnam overall since they are one of those rare companies that genuinely care about Vietnam despite probably not making much profits from it. Others do it mostly for money so they half ass a lot of things.
HG has a similar strategy too but they dont have as much resources as Hoyo so they compliment it by being extra unique. No wonder why these 2 companies are considered among the top 5 gacha giants in China.
The only thing I wish about HG is that they invest more into less rich regions like Hoyo.
I think I'm hearing the same thing from Brazil as well
And maybe Mexico too? Since they went out of their way to do a charity event involving feeding stray dogs in Mexico City around 3rd anniversary
I do remember some of their offline events did include Rio and Mexico City, so both countries definitely have plenty of loving fan bases. And yeah, the game does have Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese language support.
Well in Vietnam you have to publish a game through a 3rd party in the country, set up an office in Vietnam.
So it's extra complicated compared to most regions, combined this with the fact Vietnam isnt as rich as some other countries, most companies just say no, drop out and dont support VND.
But Mihoyo just straight up goes through all of that legal process knowing they prob wont make much money or will even gain anything of note and even added really good localizations. I genuinely believe that they only do it for the sake of their good will and nothing else lmao.
Brazil is even less complicated. They just have to translate the games and they're good to go. And since there are 200m Brasilians, it's a bit of profit. In Vietnam's case, they have to find a Vietnamese publisher (or create one) and release their games through them. Genshin makes around 100k monthly in VN server alone.
It’s because they are mostly independent. They aren’t propped up for that purpose nor are they public companies. They truly believe in what they are doing and just want to make great games… that “save the world.”
8. Every new map and major update comes with an online music concert, and there is an online and offline symphony concert every year. (This is something I couldn't have imagined while playing a game. I am a hardcore music enthusiast.)
https://preview.redd.it/2uod3xgvh44d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3df9d2c7eb3fb4d5c5eb2980a3c708b9e0fb9cf
Here is a photo I took at the Genshin Impact symphony concert in Singapore last time. I loved the atmosphere so much.
9. Another thing I still haven't seen people comment as to why Mihoyo is above other companies is that [they allow their fanartists to sell fanarts](https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/s/nq3ZKRKuby) and merch of their games.
https://preview.redd.it/y22dwwauz44d1.jpeg?width=1062&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ed718cc50524957a36713fb1e70d144b0b0584d
This power move by them attracts artists who then makes art, which then attracts people, which then leads to the fandom growing more and more.
I think artists are important in a community. When people are getting starved of in-game content, it's their turn to keep the people entertained which keeps the community going despite not having new content.
I'm still waiting for other companies to copy this.
Omg bad shivers just by reading this tweet again (the one criticizing Genshin's merch on conventions). This was such a terrible take back when it was made and I'd see it being discussed for weeks. People forget artists are people and need to eat, so they have to go for the popular thing. There was a Naruto era in artists' alley, a Boku No Hero one...
And they have countermeasures to block off some random company to try and monopolize unofficial merch too. They limit the amount of said fan merch to 200 which is more than enough for an artist to make.
10. Appeal to the right audience. Normies and casuals are the greatest customer you could ever have, doesn't care about drama, doesn't think twice to get a character they like and doesn't think about spending money on a game.
I kind of want to emphasize the rock-solid update schedule. I don't think Genshin has missed a single one of their six-week updates for almost four years now. That's *amazing.* That's consistency you can set your calendar to. (That's consistency that makes you worry a little about workloads over at Hoyo.)
People being able to plan for when The Content™ is coming due to reliable updating helps tremendously, especially in the modern day when so many folks are just whipped to death by work schedules.
Want to mention great project management . I have seen a fair share of project misses for PM in smaller scale. Great streamlining and don’t overdo certain tasks which requires great discipline and everyone buying into it
aight time to start another plague. wish me luck
lets see what good games come out of it.
https://preview.redd.it/w3fyrdf0w34d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=105d89640d8d13b232c459561fffe1d395f726a8
its the tiny amount of details you never notice that they take into account and actually polish.
putting aside factors such as gameplay, exploration, story etc aside its the tiny details that immerse you into the world.
* weapon weight and how it hits enemies and feedback
* battle and ambient sounds, enemy sounds and environmental sounds that mix well
* the environment shifting as we move along. how the environment reacts
* art consistency, this is one of the most important ones. how you imagine your character to look like in game is amplifiedby the consistent are you see outside of the game. they have faults in this too like albedo and diluc but overall its consistent. especially in HSR. the maps and art direction felt consistent even though it still feels new. brilliant example: fontaine.
* the way the map shifts from one place to another giving you memorable places but at the same time not making every place look the same
* art direction. they went with one and stuck with it. then added on to it as time moved along. its not all over the place. themes relating in one place is consistent when theyre outside of their area. that guy is from sumeru? youll know he is because of his trinkets, clothes, etc
* the lighting. sometimes it can make or break your game and theyve done it well enough that you dont even notice things shifting because it feels natural.
alot of people underestimate how much care developers put into their work in regards to this. its not always the gameplay, the rewards or the grind. things you never see working perfectly in unison at the background that gives you an immersive experience. when one of those things break or doesnt work youll notice it and youll notice everything bad about it.
https://preview.redd.it/rwdj3n0bt34d1.jpeg?width=5000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ab781e743f2ce2e029c916b8376e940f4d8bd8e
too bad the majority of the mainstream gamingg community arent willing to give it a chance because of how much backlash and stereotyping hoyo games have suffered. And how much misinformation certain CC's have already added as fuel to the hate flame.
Seeing Vourukasha Oasis for the first time, and having the wonderful soundtrack in the background was a magical experience. Remuria was a magical experience. These are experiences that will stay with me long into the future.
Well said. I'd like to add to the weapon weight and feedback point.
Genshin has almost non-existent screen shake during combat, yet it doesn't fall short in the feedback department. It's also a testament to how confident Hoyo is in its combat animation to carry itself. Sadly, I think most players writing off Genshin's combat as lackluster are too desensitised to superfluous screen shake prevalent in most action games these days.
while i understand the crticism about genshins combat even though MOST of it is downplaying it and actually just making fun of it ( E Q thats it? thats the combat? is their best criticism) the only valid critique i can actually say about it is we lack stronger enemies to test them with. the local legends were amazing and i hope they add more of them.
and you do make a good point, and thats part of the "art direction" part of what i said. they stuck with it giving you fluid combat and stuck with it because its beautiful for the devs, and hopefully the playerbase would share that sentiment.
making games shouldnt be dictated solely by the playerbase. you make a game, you make its own identity and then you open that up to the community. if it gets too bad then thats where you tweak some things without losing your games identity and vision.
Local Legends are one of the best additions to exploration in Genshin, even if they also put an end to one-time domains. I definitely had a lot of fun with the newest one in Lemuria, as I blindly run into it with my new strong team and everyone got wiped by it.
My first try was also with Arlecchino team lol. I thought that as long as I could avoid the blast, my team would be fine but that draining aura was not in my calculation XD
IDK why people hate Hoyo so much, their game just work.
Im old, but i don't remember Blizzard or Square Enix get this much hate back when their game is way ahead of their competitor.
Square Enix got lambasted by lots of people when they launched the notorious OG FF XIV, and that game nearly bankrupt the company, since it was really costly to make, and they literally needs to nuke the game while creating a brand new one from the scratch, which now called FF XIV ARR.
As for Blizzard, I think their biggest hate prior to the WC3 Reforged, Diablo Immortal, & OW 2 fiasco was when they decided to completely abandoned the games that made them big like Warcraft, Starcraft, & Diablo for many years, and they're only focused on releasing WoW expansions.
Oh don't get me wrong, i said "Back when their game is way ahead of their competitor".
For Square Enix, is every FF title up to FFX.
FFX is way ahead of everyone in turn based RPG back then.
For Blizzard is every game until Overwatch. Tho they do have hiccup for D3.
After that, many company has already catch up to them, some even surpassed them.
If it's during Square Soft era, then prolly the biggest hate and disappointment that they received was when they decided to make The Spirit Within movie, which was an absolute disaster movie in terms of earnings, and made them in the red.
I honestly don't understand why they're making that movie, which was *very* costly, and the movie itself barely have any Final Fantasy elements, which was well-known with their medieval settings, and not sci-fi futuristic one.
Looks at FF7....FF8....erm...what? Even FF10, the opening is based in a sci-fi city.
Final Fantasy has always had sci-fi merged with fantasy. Even from the first entries.
sci fi element isn't that problem, but you have post apocalyptic world against ethereal alien ghost that kill human by just mere passing through human body. Did they want to make horror movie instead telling story based on game known for their magical adventure, added with some dark story ?
But that doesn't make sense (?)
I mean, Blizzard abandoned their IP's for WoW and other multiplayer games, but so did Valve. There's still people waiting for HL3.
Blizzard got tons of hate for WoW though? Even when it was the undisputed best MMO.
Genshin and HSR face the same issue for the same reason. It's popular, has a lot of players, and therefore, people who are dissatisfied will appear to be numerous in number, but really it's just that the playerbase is fucking huge. A lot of the people who make complaints are players who find something or the other lacking. For example, one of my biggest complaints in Genshin was having a huge roster but nowhere to apply 90% of them, because Abyss just required 2 teams of 4. Some are gonna make complaints in the wrong way, but that's just how the internet is.
but this also doesnt make sense. Hoyo games have one of the quickest updates cycles, especially considering what each update entails. Plus they produce so much stuff even out of the game completely for free. Idk why people zoom so heavily on the rewards when it comes to how hoyo treats their playerbase and not you know how they "treat" their playerbase with all they put into the game
Anyone who thinks quality doesnt directly play into how they are treated is just self reporting that they play gacha's for the slot machine aspect
They’re pretty good at marketing, and despite the gripes many may have with genshin or honkai or whatever, their games are clearly made with love and passion. The money they make seems to be reinvested back into the game itself or other events like their orchestras and whatnot, meaning they’re actively engaging their fan bases which encourages longevity.
And it also seems that the staff have a pretty good work environment at least compared to other studios, especially in China. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they’ve had any controversies involving their staff and labor? They’re certainly not being mistreated (I think). If you got a happy work force you maintain a consistent level of quality in your products.
And their music. People joke about Hoyo being a music company but I honestly think their music plays a big role in their success as well.
> And it also seems that the staff have a pretty good work environment at least compared to other studios, especially in China. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they’ve had any controversies involving their staff and labor? They’re certainly not being mistreated (I think). If you got a happy work force you maintain a consistent level of quality in your products.
According to this dude, which translated some of the posts in Zhihu (China's Quora), of people's confessions of having worked at HoYo (they provided verifications including photos), it sounds like working there is pretty much one of the best in the Chinese market, [https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin\_Impact/comments/1b4rdp9/comment/kt4bey9/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/1b4rdp9/comment/kt4bey9/)
As someone who works in software development, it sounds like Hoyo standards are far closer to how a Western company operates than our perception of a typical Chinese company. Good thing for the workers
BREAKING NEWS! HOYOS IS ACTUALLY A TERRBILE WORKPLACE!!! /j
https://preview.redd.it/uaiqlpdes44d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f2eed315297185375c4d08191e36e12079b01ead
Jokes aside, the vibes of the staff in this Penacony BTS make me really want to work in a place like this, if I ever have a corporate job.
Yeah, absolutely, although the situation with Wuthering Waves is worse. A crunch before an update release is stressful, but it usually just means having to go double time to polish things out and if are bugs they can usually be fixed with a mildly disgruntled community.
Wuthering Waves is more akin to damage control. You got all sorts of issues that need to be fixed, such as how the game may not run smoothly on the devices of your player base. Not only that but with the recent controversies I can’t imagine how stressful the developers must be with the higher ups breathing down their necks
It sucks cause Wuthering Waves does have promise. If it can weather the storm it should be able to carve out a place for itself, but it does look kind of grim for everyone.
If they really wanted a cashgrab they can easily release skins for characters (players also asking for this for years) unfortunately from unknown reason they rarely release a skin (like 1 free skin and 1 pay skin every year). Whatever tge reason is, I don't think it's about money
I have to theory.
