Genshin Impact has the Problems of a Major AAA Game AND a Major F2P Game
In 1993’s smash hit Jurassic Park, the character Ray Arnold (played by Samuel L Jackson) said of the Dinosaur Park: “We have all the problems of a major theme park and a major zoo and the computer’s not even on its feet yet.” The idea was that running a major Theme Park or Zoo, by itself, was a major hurdle that not all companies can pull off. Combining both into one just compounded the problem.
Genshin Impact, the Breath of the Wild clone that rocked the F2P world when it was released over a month ago, suffers from the same problem posed in Jurassic Park. Its stunning graphics and AAA gameplay will create the expectation of new content over time that even the Titans of AAA have a hard time meeting, while at the same time feeling the pressure of revenue goals that bedevils all F2P Developers. This is not to say that the team of hundreds at MiYoHo aren’t up to the challenge. But how they handle the dual treadmills will determine the long-term success of Genshin Impact and serve as an example for other F2P Developers. Let’s dive into the challenges Genshin Impact faces:
Normal F2P Events don’t Translate well to AAA Gameplay. Will Players be satisfied with a F2P Live-Ops cadence?
Genshin Impact has a myriad of elder game content that runs on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. This includes:
Daily:
- Layline Outcrop Spawns
- Daily Commissions
Weekly:
- World Bosses
- Layline Outcrop Quests
Bi-Weekly:
- Abyssal Moon Spire Reset
Players familiar with F2P RPGs will recognize this regular cadence of Live-Ops activity. To avoid the expensive content treadmill, many games let players do specific content only a certain amount of times over a specific period of time. It’s a tactic utilized by nearly every major F2P Game, and Genshin Impact has followed this tactic to the letter.
Doing this regular content will earn players Resources used to upgrade the various meta systems in the game. What is lacking though are the BIG rewards that F2P Games have typically used to lure Players to complete their events. Things like new Heroes, special Equipment/Artifacts, and other things seem to be lacking from the regular Live-Ops content available to players. By itself, this is not necessarily an issue. Lots of F2P and AAA Games save the best stuff for this newest content or events, and since Genshin Impact Live-Ops so far is focused on having players engage with existing content, it makes sense why they don’t give out specific Heroes or Equipment/Artifacts as rewards. But eventually there will be that expectation of new Heroes/Equipment coming from new content.
In World of Warcraft, Players expect new equipment to drop with new Raids. It’s one of the most positive experiences after overcoming difficult content, and it something players of AAA Games look forward to when new content is dropped. This begs the question of how often will new content drop in Genshin Impact?
New Content is Expensive! How often will it drop?
World of Warcraft drops a new content expansion every 4–6 months. I wouldn’t be surprised if players expect the same content release cadence for Genshin Impact. Because of the visual nature of the gameplay and the complexity of the combat, new content is expensive, especially if the new content isn’t a reskin.
For those not familiar with the term, a “reskin” is when a developer uses the same art asset that is modified to a certain extent so that it appears as new art. The extent that a reskin looks visually different depends on the developer. AAA Developers will likely put more effort into distinguishing the reskin than a lot of F2P developers who are dealing with lower budgets.
Fans of Genshin Impact should be alarmed at the amount of reskins that Genshin Impact relies on. For one thing, there are only 6 families of enemies in the game:
- Hilichurls
- Slimes
- Ruin Machina
- Abyss Order
- Treasure Hoarders
- Fatui
Each of these enemy types has a few reskins. One wonders what new enemies in the game will look like over time? Will they continue to rely on more reskins of existing enemies? Or will they create new enemy types with different combat mechanics? Even though Breath of the Wild had a few DLC patches, they never introduced new content over time in a way that a top F2P Game does. And given that Genshin Impact has copied a good chunk of Breath of the Wild’s design, what will their approach to new content be? I kind of doubt they will release content on the cadence of a World of Warcraft. The question is whether they will even try to do that?
Assuming that the Genshin Impact developers figure out an adequate Live-Ops and new content cadence that will keep their players satisfied, one final question remains:
How does Live-Ops handle Inflation?
This may be the thorniest issue that Genshin Impact will come to terms with — how do you inflate content over time? Eventually Genshin Impact will have to add new Equipment (if not both Heroes and Equipment). Otherwise, spenders in Genshin Impact may run out of content.
There is room for inflation in AAA Games. World of Warcraft has inflated their content so much that they have had to implement MULTIPLE stat squishes. Genshin Impact, by comparison, has kept their stat ranges very manageable. Indeed one could argue that Genshin Impact can afford to have WIDER stat ranges and still keep from coming off as Pay to Win.
The issue here is that Genshin Impact has so far relied too much on Gacha for the distribution of Heroes and Equipment. This presents two challenges for Genshin Impact depending on how they intend to distribute new Equipment or Heroes:
- New Content distributed outside of Gacha: How do you introduce new Inflated Equipment/Heroes outside of Gacha without disrupting your Gacha Monetization; and
- New Content distributed inside of Gacha: If Inflated Content is placed in Gacha, how do you push players to do the newest and most challenging content without inflating Primogems given out
For #1, if Genshin Impact started to award equipment outside of Gacha, that would potentially cannibalize future Gacha purchases from Players. Once spenders got strong enough to overcome challenges of new content, they would start getting better equipment from the new content, and not through Gacha purchases. Thus, you would begin to see spending on Gacha begin to decline. While Players would need to spend Mora and other inputs to level up/upgrade the new content, the dip in Gacha spending would be felt in loss of revenue over time. In order to maintain the value of Gacha over time, new inflated equipment and heroes should be distributed through Gacha.
This is very much in line with AFK Arena’s Gacha Economy.
New Heroes introduced to the game are generally added straight to Hero Scrolls. Doing this preserves the incentive for Players to purchase Hero Scrolls. Given the reliance on Gacha in Genshin Impact, going the AFK route makes sense, except for Challenge #2: If Inflated Content is placed in Gacha, how do you push players to do the newest and most challenging content without inflating Primogems given out?
In World of Warcraft, Players must continually run the toughest content in order to gear up for the next toughest content. But if Gacha is the main way new Heroes and Equipment is given out, Players should focus not on running the most difficult content, but rather the content that allows them to farm Primogems most efficiently. If players can farm for primogems without doing the most difficult content, that could cannibalize monetization as well. Genshin Impact could increase the distribution of Primogems to incentivize Players to run the most challenging content, but that would also reduce monetization from Gacha.
There is no easy answer here. Personally, I would use crafting to introduce new Equipment into the game, and have new content drop materials for the new equipment. New Heroes can continue to come from Gacha, and so Gacha will maintain at least some relevancy over the lifespan of the game (though probably not as much as the first 3–6 Months). But divorcing the best equipment from Gacha is definitely the way to go in the long run, as you can dangle new equipment materials as loot from the newest challenging content.
And the Elder Game’s Not Even on Its Feet Yet…
It is still very early to determine how the Elder Game of Genshin Impact will shape out. The dynamic mix of AAA Gameplay and F2P Metasystems has certainly got the industry buzzing. The big question is what will the Genshin Impact audiences expect as an Elder Game Live-Ops and New Content cadence, and whether MiYoHo can satisfy audiences without ruining the game’s economy. The failure of them to do so will result in a significant revenue decline over time…