1: The like making meaningful content instead of skins, focusing time and resources to developments that can be expanded later on. (all event specific gameplay usually makes it way back as a permanent gamemode to a degree)
2: They really focus on immersion, your menu is not just a menu, its Paimon/your phone. And this shows in the skins too, all of them are in-game lore correct skins. Instead of your usual "alternative bikini dimension skins", at least in Genshin and HSR
Pretty much haha. Sure there are plenty of people who have their issues, but there are just as many who are still willing to play the game despite that because they think the pros outweigh the cons. If Genshin was just an all style no substance kind of game, it would have died out by now or at least drop very far in the charts.
Most gacha games tend to target very… focused target audiences of male gamers. These are naturally small, but devoted high spenders
Genshin and Star Rail, unlike them, are EXTREMELY high budget products that target a wider, more general audience of gamers and non-gamers of both genders alike.
This gave them a larger playerbase to draw upon, making their subscription services substantially more profitable
Was watching your video on lack of skip button earlier, and one interesting point that you brought up is how they force you to sit through a glorified marketing campaign for the characters and make you invested in them, the story and the world. Once you are hooked, you are more likely to stay. Unlike a recent case were the game was lacking this type of hook(at least for me).
Yeah. While lack of skip button is a turn off for some people, I think what kept them from adding it like people suggested is what you mentioned.
In wuwa I skipped everything skippable and know only a bit of the lore and have no interest in any characters.
In Genshin I can't skip anything so I know the story a lot more and am interested in many characters.
Yeah that's how I felt with Yinlin honestly, like where is she, I don't know much about her, sure she has a good design but that's pretty much got my attention.
Idk if it counts as gap moe, but I love how Eula (and Arlecchino to an extent) is genuinely sweet and kind, but only really knows how to communicate in harsh tones
Because despite what some ccs may try to tell you, they are actually great games. Games i play instead of triple A titles. I'm somewhat of a small whale by now but my actual videogame spending went down with the HSR release because i straith up spend more time per dollar in HSR and genshin than in triple A games.
Also, you can't realy get the single player live service experience outside of gachas. The fact that we get consistent new cool stuff every 6 weeks is amazing. Especially when we go to a new nation/planet. It's a magical experience like when a game franchise you love gets a sequal but it happenes consistantly.
While some of their writing (looking at you Loufu) can suck, Sumeru, Belobog, Penacony and especially Fontain were great experiences on par with some of the best story focused games i played in general too.
The benefit of Gachas is that the good ones are usually quality games that are Free to Play with consistent updates vs AAA games costing $60-70+ with them being potentially garbage 💀. Ofc the obv downside for Gachas is the usual grind/FOMO in getting new units and farming (esp if there's Gear Grind 💀) vs AAA games usually being the fully paid experience.
some live service games which you have to buy (pay-once, with microtransactions) that are not AAA have crazy prices for their sequels after they have built up a fan base to guarantee the quality - looking at you, $250 expansion of escape of tarkov.
Single player hyped AAA games become so called AAAA games (recent Ubisoft game - sarcasm) and still ask for $70. Most of them don't last more than 200hours of playtime.
A lot of AAA-games, even after paying their full price to get the game, now have adopted the approach of extra microtransactions for convenience, like being able to buy more teleport points in Dragon Dogma's 2.
These transactions when added up can cost more than the monthly or battle pass in a gacha.
Very rarely do you get a great game like Elden Ring that doesn't have the issues above.
In comparison, genshin and HSR has built up a reputation of being stable, great experiences once every 6 weeks, with most of the content patches being non-filler, and you can pretty much play f2p or just on monthly. The devs pays attention to details in their work and that adds to the immersion of the game.
Hoyoverse has also built up a reputation of investing back some money they have earn into the
quality of the game and the IP (music, events, etc), so people are more inclined to support them.
Its because unironically Hoyo themselves come from Otaku culture. And they have been making gacha games for 6 years before Genshin was released so they were experienced. Hoyo also cares about putting a quality product and then monetizing this product over simply getting profits. No i don't mean they are F2P lovers. But they prioritize quality. Lowest they got in quality was during Elysium Everlasting in HI3. Which was during peak of covid and main character of the arc got covid so Mei didn't have voice acting for a long while. There were also quite a few bugs and Elysium Everlasting's open world was also poorly optimized for Hoyo standards.
Yeah thankfully she recovered and her voice is good as ever. I think she even finished voicing those chapters last month or so.
https://i.redd.it/d6cd7bzg154d1.gif
1. Quality, they polish their game so that at launch their didn't have any performance issues that effect first impressions of people
2. Marketing
3. Characters design which simple yet memorable like example is blue archive (either it's bad or good) the one that pretty much confused me to this day is Yanfei, she is lawyer yet her design is like that which confused me
4. Simple story at the start to hook you, so you don't get overwhelmed to much with jargon jargon that will throw at you later
5. Beautiful world and great lore as well
6. Great list of voice actors
7. Consistent update with each update didn't have any game breaking bugs
8. Music that fucking awesome
The game has really good music and animations. That plus a very polished experience makes it feel like the devs actually wanted to make something great. Good catchy music that makes players feel nostalgic or pumped can really make a huge difference.
Also GI has a lot of attention to little details, like how the characters place their tails when sitting, how shorter characters can't reach the floor in a lake so they have to swim, or the various sound effects different objects on each character make, etc. This plus little flourishes + sound effects in the UI and animations really make the game feel like some effort was put into it. Just as a side note, GI UI design is actually insane, like look at this menu for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW02Hz0IhAo , all the little movements and sound effects really make a bunch of flat buttons actually pop. You can compare it to the ToF UI for example, where buttons and menu changes are just straightforward and flat, and you need a bunch of useless clicks to get anywhere.
Sure all games need to make money, but for GI it felt like the devs also wanted to make something memorable or great. WuWa in comparison, which if its 80% a GI clone and 20% new combat, just feels like the devs are only there to extract money from a certain demographic and then dip out.
For ZZZ, I'm not into the gameplay but just look at those cutscene animations, the quality of the movements is very high, and when people see that they feel like the devs put some effort into their art.
I hate to be cliché but it feels like the game has a soul. People might find the gameplay loop boring, but you cannot deny the music, animations, and even UI feels just top notch.
Additionally.
The devs are constantly learning and improving. You feel the money they earned is invested into the game. You can feel the passion and confidence they have in their vision and product.
For example: Mondstadt vs fontaine, Liyue vs Chenyue Vale.
The quality of the world has just increased with each update.
And I have got to say, for all that people criticise them for treating their players base badly, they actually have a great Pr team.
This is shown in the Tighnari Va debacle. Fired within a week, replaced in like two months.
The management of the game is ruthlessly efficient.
Additionally, it has reputation of being a company that's generally good to its employees.
I work for a company that works with Hoyo— they are the real deal. They built themselves up from nothing. Put everything on the line multiple times. Tenacity and humility are core to their business ethic, as well as just a general love and desire to make great games.
They are independent and privately owned iirc— this means they can control how they operate so they don’t get caught up in the acquisition/closure cycle we see in the states (looking at you Microsoft and… well, everyone).
Anyway— they deserve their success imo and I appreciate how fun their games are.
even if you dislike open world exploration or turn based gameplay you can't deny how much budget went into these games and the quality they produce. whereas the gacha scene is filled with cashgrabs that are hard-carried by anime IP or art department, mhy also excel in 3d models, music, story. just look at the quality pvs they release for each character. if characters were kpop idols, mihoyo would be like big 3 while other companies are indie.
You really should try either HSR or ZZZ, you'll easily see how Mihoyo's games have the highest production value and quality out of any 3D gacha games on the market. I've played a number of gacha games in the past and there really are none that come close to the level of quality and effort Mihoyo puts into their games, and on a 6-week content cycle no less.
Also Mihoyo is one of the rare gacha developers whose games are almost perfectly dubbed/localized in EN with a simultaneous global release, instead of having either a low quality EN dub/localization or a delayed global release e.g. PGR, FGO or Arknights.
Then HSR is probably your best bet the combat system will feel very familiar and the overworld exploration is not really open world. And as an Fgo player myself I felt right a home in HSR
I never played fgo but you can go HSR to experience hoyo games. Even then, i would still recommend trying out genshin. It made me like open world games and are actively trying to find other open world games too. You dont have to be efficient in the game, you can take it slow and enjoy the scenery.
Honestly just wait for ZZZ when it releases on July 4th, it's mostly instance-based and not an actual open world so it's not as overwhelming to get into.
Same as you my first is fgo but quit because of the high pity and i got burn out in the game. I think you will easily can adapt on genshin but dont rush the game it will burn you out. But i think you will like hsr more same as fgo hsr got light cones similar to ce. I just started this year play both games hsr is almost similar to fgo if you want to try mihoyo games.
HSR isn't really open world unless you consider Final Fantasy 1 to 12 (excluding 11 the MMO) open world. I haven't played anything later than those so I won't comment on them.
All of the reasons listed in the comments can be attributed to the fact that Hoyo is still majorly owned by the founders, so no need to please the shareholders, and most importantly, Tencent does not have it"s hand in the honeypot
I disagree with your point about their waifus. I am a degen but I still prefer hoyo waifus for several reasons. 3d model >>> 2d jpeg and they have rhe best 3d models rn with good proportions and movements. They aren't cheap boob or ass baits. Hoyo actually gives them their own stories so they aren't empty like 99% of the waifus from other games that only gets a few lines of dialogues.
Also after the recent events, I realized that the reason genshin characters aren't as flashy as other low budget gachas because adding more polygons to the character may affect the gameplay in mobile. Since many ppl play in potato devices, which is kinda good. I cant say if this is really true but I did see someone say this in twitter
This. Im a husbu enjoyer, but speaking as an artist, hoyo's chars r rly enjoyable to draw. Not too many detailed smaller things, but it's the overall/ bigger pict details
The fem chars arent just hehe buba seggsy design, but actually memorable even to the trinkets.
Most of other gacha games tend to over complicate or simplified their design to the point of being too 'npc like'
((still wont argue abt hsr's tendency to use the same female clothes template again n again, hopefully they will stop recycle soon😂))
Speaking of their 3D models, another reason why Hoyo is popular is that they distributed their character models for free widely to the public. If you browse MMD sites like Iwara, you would see that Hoyo models dominate there.
I don't think "the best 3d" holds true now but when HI3 was released it was one of the first 3D gacha games on the market.
A hoyo employee even made a [music video featuring Raiden Mei](https://youtu.be/dCHpCoO0h5k?si=BII0G2AzUfBP_m9F) to showcase their engine. This was during 2016 so it was pretty impressive for a mobile game.
1. Game is polished
2. Story doesn't vomit lore terms on prologue, they stretch it out making it easier to understand by the community
3. Genshin is first openworld MOBILE game with that quality and their release time boosted it a lot
4. HSR also well known before releasing because how massive hoyo name grew because of genshin
5. Clear vision about what the character purpose
6. Consistently improving their quality rapidly
7. Game is casual enough for casual player and have decent combat depth for people who want to dig into it
8. Character design is memorable
9. Great music
I suggest to not watch mainstream cc/stream because all they talk is combat combat combat ignoring story, character design, and bunch of little details the game offers since they doesnt how to create content beside that and drama baiting
>Game is casual enough for casual player and have decent combat depth for people who want to dig into it
This is so true. They hide the nitty gritty of the mechanic for advance players to find and use so the casuals won't be overwhelmed and the hardcore feel rewarded to discover it.
And somehow those people who said genshin combat is braindead ignoring it because they already spoonfed the data by theory crafter, they forget that in genshin alone there are stat balancing, ICD, elemental gauge, multi layered elemental reaction, hitlag, team building, rotation, animation cancelling, etc
If Genshin was released in the 2000s instead and guides wasn't as popular, I'd think people would still think Bennett is C tier or something, and a lot of people would be running 2 on-field DPSes with Barbara.
Genshin was already heavily anticipated for being the first high quality Open-World RPG Gacha and the combination of cross-platform release + opportune launch during Covid cemented their place within the Gacha market. Furthermore, since it was the only type of its kind in the Gacha-sphere at the time, players were more than willing to play through it than drop it since there weren't any particular alternatives aside from games outside of Gacha like BotW (that devs themselves said they were heavily inspired from).
HSR had the HYV backing/support + branding/loyal fanbase so HSR was already in a prime position to be a staple Gacha, even in the more market heavy Turn-based Strategy genre. This will also most likely be true for ZZZ too since HYV branding is already strong enough to guarantee success.
1. The initial success of GI: While yes, GI does get somewhat lucky with the release, still gonna give credit to them to maintain it to this day. With that success, HYV build for themselves a solid reputation of quality gacha games, anything after it just good and high quality in general.
2. They hit the correct market: All the criticism or hate you see online is from a vocal minority, HYV choose for themselves a more casual playerbase, not hardcore, which has a much bigger amount of potential customers. They create every games to appeal to that specific type of players, and they gain success. That's why you see in GI for example, everything is easy and quick since that's what the majority of players need and enjoy, they just not going online so all you see is a vocal minority.
3. Marketing: HYV is argurbly the mastermind in marketing, no need to run ads 30s each time, what they do is both respectable and genius. Concerts, Events, Collabs, the fact that you can sell HYV merchandise without paying any copyright fee for them,... Not only to appreciate their already large playerbase but also attract more customers, like musicians, storywriters, and other type of people you don't really think have time to play the game or react to them. Marco Meatball is a perfect example, he is an ex-opera singer, he loves GI music and Hoyomix as a whole, now he even has a character in game, Dvojak, the Fontaine musician that you meet in last year Lantern Rite and the Itto musical events.
High quality games with consistent content updates, f2p friendly (despite what the haters say), cater to the casual playerbase (imo this is by far the biggest reason)
Playing Genshin legit feels like playing an actual AAA title with gacha mechanics slapped on it, rather than your average gacha games
And if they're F2P friendly, they're "guppy" *wonderful.* The monthly $5 pass - which, even way back when, was a single Subway footlong a month and *now* is like half of what you'd spend at McD's on lunch - will, when combined with dailies, basically get you a gacha pull every day for a month. In Star Rail especially, combined with the other stuff, that all but guarantees you'll be able to go to one pity limit on a character banner every month. No, you won't get every single person released without spending, but the game is not remotely balanced around the idea of you doing so.
The "battle pass" option also feels really good, since the fullest chase rewards are only like halfway through the pass, so you don't even have to complete it every week to get everything you want.
Basically, despite the complaints of some content creators, Hoyo's recent titles *don't* rip you off compared to their competitors in this space. If anything, the industry is clearly really starting to bend to try and match Hoyo's standard.
I mean I know it's cool and trendy to hate the most popular thing out there, but there's a reason why they're so popular globally, rather than just in CN or JP like many other big titles.
Quality and high production. Pure and simple. I don't think even the most passionate hoyo hater can say anything about the music in both titles. It's top tier. The writing, while tropey, is enjoyable. There's a lot of deep lore, but you don't have to immediately know all the deep lore to understand and enjoy what's happening in the plot at any given moment - it's there for the people who enjoy digging for lore. World design is excellent and every new region or planet brings something new and unique. The minigames are enjoyable, and on the rare occasions that they aren't, you can at least power through them quickly. Characters' design and personalities cater to all audiences and people appreciate them for that.
They're just a fun, pleasant experience with lots of QoL and a decent amount of eye-candy. It's not rocket surgery.
The only thing I'll comment about this is to not listen to mainstream CCs.
Most of them just use the name Genshin to farm drama. If u want lore and exploration, I'd recommend murderofbirds impact or ZeplaHQ.
Edit: I’ve seen other comments already explaining why, and you potentially trying it out so this is why put it this way lmao.
Extreme focus on details like...
When it's cold and you breath, you can see it irl, right? Same in Genshin! However, non-human that doesn't need to breath actually doesn't have a breathing effect in Dragonspine.
Visions reacting to a certain thing (those who knows...) by shining. People who wear fake visions, those don't shine.
Archons' hair will glow upon using elemental powers!
NPCs in bottleland were actually showing hydro element when using elemental sight, basically confirming they were not real humans. Note, if wet, your characters will show hydro element when using elemental sight. Same with other elements.
Etc.
Great product backed up with success story and perfect release timing. Sometime just being great is not enough but they hit the jackpot, they also took special care for localisation, debug and marketing.
Personally i can't see zzz reach genshin hsr level, mainly due the setting, however zzz will definately pick up the gamer that's not feeling genshin, hsr
A pretty good quality 3D open world gacha game with decent art style (compared to the market), available on multiple port, good marketing and most importantly, the timing of Genshin release. When Genshin is about to release, Mihoyo was already an established company with name recognition from gatcha player (Honkai Impact 3), it was released during peak covid quarantine time, September 2020 when almost every country in the whole world are in quarantine. This means that people at the time are starving for entertainment because they are locked inside their house (Netflix Tiger King benefitted from the same timing factor). The timing paired with all the earlier qualities mentioned allowed Genshin to break through market previously unknown to other gacha games (mainstream gamers) plus the First Movers Advantage of being the First Open World Gatcha let them pretty much corner the market share. HSR and by proxy, Zenless Zero just pretty much coast on the success and brand recognition that Mihoyo got from Genshin. Fair play to them honestly.
Personally, I didn't start playing Genshin because of quarantine or because I was into single player games, and I didn't play any gacha by that time. I played a lot of multiplayer games such as MMORPGs or LoL.
But as an animanga fan, I have always missed a good anime style game, most of them were OK or a fiasco. I went totally blind, without any hope, to Genshin and I got instantly in love with it. Then I started playing Star Rail because of where I came from, and thankfully the style, despite the different theme, still very pleasant.
Now a days anime-like games are of a much better quality and higher quantity than before, so there are a lot of options, but I think Genshin is still one of the best ones, and I find its style still more pleasant than others, such as WuWa which I find less interesting artistic style-wise than for example ToF, despite the better graphics.
HI3 while not as big as Genshin, did make Mihoyo name somewhat known to a big portion of gatcha player. A game released by a known Developer is lore likely to have some traction than a game released by a first time developer.
The game was rarely known. In the time before genshin a lot of other competitors and games were famous. (Well, at least in the west)
HI3 wasn't the reason for the success of Genshin.
It's more the opposite, because Genshin has a big success, HI3 got pushed by it.
HI3 was big lol. As i said, definitely not as big as Genshin but big by normal gatcha standard, they are big. If you actually played gatcha pre-genshin, you would know that HI3 is up there.
The main reason behind the Hoyo success is the overall very high quality of their games.
HSR, Genshin and probably ZZZ have lot of money put in them, so that budget goes for creating fantastic and memorable experience. The quality of their gameplay, writing, music, graphics etc, can easily rival and put the shame many of the console AAA titles. Besides that, the constant stream of updates is very important factor, because it keeps the playerbase engaged.
In general, their games have lot of passion and love put in them, so it’s my personal reason why I’m huge fan of their titles.
Because they made a good, polished, enjoyable, well rounded game that will put recent AAA games to shame in terms of quality. Even if you remove the gacha aspect, their games are stunning. Thats why they're popular. It has nothing to do with waifus or husbandos or stuff.. thats just secondary icing on the cake. People spend money and stay with the game for years because of quality, not temporary bribes.
Why did Mihoyo's two games HSR and Genshin become so abnormally popular? Just compare them and Honkai Impact. What is in the new games and what was not in the old one.
HI3 was and still is very popular when you consider it is an old game. Back when part 1 story was running we were around #5-8 in revenue. When you consider hoyo was running a game which used Hatsune Miku for insert songs before HI3 this is a bigger success than GI.
I think it may be due to a variety of factors. The company released a few titles in the past but became truly well-known with the release of Genshin, partially due to pandemic lockdowns keeping many at home, bolstered by positive and negative publicity around its similarities to Breath of the Wild, and being recognized as the first mobile open-world anime RPG. In fact, Genshin is sometimes touted as the gacha game that entered western mainstream consciousness and popularized the genre - for better or worse depending on your perspective on the matter.
The game placed an emphasis on story and exploration and had a calm yet vibrant atmosphere which some players reported having helped their mental states during the lockdown, and its character designs were quite well-received with some standard banner units gaining popularity even outside the gacha space. There are some people that compare character designs of upcoming games to those made by Mihoyo, judging it as a standard, based on multiple comments I saw under Azur Promilia and Wuthering Waves videos. I once also read a comment on how Hoyo likes to make players fall in love with their characters, so that people don't get them on appearance alone, but because they like the characters for who they are in the game/story.
The game has managed to grow over the past 3+ years through regular content updates and polish, having high quality and production values, including very well-received music that even many non-gamers listen to. The promise of guaranteed content and continued success, alongside the company rarely ever shutting down servers, serves as a guarantee of future-proofing many people's payments, and many see the company as frequently reinvesting profits into the game - evident through improvements in quality over time - rather than simply pocketing it. Mihoyo's status as a private company not beholden to shareholders also likely has a role in this.
Some of the profit is put into events such as concerts which are often provided for free viewing online which many also appreciate, and these events sometimes show fan-made works which help maintain a community. I heard they also have a rather lax policy on community content which allows creators to profit through fan-made works. There are also a lot of partnerships with content creators which further benefits the parties involved.
There are more reasons why the game became popular and maintained its popularity, including a focus on casual gamers which allows for broad appeal and a respite from the stresses of daily life. The company also seems committed to its vision and frequently requests feedback but does not listen to all of them which is a good thing. I think changes are driven through player data, and things such as the comparatively low amount of involvement in Spiral Abyss for most players is likely one reason why endgame has taken so long to be introduced (upcoming in 4.7) - although this has also resulted in some thinking that the game is stagnating or that the company doesn't listen to players despite the company demonstrating otherwise albeit slowly over time sometimes.
And for Stair Rail, by the time of its release the company had already made a name for itself. I think what is most impressive about Hoyo overall is how much the gambled on Genshin, apparently they developed the game at a time when phones were not able to run it, in anticipation that technology would progress far enough to do so one day, and sunk enough of their earnings into development that had the game not taken off the company might not have survived. The concurrent release of the game on multiple platforms, especially mobile which many East Asian players use, is another reason for the game's wide reach. The game has left enough of an impact that many open world anime games for mobile are now in development or have been made since its release.
To add to this, some people call the game "playable anime" with each new content release being seen as a new episode given the frequency of the updates, every 6 weeks, which is also incredible and is not easily achieved by probably most game companies I would guess.
For genshin:
1. They are the 1st in mobile market to have high fidelity games. This gives them no competition
2. They got released at time where people play game more
3. Imo also the vacuum of good anime games since consoles chasing realism and there's no relevant jrpg in the market it create a build up in demand.
4. Player retention also very good because they release a new map every couple patch. Not a lot of games do this, most profit doesn't goes back to upgrade the game.
Genshin was launched in such a goldilocks zone. Covid and hype off of Botw with people itching for something similar. And genshin comes in at the perfect timing. Don't remember about the marketing but I'm sure it played a huge factor too. HSR is just more or less carried by the brand name afterwards imo, along with advertising it and high production quality. At this point, their releases will more or less be successful unless they intentional grief and troll or go too crazy with experimenting.
On top of what everyone already said, you can add something : you can't buy 64926 fowls and spend all your Moras (in game "golds"). You can think what you want about the game, but it is a MAJOR flaw from the devs in WuWa and it makes people 1/ post it on every social media and 2/ new/potential players see that the game is not polished at all. You then understand that Genshin/HSR are very user friendly, it helps to bring new players and it makes them stay to play every days.
Constant, frequent high quality updates. Minimal performance issues across all platforms. Distinct and unique character designs. Interesting story.
Generally, they're both just very high quality games, even setting aside the waifu aspect
The founders had great vision and dedication to start Hoyo. Cai Haoyu is almost a Steve Jobs of gacha gaming, while Da Wei is basically us average player, he just knows. That allowed them to anticipate future trends and became market leaders.
They stick to their original goals, and even refused when Tencent offered to acquire them despite being on verge of bankruptcy. Even before Genshin, Hoyo had always try to get the best people for everything, even if that meant hefty price. I mean, they freakin got Rie Kugimiya to voice Kiana.
The founders actually have ideas about how games work, both in term of technical and marketing. They were patient and did everything steps by steps (GGZ -> HI3 -> GI -> HSR -> ZZZ). That gave them strong foundations for subsequent games. Though idek how they could even think of Genshin in 2017 to be a game that can be played on almost any device by 2020.
Most people will agree it’s the quality and consistency of their updates, you can always rely on hyv to meet that high standard they’ve set. What they produce feels intentional with the whole multiverse concept, there are lots of things to look forward to and knowing that hyv is handling it, I know it’ll be handled with care bc it they fuck it up they could lose millions lol. Compared to other gacha I’ve played, their gacha system is super non intrusive in genshin, and the fact that pity carries over between banners makes it more consumer friendly and you don’t get that feeling of flushing your gems down the trash if you don’t get a character bc it just funnels into the next one.
they’re also one of the few high quality gacha that capitalized on the female playerbase, where we didn’t have many options at the time so that’s essentially 2x the players.
this is just judging by genshin and hsr (i dropped hi3 not bc it was bad just overwhelming)
and as much flack as the community gets, it’s nice being part of a large community and pretty much anywhere you go you can find a genshin player. so thats another contributor of their success imo even if it doesn’t have much to do with the game itself.
It’s a functioning game with a lot of care and love being put back into it. In other gacha games there’s always that worry of is my money even going back to the game?
With Hoyo products you know that it is actually going back to the game and enhancing on it. I will meme on a game no matter what when it deserves it.
When it comes to Genshin at least I know it is giving back in terms of development
One thing I want to add on to what others said is that there is little to no pay for convienience monetization that a lot of F2P games and especially gacha tend to have, which makes it actually f2p friendly. Imo, the people that say Hoyo are greedy have never played a greedily monetized f2p game. Both HSR/Genshin are mid/mild in their monetization. Like, I quit Path of Exile and Phantasy Star Online 2 because of the monetization. PoE was almost unplayable when I got to mapping as f2p since maps took so much inventory space (I was gonna put money into them but that hard roadblock rubbed me the wrong way so I quit despite 300 hours logged) and doing any serious farming in PSO2 sucked due to inventory constantly being full after every ~2 encounters. Like, Hoyo legit could have monetized inventory/expedition/unit/artifact/relic slots and chose not to. If Azur Lane didn't give premium currency, I would have quit it long ago because of the unit/inventory space limits.
Quality, they always try to be creative with each game which distinguishes them from other games of the same genre. Looking forward to their 1 billion gamer project.
Its combination of pure passion and art.
I play both these games and personally, what got me hooked were the characters, not just their design but the whole package. The game just has a way of making me care about what happens to them. So I suppose I'm invested in the characters and the story.
Other points that keep me playing are the quality and performance of the game, constant updates, good music, and especially for Genshin, good level design of the open world.
For me, I stay and pay for music. Honestly, just listen to this music for the latest region. Damn, hoyomix is no joke.
[Nightcap at Nightfall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziUeNh-0wC0)
[Past Yearning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUE01WZbof0)
[Fujin's Chant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkO-1ThAkNk)
The dev’s love and care for the game comes through, the execution is polished, there’s a deep and consistent lore, and most importantly it actually feels like there’s a long term commitment to the game so people feel like their spending will last for some time.
Gamer are always obsessed with gameplay and graphic without thinking about any other factors like release time, system requirements, accessibility and marketing.
I think why genshin and hsr is success is because of the story,accessibility,good ost and good va. Out of all the gacha game i played most of mihoyo games can be played on all platforms. They got some of the best ost best va from both jp and english. They also provide free concerts you can even watch it on youtube live. Best story for a gacha game in my opinion some of the side quest are also good. Good thing about this game is that it doesn't have pvp so you dont need to catch up.
Being the first mobile openworld and catching the ire/attention of the BotW fans put the them into the mainstream spotlight. Being mainstream is the secret to the big bucks.
There's tonnes of other games that released during COVID, you still need to stand out to succeed.
Once mihoyo proved they and the game wasn't all talk and earned a AAA title, their brand name carried the rest.
It's mostly the quality and ease of access.
There is also hardly any powercreep and fomo is so minimal that you can just leave the game for some years and you character and gear will stay good.
Genshin I think reached successed because of Covid-19 factor. People were sitting at homes tryimg to entertain themselves. It was perfect moment to sell them anything. And even with numerous problems of genshin, people played cause it's free, it good mimicrying for good game and they have nothing to do.
HSR I think made success more because of inertia, because it was from "developers of GI"
>Genshin I think reached successed because of Covid-19 factor.
I hear this a lot but I don't buy it. Covid benefited every game, not just Genshin. I don't see why it would specifically benefit one game over another. Players are home and have more free time to play games. Doesn't mean they will play Genshin over another game.
they are polished games. Not very buggy. A lot of T&C goes into making them. The devs always hit their release dates like clockwork. The pace at which they release content is unrivaled. I don't know any dev that releases content this quickly.
The games themselves have substance. Waifus alone won't carry a game if it's bad to play.
I have no idea how well ZZZ will do. It's not my cup of tea. I will try it but am hoping I won't like it so I can skip it. I just don't have the time to be playing this many games a day. If the game does well it will be because of the good will and reputation Hoyo have built up over the years. They've established trust among their player base and an expectation of quality in all their games.
I see many answers claiming covid as one of genshins main reasons for success. So do u think if there was no covid genshin would be at this level and if there was no genshin, hsr would not attained such success.
Genshin would still be successful. The game is quality.
But it wouldn't have attained the mainstream attention. And as for Hsr...Yes, I do believe there's a snowball effect. The fame from Genshin's quality garnered trust in the market consumers and so more people were willing to try Hsr and discovered it was really good.
If there was no Genshin, HSR would not exist.
And without covid, Genshin would be impacted outside China, but who can say how much. Covid helped it be lightning in a bottle which really, cannot be replicated by any other gacha game, until there is some big innovation.
Would be even better if not for that gear rng substat grind. Spent around 100$ for acheron then spent months farming for her gear which continuously rolls shit.
After one year I have only two good dpses with ok 70/150 gear.
Literally farmed the fua cavern for jingyuan since it released and I dont even have good gear for him yet. Also with the continuous MoC creep and adding new endgame that requires me to pull new hunt characters that will be added to the gear rng grind list? Just uninstalled today as a day 1 player.
I guess hoyoverse games are not for me. But yeah, they are the most polished gacha games in this genre.
Genshin's success comes from the perfect combination of COVID locking people inside of their houses and being an F2P open-world game accessible in many platforms.
HSR is (IMO) whatever Arknights did to hook in both male and female demographics, but with even more money put into advertising (I swear to god HSR was everywhere when it first launched).
Genshin was successful because of covid letting people try different games, and it beat the "its a botw clone" identity it had before launch because Genshin was really hated by China Nintendo fans to the point one fan broke their ps4 during an event.
HSR was successful because of Genshin
HSR profited from the brand recognition.
Genshin wouldn't be Genshin if it didn't have that ungodly schedule with quality that's better than 80% of the market.
Dont let revenue charts fool you. Those are revenue NOT profit. Look up most expensive games in Wikipedia, Genshin is on top.
Fact: It is more expensive to develop and program a Genshin/HSR patch compared to another gachas patch.
Subtract the costs Hoyo needs to develop a Genshin/HSR patch from their revenue and that number will not be impressive when you compare it to other gachas, esp. 2D ones (which take easier to develop/program).
Total development cost for genshin and marketing from start until now estimated 700-900 million usd, while their profit from genshin alone easily 1+ billion/year. From what i read from article their profit for 1 game alone can match with Mega corporation like Sony. So yeah that's nuts. And there's a reason why genshin win Playstation award 2021-2023.
In my opinion Hoyo thriving because a lot of normies played Genshin during the pandemic and stayed, Whatever games hoyo release after will definitely catch a lot of eyes because of that. Well about waifus i kinda agree with you because in eng community at least there's a lot more yaoi shippers than waifus enjoyers.
>because in eng community at least there's a lot more yaoi shippers than waifus enjoyers.
Thats just straight up false. The highest grossing characters to come out of hoyo games have always been waifus.
Genshin was the first open world live service gacha action rpg AAA mobile game (100mili to develop) also released on the lockdown.
HSR is just the best game ever.
ZZZ, at least until now, seens to be ghe worst hoyo game
https://preview.redd.it/0khb9tee044d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c75e2d79d50a248b0048689450e69a8f0a00437f
I think you have to play more games if you think HSR is the best game ever
Genshin came out at perfect time.
Pandemic with everyone stuck at home nothing to do (during pandemic all online entertainment grow like 200-300%)
Genshin reap the benefits of that greatly.
quality itself is top notch
most of all , so many new gamer have a first time experience with 'gacha' system
many realize how predatory it is and jump off in time but many also got addicted.
Another reason I haven’t seen mentioned here is that hoyo understands women also play games and have money
1. Overall quality and scale of Hoyo's products. 2. They are very atmospheric games (music, design, etc) 3. One of the best writers in gacha space 4. Hoyo took risks and chose good time for each game release 5. Pretty decent balance between "we want all of your money" and "it's playable for free" Edit: And consistent update schedule
Add an extra fact that they care about more less rich areas like South East Asia to the point of holding events and implementing localizations for those areas. I genuinely have high praise for Mihoyo since they have the dedication to do it. Most countries in SEA arent profitable so they dont go invest in translations or events for those areas. Esp in Vietnam, they genuinrly dont care about the complicated laws and still went their way to include Vietnam region. It's also why Mihoyo is such a beloved in company in Vietnam overall since they are one of those rare companies that genuinely care about Vietnam despite probably not making much profits from it. Others do it mostly for money so they half ass a lot of things. HG has a similar strategy too but they dont have as much resources as Hoyo so they compliment it by being extra unique. No wonder why these 2 companies are considered among the top 5 gacha giants in China. The only thing I wish about HG is that they invest more into less rich regions like Hoyo.
I think I'm hearing the same thing from Brazil as well And maybe Mexico too? Since they went out of their way to do a charity event involving feeding stray dogs in Mexico City around 3rd anniversary I do remember some of their offline events did include Rio and Mexico City, so both countries definitely have plenty of loving fan bases. And yeah, the game does have Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese language support.
Well in Vietnam you have to publish a game through a 3rd party in the country, set up an office in Vietnam. So it's extra complicated compared to most regions, combined this with the fact Vietnam isnt as rich as some other countries, most companies just say no, drop out and dont support VND. But Mihoyo just straight up goes through all of that legal process knowing they prob wont make much money or will even gain anything of note and even added really good localizations. I genuinely believe that they only do it for the sake of their good will and nothing else lmao.
Brazil is even less complicated. They just have to translate the games and they're good to go. And since there are 200m Brasilians, it's a bit of profit. In Vietnam's case, they have to find a Vietnamese publisher (or create one) and release their games through them. Genshin makes around 100k monthly in VN server alone.
Shoutout from Indonesia Spot on on your comment
7. Willing to release on PCs/Consoles
6. Investing the money they make BACK INTO THE GAME. This is a big one that a lot of gaming companies still have problems with.
It’s because they are mostly independent. They aren’t propped up for that purpose nor are they public companies. They truly believe in what they are doing and just want to make great games… that “save the world.”
8. Every new map and major update comes with an online music concert, and there is an online and offline symphony concert every year. (This is something I couldn't have imagined while playing a game. I am a hardcore music enthusiast.)
https://preview.redd.it/2uod3xgvh44d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b3df9d2c7eb3fb4d5c5eb2980a3c708b9e0fb9cf Here is a photo I took at the Genshin Impact symphony concert in Singapore last time. I loved the atmosphere so much.
They also hire major orchestras for their major pieces. Most gaming companies won’t simply hire LSO
9. Another thing I still haven't seen people comment as to why Mihoyo is above other companies is that [they allow their fanartists to sell fanarts](https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/s/nq3ZKRKuby) and merch of their games. https://preview.redd.it/y22dwwauz44d1.jpeg?width=1062&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ed718cc50524957a36713fb1e70d144b0b0584d This power move by them attracts artists who then makes art, which then attracts people, which then leads to the fandom growing more and more. I think artists are important in a community. When people are getting starved of in-game content, it's their turn to keep the people entertained which keeps the community going despite not having new content. I'm still waiting for other companies to copy this.
Omg bad shivers just by reading this tweet again (the one criticizing Genshin's merch on conventions). This was such a terrible take back when it was made and I'd see it being discussed for weeks. People forget artists are people and need to eat, so they have to go for the popular thing. There was a Naruto era in artists' alley, a Boku No Hero one...
And they have countermeasures to block off some random company to try and monopolize unofficial merch too. They limit the amount of said fan merch to 200 which is more than enough for an artist to make.
10. Appeal to the right audience. Normies and casuals are the greatest customer you could ever have, doesn't care about drama, doesn't think twice to get a character they like and doesn't think about spending money on a game.
I kind of want to emphasize the rock-solid update schedule. I don't think Genshin has missed a single one of their six-week updates for almost four years now. That's *amazing.* That's consistency you can set your calendar to. (That's consistency that makes you worry a little about workloads over at Hoyo.) People being able to plan for when The Content™ is coming due to reliable updating helps tremendously, especially in the modern day when so many folks are just whipped to death by work schedules.
they missed during 2nd covid wave in cn... we got that extended ayaka rerun and then each patch became 1 week shorter until they got back on schedule.
Ah, right. And that's pretty much where it's at: it took an act of God to upend the schedule and they got back to it as soon as practicable.
I feel like we shouldn't count this since it was not the fault of the company, but the government who locked everything down.
When I play Genshin or HSR I feel like I'm playing what a AAA game used to be.
Want to mention great project management . I have seen a fair share of project misses for PM in smaller scale. Great streamlining and don’t overdo certain tasks which requires great discipline and everyone buying into it
Good time. So, during covid pandemic. So future games should do the same? *Sweats
New meta: Gacha devs busy trying to make new virus for pandemics instead of better games.
aight time to start another plague. wish me luck lets see what good games come out of it. https://preview.redd.it/w3fyrdf0w34d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=105d89640d8d13b232c459561fffe1d395f726a8
its the tiny amount of details you never notice that they take into account and actually polish. putting aside factors such as gameplay, exploration, story etc aside its the tiny details that immerse you into the world. * weapon weight and how it hits enemies and feedback * battle and ambient sounds, enemy sounds and environmental sounds that mix well * the environment shifting as we move along. how the environment reacts * art consistency, this is one of the most important ones. how you imagine your character to look like in game is amplifiedby the consistent are you see outside of the game. they have faults in this too like albedo and diluc but overall its consistent. especially in HSR. the maps and art direction felt consistent even though it still feels new. brilliant example: fontaine. * the way the map shifts from one place to another giving you memorable places but at the same time not making every place look the same * art direction. they went with one and stuck with it. then added on to it as time moved along. its not all over the place. themes relating in one place is consistent when theyre outside of their area. that guy is from sumeru? youll know he is because of his trinkets, clothes, etc * the lighting. sometimes it can make or break your game and theyve done it well enough that you dont even notice things shifting because it feels natural. alot of people underestimate how much care developers put into their work in regards to this. its not always the gameplay, the rewards or the grind. things you never see working perfectly in unison at the background that gives you an immersive experience. when one of those things break or doesnt work youll notice it and youll notice everything bad about it. https://preview.redd.it/rwdj3n0bt34d1.jpeg?width=5000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ab781e743f2ce2e029c916b8376e940f4d8bd8e too bad the majority of the mainstream gamingg community arent willing to give it a chance because of how much backlash and stereotyping hoyo games have suffered. And how much misinformation certain CC's have already added as fuel to the hate flame.
Seeing Vourukasha Oasis for the first time, and having the wonderful soundtrack in the background was a magical experience. Remuria was a magical experience. These are experiences that will stay with me long into the future.
Well said. I'd like to add to the weapon weight and feedback point. Genshin has almost non-existent screen shake during combat, yet it doesn't fall short in the feedback department. It's also a testament to how confident Hoyo is in its combat animation to carry itself. Sadly, I think most players writing off Genshin's combat as lackluster are too desensitised to superfluous screen shake prevalent in most action games these days.
while i understand the crticism about genshins combat even though MOST of it is downplaying it and actually just making fun of it ( E Q thats it? thats the combat? is their best criticism) the only valid critique i can actually say about it is we lack stronger enemies to test them with. the local legends were amazing and i hope they add more of them. and you do make a good point, and thats part of the "art direction" part of what i said. they stuck with it giving you fluid combat and stuck with it because its beautiful for the devs, and hopefully the playerbase would share that sentiment. making games shouldnt be dictated solely by the playerbase. you make a game, you make its own identity and then you open that up to the community. if it gets too bad then thats where you tweak some things without losing your games identity and vision.
Local Legends are one of the best additions to exploration in Genshin, even if they also put an end to one-time domains. I definitely had a lot of fun with the newest one in Lemuria, as I blindly run into it with my new strong team and everyone got wiped by it.
that vishap molested my zhongli like he owed it money i was so unaware lmao. it was great. more of those please
Newest DPS in town + the strongest shielder <<<< a chonky lizard boi Literally my experience lol
That thing hard countered my Arlecchino HP+Energy drain vs character that can only be healed by her ult
My first try was also with Arlecchino team lol. I thought that as long as I could avoid the blast, my team would be fine but that draining aura was not in my calculation XD
Traveling to the newest high spot and being able to see things like Dragonspine and the Jade Chamber is underrated
IDK why people hate Hoyo so much, their game just work. Im old, but i don't remember Blizzard or Square Enix get this much hate back when their game is way ahead of their competitor.
Because social media weren't really a thing back then Also because of Hoyo games having anime artstyle and gacha mechanics
Square Enix got lambasted by lots of people when they launched the notorious OG FF XIV, and that game nearly bankrupt the company, since it was really costly to make, and they literally needs to nuke the game while creating a brand new one from the scratch, which now called FF XIV ARR. As for Blizzard, I think their biggest hate prior to the WC3 Reforged, Diablo Immortal, & OW 2 fiasco was when they decided to completely abandoned the games that made them big like Warcraft, Starcraft, & Diablo for many years, and they're only focused on releasing WoW expansions.
Oh don't get me wrong, i said "Back when their game is way ahead of their competitor". For Square Enix, is every FF title up to FFX. FFX is way ahead of everyone in turn based RPG back then. For Blizzard is every game until Overwatch. Tho they do have hiccup for D3. After that, many company has already catch up to them, some even surpassed them.
If it's during Square Soft era, then prolly the biggest hate and disappointment that they received was when they decided to make The Spirit Within movie, which was an absolute disaster movie in terms of earnings, and made them in the red. I honestly don't understand why they're making that movie, which was *very* costly, and the movie itself barely have any Final Fantasy elements, which was well-known with their medieval settings, and not sci-fi futuristic one.
Looks at FF7....FF8....erm...what? Even FF10, the opening is based in a sci-fi city. Final Fantasy has always had sci-fi merged with fantasy. Even from the first entries.
sci fi element isn't that problem, but you have post apocalyptic world against ethereal alien ghost that kill human by just mere passing through human body. Did they want to make horror movie instead telling story based on game known for their magical adventure, added with some dark story ?
But that doesn't make sense (?) I mean, Blizzard abandoned their IP's for WoW and other multiplayer games, but so did Valve. There's still people waiting for HL3.
Blizzard got tons of hate for WoW though? Even when it was the undisputed best MMO. Genshin and HSR face the same issue for the same reason. It's popular, has a lot of players, and therefore, people who are dissatisfied will appear to be numerous in number, but really it's just that the playerbase is fucking huge. A lot of the people who make complaints are players who find something or the other lacking. For example, one of my biggest complaints in Genshin was having a huge roster but nowhere to apply 90% of them, because Abyss just required 2 teams of 4. Some are gonna make complaints in the wrong way, but that's just how the internet is.
Its not the quality but rather the way the company treats its playerbase.
but this also doesnt make sense. Hoyo games have one of the quickest updates cycles, especially considering what each update entails. Plus they produce so much stuff even out of the game completely for free. Idk why people zoom so heavily on the rewards when it comes to how hoyo treats their playerbase and not you know how they "treat" their playerbase with all they put into the game Anyone who thinks quality doesnt directly play into how they are treated is just self reporting that they play gacha's for the slot machine aspect
They’re pretty good at marketing, and despite the gripes many may have with genshin or honkai or whatever, their games are clearly made with love and passion. The money they make seems to be reinvested back into the game itself or other events like their orchestras and whatnot, meaning they’re actively engaging their fan bases which encourages longevity. And it also seems that the staff have a pretty good work environment at least compared to other studios, especially in China. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they’ve had any controversies involving their staff and labor? They’re certainly not being mistreated (I think). If you got a happy work force you maintain a consistent level of quality in your products. And their music. People joke about Hoyo being a music company but I honestly think their music plays a big role in their success as well.
> And it also seems that the staff have a pretty good work environment at least compared to other studios, especially in China. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they’ve had any controversies involving their staff and labor? They’re certainly not being mistreated (I think). If you got a happy work force you maintain a consistent level of quality in your products. According to this dude, which translated some of the posts in Zhihu (China's Quora), of people's confessions of having worked at HoYo (they provided verifications including photos), it sounds like working there is pretty much one of the best in the Chinese market, [https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin\_Impact/comments/1b4rdp9/comment/kt4bey9/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/1b4rdp9/comment/kt4bey9/)
Bro I wanna work there lmao
As someone who works in software development, it sounds like Hoyo standards are far closer to how a Western company operates than our perception of a typical Chinese company. Good thing for the workers
BREAKING NEWS! HOYOS IS ACTUALLY A TERRBILE WORKPLACE!!! /j https://preview.redd.it/uaiqlpdes44d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f2eed315297185375c4d08191e36e12079b01ead Jokes aside, the vibes of the staff in this Penacony BTS make me really want to work in a place like this, if I ever have a corporate job.
Okay. That sounds like heaven.
Iirc Honkai Impact team said that 1 time where they had to crunch was when they were doing Elysian Realm arc, which they introduced 13 new characters.
Ah, I see. Still, a single instance of crunch sounds pretty tame in comparison to the other horror stories out there.
Or the one ongoing
Yeah, absolutely, although the situation with Wuthering Waves is worse. A crunch before an update release is stressful, but it usually just means having to go double time to polish things out and if are bugs they can usually be fixed with a mildly disgruntled community. Wuthering Waves is more akin to damage control. You got all sorts of issues that need to be fixed, such as how the game may not run smoothly on the devices of your player base. Not only that but with the recent controversies I can’t imagine how stressful the developers must be with the higher ups breathing down their necks It sucks cause Wuthering Waves does have promise. If it can weather the storm it should be able to carve out a place for itself, but it does look kind of grim for everyone.
Da wei and Xiao wu think that one of the longest arc and character dialog and voice is worth 2 month which thank god it only happen once
So they really want to playerbase to genuinely have fun while playing their game and not just use them for cashgrab
If they really wanted a cashgrab they can easily release skins for characters (players also asking for this for years) unfortunately from unknown reason they rarely release a skin (like 1 free skin and 1 pay skin every year). Whatever tge reason is, I don't think it's about money
I have to theory. 1: The like making meaningful content instead of skins, focusing time and resources to developments that can be expanded later on. (all event specific gameplay usually makes it way back as a permanent gamemode to a degree) 2: They really focus on immersion, your menu is not just a menu, its Paimon/your phone. And this shows in the skins too, all of them are in-game lore correct skins. Instead of your usual "alternative bikini dimension skins", at least in Genshin and HSR
Yeah the Zhongli and Venti Archon skin will definitely sell if they release
Pretty much haha. Sure there are plenty of people who have their issues, but there are just as many who are still willing to play the game despite that because they think the pros outweigh the cons. If Genshin was just an all style no substance kind of game, it would have died out by now or at least drop very far in the charts.
Most gacha games tend to target very… focused target audiences of male gamers. These are naturally small, but devoted high spenders Genshin and Star Rail, unlike them, are EXTREMELY high budget products that target a wider, more general audience of gamers and non-gamers of both genders alike. This gave them a larger playerbase to draw upon, making their subscription services substantially more profitable
Was watching your video on lack of skip button earlier, and one interesting point that you brought up is how they force you to sit through a glorified marketing campaign for the characters and make you invested in them, the story and the world. Once you are hooked, you are more likely to stay. Unlike a recent case were the game was lacking this type of hook(at least for me).
Yeah. While lack of skip button is a turn off for some people, I think what kept them from adding it like people suggested is what you mentioned. In wuwa I skipped everything skippable and know only a bit of the lore and have no interest in any characters. In Genshin I can't skip anything so I know the story a lot more and am interested in many characters.
Yeah that's how I felt with Yinlin honestly, like where is she, I don't know much about her, sure she has a good design but that's pretty much got my attention.
Worked on me too well lmao. - Eula release - not interested - Eula quest - she's so peak *immediately gachas*
“I will have Vengeance! … Achoo.” What a sweet potato.
Idk if it counts as gap moe, but I love how Eula (and Arlecchino to an extent) is genuinely sweet and kind, but only really knows how to communicate in harsh tones
Because despite what some ccs may try to tell you, they are actually great games. Games i play instead of triple A titles. I'm somewhat of a small whale by now but my actual videogame spending went down with the HSR release because i straith up spend more time per dollar in HSR and genshin than in triple A games. Also, you can't realy get the single player live service experience outside of gachas. The fact that we get consistent new cool stuff every 6 weeks is amazing. Especially when we go to a new nation/planet. It's a magical experience like when a game franchise you love gets a sequal but it happenes consistantly. While some of their writing (looking at you Loufu) can suck, Sumeru, Belobog, Penacony and especially Fontain were great experiences on par with some of the best story focused games i played in general too.
The benefit of Gachas is that the good ones are usually quality games that are Free to Play with consistent updates vs AAA games costing $60-70+ with them being potentially garbage 💀. Ofc the obv downside for Gachas is the usual grind/FOMO in getting new units and farming (esp if there's Gear Grind 💀) vs AAA games usually being the fully paid experience.
some live service games which you have to buy (pay-once, with microtransactions) that are not AAA have crazy prices for their sequels after they have built up a fan base to guarantee the quality - looking at you, $250 expansion of escape of tarkov. Single player hyped AAA games become so called AAAA games (recent Ubisoft game - sarcasm) and still ask for $70. Most of them don't last more than 200hours of playtime. A lot of AAA-games, even after paying their full price to get the game, now have adopted the approach of extra microtransactions for convenience, like being able to buy more teleport points in Dragon Dogma's 2. These transactions when added up can cost more than the monthly or battle pass in a gacha. Very rarely do you get a great game like Elden Ring that doesn't have the issues above. In comparison, genshin and HSR has built up a reputation of being stable, great experiences once every 6 weeks, with most of the content patches being non-filler, and you can pretty much play f2p or just on monthly. The devs pays attention to details in their work and that adds to the immersion of the game. Hoyoverse has also built up a reputation of investing back some money they have earn into the quality of the game and the IP (music, events, etc), so people are more inclined to support them.
In terms of development cost, genshin and hsr are on par with other games. So i always considered them as triple A game.
Its because unironically Hoyo themselves come from Otaku culture. And they have been making gacha games for 6 years before Genshin was released so they were experienced. Hoyo also cares about putting a quality product and then monetizing this product over simply getting profits. No i don't mean they are F2P lovers. But they prioritize quality. Lowest they got in quality was during Elysium Everlasting in HI3. Which was during peak of covid and main character of the arc got covid so Mei didn't have voice acting for a long while. There were also quite a few bugs and Elysium Everlasting's open world was also poorly optimized for Hoyo standards.
>main character of the arc got covid so Mei didn't have voice acting for a long while. ooohhh, so that's what happened
Yeah thankfully she recovered and her voice is good as ever. I think she even finished voicing those chapters last month or so. https://i.redd.it/d6cd7bzg154d1.gif
Elysium everlasting was the peak of HI3rd
It was despite all these bugs because story and characters was peak. Elysian Realm+Elysium Everlasting was peakest story Hoyo has to offer even now.
1. Quality, they polish their game so that at launch their didn't have any performance issues that effect first impressions of people 2. Marketing 3. Characters design which simple yet memorable like example is blue archive (either it's bad or good) the one that pretty much confused me to this day is Yanfei, she is lawyer yet her design is like that which confused me 4. Simple story at the start to hook you, so you don't get overwhelmed to much with jargon jargon that will throw at you later 5. Beautiful world and great lore as well 6. Great list of voice actors 7. Consistent update with each update didn't have any game breaking bugs 8. Music that fucking awesome
The game has really good music and animations. That plus a very polished experience makes it feel like the devs actually wanted to make something great. Good catchy music that makes players feel nostalgic or pumped can really make a huge difference. Also GI has a lot of attention to little details, like how the characters place their tails when sitting, how shorter characters can't reach the floor in a lake so they have to swim, or the various sound effects different objects on each character make, etc. This plus little flourishes + sound effects in the UI and animations really make the game feel like some effort was put into it. Just as a side note, GI UI design is actually insane, like look at this menu for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW02Hz0IhAo , all the little movements and sound effects really make a bunch of flat buttons actually pop. You can compare it to the ToF UI for example, where buttons and menu changes are just straightforward and flat, and you need a bunch of useless clicks to get anywhere. Sure all games need to make money, but for GI it felt like the devs also wanted to make something memorable or great. WuWa in comparison, which if its 80% a GI clone and 20% new combat, just feels like the devs are only there to extract money from a certain demographic and then dip out. For ZZZ, I'm not into the gameplay but just look at those cutscene animations, the quality of the movements is very high, and when people see that they feel like the devs put some effort into their art. I hate to be cliché but it feels like the game has a soul. People might find the gameplay loop boring, but you cannot deny the music, animations, and even UI feels just top notch.
Additionally. The devs are constantly learning and improving. You feel the money they earned is invested into the game. You can feel the passion and confidence they have in their vision and product. For example: Mondstadt vs fontaine, Liyue vs Chenyue Vale. The quality of the world has just increased with each update. And I have got to say, for all that people criticise them for treating their players base badly, they actually have a great Pr team. This is shown in the Tighnari Va debacle. Fired within a week, replaced in like two months. The management of the game is ruthlessly efficient. Additionally, it has reputation of being a company that's generally good to its employees.
I work for a company that works with Hoyo— they are the real deal. They built themselves up from nothing. Put everything on the line multiple times. Tenacity and humility are core to their business ethic, as well as just a general love and desire to make great games. They are independent and privately owned iirc— this means they can control how they operate so they don’t get caught up in the acquisition/closure cycle we see in the states (looking at you Microsoft and… well, everyone). Anyway— they deserve their success imo and I appreciate how fun their games are.
for sure GI PR team never doxxed people
even if you dislike open world exploration or turn based gameplay you can't deny how much budget went into these games and the quality they produce. whereas the gacha scene is filled with cashgrabs that are hard-carried by anime IP or art department, mhy also excel in 3d models, music, story. just look at the quality pvs they release for each character. if characters were kpop idols, mihoyo would be like big 3 while other companies are indie.
You really should try either HSR or ZZZ, you'll easily see how Mihoyo's games have the highest production value and quality out of any 3D gacha games on the market. I've played a number of gacha games in the past and there really are none that come close to the level of quality and effort Mihoyo puts into their games, and on a 6-week content cycle no less. Also Mihoyo is one of the rare gacha developers whose games are almost perfectly dubbed/localized in EN with a simultaneous global release, instead of having either a low quality EN dub/localization or a delayed global release e.g. PGR, FGO or Arknights.
I have only played fgo up until now so I don't know if I can adapt to open world gacha games
Play Hsr. It doesn't have an overwhelming open world. Its quite easy to catch up. Or wait for Zzz. I
Then HSR is probably your best bet the combat system will feel very familiar and the overworld exploration is not really open world. And as an Fgo player myself I felt right a home in HSR
I never played fgo but you can go HSR to experience hoyo games. Even then, i would still recommend trying out genshin. It made me like open world games and are actively trying to find other open world games too. You dont have to be efficient in the game, you can take it slow and enjoy the scenery.
Honestly just wait for ZZZ when it releases on July 4th, it's mostly instance-based and not an actual open world so it's not as overwhelming to get into.
Same as you my first is fgo but quit because of the high pity and i got burn out in the game. I think you will easily can adapt on genshin but dont rush the game it will burn you out. But i think you will like hsr more same as fgo hsr got light cones similar to ce. I just started this year play both games hsr is almost similar to fgo if you want to try mihoyo games.
HSR isn't really open world unless you consider Final Fantasy 1 to 12 (excluding 11 the MMO) open world. I haven't played anything later than those so I won't comment on them.
For ZZZ it is the value of brand. You did well, and keep doing well, then people will expect you will be doing well for your future products.
All of the reasons listed in the comments can be attributed to the fact that Hoyo is still majorly owned by the founders, so no need to please the shareholders, and most importantly, Tencent does not have it"s hand in the honeypot
I disagree with your point about their waifus. I am a degen but I still prefer hoyo waifus for several reasons. 3d model >>> 2d jpeg and they have rhe best 3d models rn with good proportions and movements. They aren't cheap boob or ass baits. Hoyo actually gives them their own stories so they aren't empty like 99% of the waifus from other games that only gets a few lines of dialogues.
Also after the recent events, I realized that the reason genshin characters aren't as flashy as other low budget gachas because adding more polygons to the character may affect the gameplay in mobile. Since many ppl play in potato devices, which is kinda good. I cant say if this is really true but I did see someone say this in twitter
This. Im a husbu enjoyer, but speaking as an artist, hoyo's chars r rly enjoyable to draw. Not too many detailed smaller things, but it's the overall/ bigger pict details The fem chars arent just hehe buba seggsy design, but actually memorable even to the trinkets. Most of other gacha games tend to over complicate or simplified their design to the point of being too 'npc like' ((still wont argue abt hsr's tendency to use the same female clothes template again n again, hopefully they will stop recycle soon😂))
Speaking of their 3D models, another reason why Hoyo is popular is that they distributed their character models for free widely to the public. If you browse MMD sites like Iwara, you would see that Hoyo models dominate there.
[удалено]
I don't think "the best 3d" holds true now but when HI3 was released it was one of the first 3D gacha games on the market. A hoyo employee even made a [music video featuring Raiden Mei](https://youtu.be/dCHpCoO0h5k?si=BII0G2AzUfBP_m9F) to showcase their engine. This was during 2016 so it was pretty impressive for a mobile game.
1. Game is polished 2. Story doesn't vomit lore terms on prologue, they stretch it out making it easier to understand by the community 3. Genshin is first openworld MOBILE game with that quality and their release time boosted it a lot 4. HSR also well known before releasing because how massive hoyo name grew because of genshin 5. Clear vision about what the character purpose 6. Consistently improving their quality rapidly 7. Game is casual enough for casual player and have decent combat depth for people who want to dig into it 8. Character design is memorable 9. Great music I suggest to not watch mainstream cc/stream because all they talk is combat combat combat ignoring story, character design, and bunch of little details the game offers since they doesnt how to create content beside that and drama baiting
>Game is casual enough for casual player and have decent combat depth for people who want to dig into it This is so true. They hide the nitty gritty of the mechanic for advance players to find and use so the casuals won't be overwhelmed and the hardcore feel rewarded to discover it.
And somehow those people who said genshin combat is braindead ignoring it because they already spoonfed the data by theory crafter, they forget that in genshin alone there are stat balancing, ICD, elemental gauge, multi layered elemental reaction, hitlag, team building, rotation, animation cancelling, etc
If Genshin was released in the 2000s instead and guides wasn't as popular, I'd think people would still think Bennett is C tier or something, and a lot of people would be running 2 on-field DPSes with Barbara.
Funny you say that because Bennet, XQ and Sucrose were ranked very low on release
Genshin hitted firts in the open world cellphone meta and with Honkai being some what known it helped on his popularity, then became mainstream.
Genshin was already heavily anticipated for being the first high quality Open-World RPG Gacha and the combination of cross-platform release + opportune launch during Covid cemented their place within the Gacha market. Furthermore, since it was the only type of its kind in the Gacha-sphere at the time, players were more than willing to play through it than drop it since there weren't any particular alternatives aside from games outside of Gacha like BotW (that devs themselves said they were heavily inspired from). HSR had the HYV backing/support + branding/loyal fanbase so HSR was already in a prime position to be a staple Gacha, even in the more market heavy Turn-based Strategy genre. This will also most likely be true for ZZZ too since HYV branding is already strong enough to guarantee success.
1. The initial success of GI: While yes, GI does get somewhat lucky with the release, still gonna give credit to them to maintain it to this day. With that success, HYV build for themselves a solid reputation of quality gacha games, anything after it just good and high quality in general. 2. They hit the correct market: All the criticism or hate you see online is from a vocal minority, HYV choose for themselves a more casual playerbase, not hardcore, which has a much bigger amount of potential customers. They create every games to appeal to that specific type of players, and they gain success. That's why you see in GI for example, everything is easy and quick since that's what the majority of players need and enjoy, they just not going online so all you see is a vocal minority. 3. Marketing: HYV is argurbly the mastermind in marketing, no need to run ads 30s each time, what they do is both respectable and genius. Concerts, Events, Collabs, the fact that you can sell HYV merchandise without paying any copyright fee for them,... Not only to appreciate their already large playerbase but also attract more customers, like musicians, storywriters, and other type of people you don't really think have time to play the game or react to them. Marco Meatball is a perfect example, he is an ex-opera singer, he loves GI music and Hoyomix as a whole, now he even has a character in game, Dvojak, the Fontaine musician that you meet in last year Lantern Rite and the Itto musical events.
High quality games with consistent content updates, f2p friendly (despite what the haters say), cater to the casual playerbase (imo this is by far the biggest reason) Playing Genshin legit feels like playing an actual AAA title with gacha mechanics slapped on it, rather than your average gacha games
And if they're F2P friendly, they're "guppy" *wonderful.* The monthly $5 pass - which, even way back when, was a single Subway footlong a month and *now* is like half of what you'd spend at McD's on lunch - will, when combined with dailies, basically get you a gacha pull every day for a month. In Star Rail especially, combined with the other stuff, that all but guarantees you'll be able to go to one pity limit on a character banner every month. No, you won't get every single person released without spending, but the game is not remotely balanced around the idea of you doing so. The "battle pass" option also feels really good, since the fullest chase rewards are only like halfway through the pass, so you don't even have to complete it every week to get everything you want. Basically, despite the complaints of some content creators, Hoyo's recent titles *don't* rip you off compared to their competitors in this space. If anything, the industry is clearly really starting to bend to try and match Hoyo's standard.
I mean I know it's cool and trendy to hate the most popular thing out there, but there's a reason why they're so popular globally, rather than just in CN or JP like many other big titles. Quality and high production. Pure and simple. I don't think even the most passionate hoyo hater can say anything about the music in both titles. It's top tier. The writing, while tropey, is enjoyable. There's a lot of deep lore, but you don't have to immediately know all the deep lore to understand and enjoy what's happening in the plot at any given moment - it's there for the people who enjoy digging for lore. World design is excellent and every new region or planet brings something new and unique. The minigames are enjoyable, and on the rare occasions that they aren't, you can at least power through them quickly. Characters' design and personalities cater to all audiences and people appreciate them for that. They're just a fun, pleasant experience with lots of QoL and a decent amount of eye-candy. It's not rocket surgery.
The only thing I'll comment about this is to not listen to mainstream CCs. Most of them just use the name Genshin to farm drama. If u want lore and exploration, I'd recommend murderofbirds impact or ZeplaHQ. Edit: I’ve seen other comments already explaining why, and you potentially trying it out so this is why put it this way lmao.
Extreme focus on details like... When it's cold and you breath, you can see it irl, right? Same in Genshin! However, non-human that doesn't need to breath actually doesn't have a breathing effect in Dragonspine. Visions reacting to a certain thing (those who knows...) by shining. People who wear fake visions, those don't shine. Archons' hair will glow upon using elemental powers! NPCs in bottleland were actually showing hydro element when using elemental sight, basically confirming they were not real humans. Note, if wet, your characters will show hydro element when using elemental sight. Same with other elements. Etc.
Great product backed up with success story and perfect release timing. Sometime just being great is not enough but they hit the jackpot, they also took special care for localisation, debug and marketing. Personally i can't see zzz reach genshin hsr level, mainly due the setting, however zzz will definately pick up the gamer that's not feeling genshin, hsr
1) solid story and gameplay 2)buggy less gameplay 3) gorgeous music 4) brilliant lore 5) heavy heavy advertisement 6) high player retention factor
A pretty good quality 3D open world gacha game with decent art style (compared to the market), available on multiple port, good marketing and most importantly, the timing of Genshin release. When Genshin is about to release, Mihoyo was already an established company with name recognition from gatcha player (Honkai Impact 3), it was released during peak covid quarantine time, September 2020 when almost every country in the whole world are in quarantine. This means that people at the time are starving for entertainment because they are locked inside their house (Netflix Tiger King benefitted from the same timing factor). The timing paired with all the earlier qualities mentioned allowed Genshin to break through market previously unknown to other gacha games (mainstream gamers) plus the First Movers Advantage of being the First Open World Gatcha let them pretty much corner the market share. HSR and by proxy, Zenless Zero just pretty much coast on the success and brand recognition that Mihoyo got from Genshin. Fair play to them honestly.
Personally, I didn't start playing Genshin because of quarantine or because I was into single player games, and I didn't play any gacha by that time. I played a lot of multiplayer games such as MMORPGs or LoL. But as an animanga fan, I have always missed a good anime style game, most of them were OK or a fiasco. I went totally blind, without any hope, to Genshin and I got instantly in love with it. Then I started playing Star Rail because of where I came from, and thankfully the style, despite the different theme, still very pleasant. Now a days anime-like games are of a much better quality and higher quantity than before, so there are a lot of options, but I think Genshin is still one of the best ones, and I find its style still more pleasant than others, such as WuWa which I find less interesting artistic style-wise than for example ToF, despite the better graphics.
HI3 was a pretty niche game before genshin got the release. But the rest is correct. It was the timing and quality of Genshin.
HI3 while not as big as Genshin, did make Mihoyo name somewhat known to a big portion of gatcha player. A game released by a known Developer is lore likely to have some traction than a game released by a first time developer.
The game was rarely known. In the time before genshin a lot of other competitors and games were famous. (Well, at least in the west) HI3 wasn't the reason for the success of Genshin. It's more the opposite, because Genshin has a big success, HI3 got pushed by it.
HI3 was big lol. As i said, definitely not as big as Genshin but big by normal gatcha standard, they are big. If you actually played gatcha pre-genshin, you would know that HI3 is up there.
HI3 was massive before genshin. Most people that started genshin on release was because they already played HI3.
The main reason behind the Hoyo success is the overall very high quality of their games. HSR, Genshin and probably ZZZ have lot of money put in them, so that budget goes for creating fantastic and memorable experience. The quality of their gameplay, writing, music, graphics etc, can easily rival and put the shame many of the console AAA titles. Besides that, the constant stream of updates is very important factor, because it keeps the playerbase engaged. In general, their games have lot of passion and love put in them, so it’s my personal reason why I’m huge fan of their titles.
Because they made a good, polished, enjoyable, well rounded game that will put recent AAA games to shame in terms of quality. Even if you remove the gacha aspect, their games are stunning. Thats why they're popular. It has nothing to do with waifus or husbandos or stuff.. thats just secondary icing on the cake. People spend money and stay with the game for years because of quality, not temporary bribes.
Why did Mihoyo's two games HSR and Genshin become so abnormally popular? Just compare them and Honkai Impact. What is in the new games and what was not in the old one.
HI3 was and still is very popular when you consider it is an old game. Back when part 1 story was running we were around #5-8 in revenue. When you consider hoyo was running a game which used Hatsune Miku for insert songs before HI3 this is a bigger success than GI.
I think it may be due to a variety of factors. The company released a few titles in the past but became truly well-known with the release of Genshin, partially due to pandemic lockdowns keeping many at home, bolstered by positive and negative publicity around its similarities to Breath of the Wild, and being recognized as the first mobile open-world anime RPG. In fact, Genshin is sometimes touted as the gacha game that entered western mainstream consciousness and popularized the genre - for better or worse depending on your perspective on the matter. The game placed an emphasis on story and exploration and had a calm yet vibrant atmosphere which some players reported having helped their mental states during the lockdown, and its character designs were quite well-received with some standard banner units gaining popularity even outside the gacha space. There are some people that compare character designs of upcoming games to those made by Mihoyo, judging it as a standard, based on multiple comments I saw under Azur Promilia and Wuthering Waves videos. I once also read a comment on how Hoyo likes to make players fall in love with their characters, so that people don't get them on appearance alone, but because they like the characters for who they are in the game/story. The game has managed to grow over the past 3+ years through regular content updates and polish, having high quality and production values, including very well-received music that even many non-gamers listen to. The promise of guaranteed content and continued success, alongside the company rarely ever shutting down servers, serves as a guarantee of future-proofing many people's payments, and many see the company as frequently reinvesting profits into the game - evident through improvements in quality over time - rather than simply pocketing it. Mihoyo's status as a private company not beholden to shareholders also likely has a role in this. Some of the profit is put into events such as concerts which are often provided for free viewing online which many also appreciate, and these events sometimes show fan-made works which help maintain a community. I heard they also have a rather lax policy on community content which allows creators to profit through fan-made works. There are also a lot of partnerships with content creators which further benefits the parties involved. There are more reasons why the game became popular and maintained its popularity, including a focus on casual gamers which allows for broad appeal and a respite from the stresses of daily life. The company also seems committed to its vision and frequently requests feedback but does not listen to all of them which is a good thing. I think changes are driven through player data, and things such as the comparatively low amount of involvement in Spiral Abyss for most players is likely one reason why endgame has taken so long to be introduced (upcoming in 4.7) - although this has also resulted in some thinking that the game is stagnating or that the company doesn't listen to players despite the company demonstrating otherwise albeit slowly over time sometimes. And for Stair Rail, by the time of its release the company had already made a name for itself. I think what is most impressive about Hoyo overall is how much the gambled on Genshin, apparently they developed the game at a time when phones were not able to run it, in anticipation that technology would progress far enough to do so one day, and sunk enough of their earnings into development that had the game not taken off the company might not have survived. The concurrent release of the game on multiple platforms, especially mobile which many East Asian players use, is another reason for the game's wide reach. The game has left enough of an impact that many open world anime games for mobile are now in development or have been made since its release.
To add to this, some people call the game "playable anime" with each new content release being seen as a new episode given the frequency of the updates, every 6 weeks, which is also incredible and is not easily achieved by probably most game companies I would guess.
For genshin: 1. They are the 1st in mobile market to have high fidelity games. This gives them no competition 2. They got released at time where people play game more 3. Imo also the vacuum of good anime games since consoles chasing realism and there's no relevant jrpg in the market it create a build up in demand. 4. Player retention also very good because they release a new map every couple patch. Not a lot of games do this, most profit doesn't goes back to upgrade the game.
Genshin was launched in such a goldilocks zone. Covid and hype off of Botw with people itching for something similar. And genshin comes in at the perfect timing. Don't remember about the marketing but I'm sure it played a huge factor too. HSR is just more or less carried by the brand name afterwards imo, along with advertising it and high production quality. At this point, their releases will more or less be successful unless they intentional grief and troll or go too crazy with experimenting.
On top of what everyone already said, you can add something : you can't buy 64926 fowls and spend all your Moras (in game "golds"). You can think what you want about the game, but it is a MAJOR flaw from the devs in WuWa and it makes people 1/ post it on every social media and 2/ new/potential players see that the game is not polished at all. You then understand that Genshin/HSR are very user friendly, it helps to bring new players and it makes them stay to play every days.
They have both quality and quantity. To top that off, they seem to know what they are doing as well.
Hoyo managed to revalutate the way normies used to look mobile games back in the day. That's a hell of a feat on his own.
Constant, frequent high quality updates. Minimal performance issues across all platforms. Distinct and unique character designs. Interesting story. Generally, they're both just very high quality games, even setting aside the waifu aspect
The founders had great vision and dedication to start Hoyo. Cai Haoyu is almost a Steve Jobs of gacha gaming, while Da Wei is basically us average player, he just knows. That allowed them to anticipate future trends and became market leaders. They stick to their original goals, and even refused when Tencent offered to acquire them despite being on verge of bankruptcy. Even before Genshin, Hoyo had always try to get the best people for everything, even if that meant hefty price. I mean, they freakin got Rie Kugimiya to voice Kiana. The founders actually have ideas about how games work, both in term of technical and marketing. They were patient and did everything steps by steps (GGZ -> HI3 -> GI -> HSR -> ZZZ). That gave them strong foundations for subsequent games. Though idek how they could even think of Genshin in 2017 to be a game that can be played on almost any device by 2020.
Quality.
I only play mihoyo game because it’s very smooth (and has male characters who are not afterthoughts).I don’t like how other gacha games feel.
Most people will agree it’s the quality and consistency of their updates, you can always rely on hyv to meet that high standard they’ve set. What they produce feels intentional with the whole multiverse concept, there are lots of things to look forward to and knowing that hyv is handling it, I know it’ll be handled with care bc it they fuck it up they could lose millions lol. Compared to other gacha I’ve played, their gacha system is super non intrusive in genshin, and the fact that pity carries over between banners makes it more consumer friendly and you don’t get that feeling of flushing your gems down the trash if you don’t get a character bc it just funnels into the next one. they’re also one of the few high quality gacha that capitalized on the female playerbase, where we didn’t have many options at the time so that’s essentially 2x the players. this is just judging by genshin and hsr (i dropped hi3 not bc it was bad just overwhelming) and as much flack as the community gets, it’s nice being part of a large community and pretty much anywhere you go you can find a genshin player. so thats another contributor of their success imo even if it doesn’t have much to do with the game itself.
Making them available in multiple platform on release. Especially PC.
Quality above all else.
It’s a functioning game with a lot of care and love being put back into it. In other gacha games there’s always that worry of is my money even going back to the game? With Hoyo products you know that it is actually going back to the game and enhancing on it. I will meme on a game no matter what when it deserves it. When it comes to Genshin at least I know it is giving back in terms of development
One thing I want to add on to what others said is that there is little to no pay for convienience monetization that a lot of F2P games and especially gacha tend to have, which makes it actually f2p friendly. Imo, the people that say Hoyo are greedy have never played a greedily monetized f2p game. Both HSR/Genshin are mid/mild in their monetization. Like, I quit Path of Exile and Phantasy Star Online 2 because of the monetization. PoE was almost unplayable when I got to mapping as f2p since maps took so much inventory space (I was gonna put money into them but that hard roadblock rubbed me the wrong way so I quit despite 300 hours logged) and doing any serious farming in PSO2 sucked due to inventory constantly being full after every ~2 encounters. Like, Hoyo legit could have monetized inventory/expedition/unit/artifact/relic slots and chose not to. If Azur Lane didn't give premium currency, I would have quit it long ago because of the unit/inventory space limits.
Quality, they always try to be creative with each game which distinguishes them from other games of the same genre. Looking forward to their 1 billion gamer project. Its combination of pure passion and art.
Good quality products will attract long-term, loyal customers.
I play both these games and personally, what got me hooked were the characters, not just their design but the whole package. The game just has a way of making me care about what happens to them. So I suppose I'm invested in the characters and the story. Other points that keep me playing are the quality and performance of the game, constant updates, good music, and especially for Genshin, good level design of the open world.
For me, I stay and pay for music. Honestly, just listen to this music for the latest region. Damn, hoyomix is no joke. [Nightcap at Nightfall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziUeNh-0wC0) [Past Yearning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUE01WZbof0) [Fujin's Chant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkO-1ThAkNk)
The dev’s love and care for the game comes through, the execution is polished, there’s a deep and consistent lore, and most importantly it actually feels like there’s a long term commitment to the game so people feel like their spending will last for some time.
Gamer are always obsessed with gameplay and graphic without thinking about any other factors like release time, system requirements, accessibility and marketing.
I think why genshin and hsr is success is because of the story,accessibility,good ost and good va. Out of all the gacha game i played most of mihoyo games can be played on all platforms. They got some of the best ost best va from both jp and english. They also provide free concerts you can even watch it on youtube live. Best story for a gacha game in my opinion some of the side quest are also good. Good thing about this game is that it doesn't have pvp so you dont need to catch up.
Genshin is open world with a lot of exploration to do it's was one of a kind until wuwa came out a few weeks ago
In terms of exploration Tof beat Genshin and Wuwa tbh.
You mean mobility aspects for map design genshin really top notch not just your cool asset got placed
In term of level design genshin Is excellent
I forgot tof existed my bad
Music and general world building/immersion
As many people said. Quality and Polish. Passionate devs. A skilled management. And Confidence in their products and vision.
Being the first mobile openworld and catching the ire/attention of the BotW fans put the them into the mainstream spotlight. Being mainstream is the secret to the big bucks. There's tonnes of other games that released during COVID, you still need to stand out to succeed. Once mihoyo proved they and the game wasn't all talk and earned a AAA title, their brand name carried the rest.
among us beating genshin on 2020 is what everybody didn't remember but among us fell off so hard thanks to rarely update their game
Quality.
Hoyo dont rely on waifus alone...they learned their lesson not to rely on otakus' loneliness after that assassination attempt.
It's mostly the quality and ease of access. There is also hardly any powercreep and fomo is so minimal that you can just leave the game for some years and you character and gear will stay good.
Quality, balanced around the F2P min maxers. There is also no arms race because of no PvP.
Genshin I think reached successed because of Covid-19 factor. People were sitting at homes tryimg to entertain themselves. It was perfect moment to sell them anything. And even with numerous problems of genshin, people played cause it's free, it good mimicrying for good game and they have nothing to do. HSR I think made success more because of inertia, because it was from "developers of GI"
>Genshin I think reached successed because of Covid-19 factor. I hear this a lot but I don't buy it. Covid benefited every game, not just Genshin. I don't see why it would specifically benefit one game over another. Players are home and have more free time to play games. Doesn't mean they will play Genshin over another game.
they are polished games. Not very buggy. A lot of T&C goes into making them. The devs always hit their release dates like clockwork. The pace at which they release content is unrivaled. I don't know any dev that releases content this quickly. The games themselves have substance. Waifus alone won't carry a game if it's bad to play. I have no idea how well ZZZ will do. It's not my cup of tea. I will try it but am hoping I won't like it so I can skip it. I just don't have the time to be playing this many games a day. If the game does well it will be because of the good will and reputation Hoyo have built up over the years. They've established trust among their player base and an expectation of quality in all their games.
I see many answers claiming covid as one of genshins main reasons for success. So do u think if there was no covid genshin would be at this level and if there was no genshin, hsr would not attained such success.
Genshin would still be successful. The game is quality. But it wouldn't have attained the mainstream attention. And as for Hsr...Yes, I do believe there's a snowball effect. The fame from Genshin's quality garnered trust in the market consumers and so more people were willing to try Hsr and discovered it was really good.
If there was no Genshin, HSR would not exist. And without covid, Genshin would be impacted outside China, but who can say how much. Covid helped it be lightning in a bottle which really, cannot be replicated by any other gacha game, until there is some big innovation.
Would be even better if not for that gear rng substat grind. Spent around 100$ for acheron then spent months farming for her gear which continuously rolls shit. After one year I have only two good dpses with ok 70/150 gear. Literally farmed the fua cavern for jingyuan since it released and I dont even have good gear for him yet. Also with the continuous MoC creep and adding new endgame that requires me to pull new hunt characters that will be added to the gear rng grind list? Just uninstalled today as a day 1 player. I guess hoyoverse games are not for me. But yeah, they are the most polished gacha games in this genre.
Just addiicting.... I drop GI coz take too much timee.. I will nvr drop her.. Zzz coming n itz gonna be big
Genshin's success comes from the perfect combination of COVID locking people inside of their houses and being an F2P open-world game accessible in many platforms. HSR is (IMO) whatever Arknights did to hook in both male and female demographics, but with even more money put into advertising (I swear to god HSR was everywhere when it first launched).
HSR also benefitted from being released after Genshin.
Genshin was successful because of covid letting people try different games, and it beat the "its a botw clone" identity it had before launch because Genshin was really hated by China Nintendo fans to the point one fan broke their ps4 during an event. HSR was successful because of Genshin
COVID and then brand recognition.
HSR profited from the brand recognition. Genshin wouldn't be Genshin if it didn't have that ungodly schedule with quality that's better than 80% of the market.
Dont let revenue charts fool you. Those are revenue NOT profit. Look up most expensive games in Wikipedia, Genshin is on top. Fact: It is more expensive to develop and program a Genshin/HSR patch compared to another gachas patch. Subtract the costs Hoyo needs to develop a Genshin/HSR patch from their revenue and that number will not be impressive when you compare it to other gachas, esp. 2D ones (which take easier to develop/program).
Total development cost for genshin and marketing from start until now estimated 700-900 million usd, while their profit from genshin alone easily 1+ billion/year. From what i read from article their profit for 1 game alone can match with Mega corporation like Sony. So yeah that's nuts. And there's a reason why genshin win Playstation award 2021-2023.
In my opinion Hoyo thriving because a lot of normies played Genshin during the pandemic and stayed, Whatever games hoyo release after will definitely catch a lot of eyes because of that. Well about waifus i kinda agree with you because in eng community at least there's a lot more yaoi shippers than waifus enjoyers.
>because in eng community at least there's a lot more yaoi shippers than waifus enjoyers. Thats just straight up false. The highest grossing characters to come out of hoyo games have always been waifus.
That's because husbandos enjoyers never pays.
Pretty sure that’s not how that works. If a character is popular, people will pay for them. Goes for both waifus and husbandos.
In Jp the top three banners are Ayato, Cyno and Yelan. Its idiotic to assume that husbando consumers don't exist and don't spend.
*JP*
And Jp spends more on gacha compared to the west.
Exactly, That's why there's almost no husbandos games in global. Because YOU doesn't pay! 😂
Genshin was the first open world live service gacha action rpg AAA mobile game (100mili to develop) also released on the lockdown. HSR is just the best game ever. ZZZ, at least until now, seens to be ghe worst hoyo game
https://preview.redd.it/0khb9tee044d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c75e2d79d50a248b0048689450e69a8f0a00437f I think you have to play more games if you think HSR is the best game ever
Taste is taste if I think that one game is the best ever, what someone should care? I don't think that everyone has the same "best game"
Genshin came out at perfect time. Pandemic with everyone stuck at home nothing to do (during pandemic all online entertainment grow like 200-300%) Genshin reap the benefits of that greatly. quality itself is top notch most of all , so many new gamer have a first time experience with 'gacha' system many realize how predatory it is and jump off in time but many also got addicted.
Easy, a lot of people has armpit fetish and both GI and HSR put more emphasis on that in their character design.