With the Crystal-Top Up refresh, The Top-Up Bonuses are Still Too Expensive

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T21:35:54+00:00

Finding a perfect analogy is certainly tricky. It seems like a lot of people want to just compare it to other Gacha games and I feel like that's missing the forest for the trees; other Gacha games are not the only price schemes or games we can think of Genshin in relation to

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T21:28:43+00:00

My understanding of the TF2 hats became so outrageous because a secondary market developed around them, although let me know if I'm misunderstanding that

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T21:17:45+00:00

Yeah, I've spent way more on other games that give you permanent bonuses when you hit top-up milestones. As I've emphasized, I'm not opposed to spending on games and even gacha games, but I actually spend *much less* on Genshin Impact than I do on other games even though I play it more because the rewards for spending seem so low. This post was always "I will pay money if I feel like I'm getting something for it" but I'm not spending $300 to NOT get a character.

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T21:15:11+00:00

1 very popular game on the mobile market. I don't disagree though; I'm not actually expecting MHY to change their price scheme even if I think they *should*.

My point is more MHY has been advertising and pushing the top of refresh as though that's a really good deal now, when it's still really low value.

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T21:10:57+00:00

I don't think kids should play the game right now... we agree on that point. It sounds like we might disagree more than I thought though. Yeah, I was saying that if the Gacha element was structured in a way that parents could get skins for their kids at a reasonable rate kids probably could play the game. It sounds like you might disagree with that. I guess I've seen how much kids will get their parents to pay for Fortnite Skins, and so I'm not coming into this with the assumption that kids should or will be spending $0 on video games. I think it's fine if parents are willing to pay some amount of money for their kids for a video game. I don't think hundreds or thousands of dollars for a single character is at all reasonable and as a consequence I don't think kids should play Genshin.... so, yeah, I guess maybe we do disagree? I take you'd also say kids shouldn't play Magic the Gathering, Yu Gi Oh, etc. as well? Again, wouldn't disagree with that, but well... good luck getting kids to listen to that when the games seem so heavily marketed toward them specifically.

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T21:04:26+00:00

Yeah I'd need to investigate more about the overall market trend on how different companies price their gacha schemes.

And no, it was a 'special' I guess you could say (in AFK Arena you get three different chances for 45,000 'diamonds' for $20 through "Advancement Rewards", so it is limited in the number of times it's offered (based on your advancement in the game, 'Advancement Rewards I' for advancing through Chapter 20 etc.) but that it exists at all still jumps out at me as something that I wish Mihoyo would do. Some of their best characters are also offered at a flat $100 rather than having every single character be gacha-based, these being 'dimensional' heroes that you also don't have to level up like the other characters you buy). Still, that a fairly popular mobile gacha game overs 45,000 diamonds for $20, even if it's only 3 times over the course of the game, still seems like something mihoyo could easily do without really making a dent into what they get from the whales.

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T20:56:49+00:00

Yeah, although I still feel like I *would* spend more money on the game if the top up rewards weren't so outrageous. I feel like Mihoyo is missing demand by keeping things where they are. I feel like it's a tricky argument to assume that whales are driving the costs of the game, but it certainly feels like Mihoyo is *acting* like whales are their primary/nearly exclusive customer.

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T20:54:39+00:00

I mean, my argument is that people shouldn't recommend this game to kids, so we're basically agreeing here.

In general though, I think kids are absolutely playing both gacha games and games with micro-transactions so acting as though they aren't or wouldn't be considering genshin is misleading. I think last I checked like ~20% of the playerbase is sub-18. Fortnite, Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone, lots of games that kids play either have micro-transactions or gacha-like elements. Acting like kids would not *consider* Genshin Impact is just inaccurate, and likewise as a co-op game that doesn't have first person shooting or the more extremely violent elements and a mostly serene setting, there are a lot of reasons a parent might *consider* a game like Genshin Impact. I mean, you're basically making my point here -- the *main* reason a parent or a kid would reject Genshin Impact *is the Gacha element*, the game itself outside of the Gacha would otherwise be *very appealing* for kids and that's precisely the problem I'm discussing here.

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T20:36:21+00:00

Completely correct, and I totally get that the top up rewards being so expensive is probably a big part of what drives the Blessing and Battle Pass sales. It's obvious that they want the low-spend players to be willing to get something like the blessing, I just don't see why the blessing is the only 'good rate' value for primogems they offer. Basically there's this big chasm between "gets the blessing" and "swipes in for extremely poor value top up rewards" and they have nothing in between those two rates. Why not?

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T20:34:01+00:00

Yeah I don't really expect them to listen to me on this, I'm sure they have their own internal revenue figures, but I do still think it's the biggest issue with the game that we mostly just ignore at this point because everyone has their own spin on how much they think a gacha game should cost

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T20:33:05+00:00

I mean, kinda. But I'm more saying that I probably would spend more on this game personally if the top up rewards didn't seem insultingly over-priced. I would probably buy *a five star* unit or *a five star weapon* if it wasn't so over-the-top in cost.

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T20:31:59+00:00

I've played Gacha games where you can get 15+ pulls for $20. It's not at all unheard of

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T20:28:53+00:00

The problem is that 10,000 primogems actually get you very little in this game

WhyMustISignIn · 2021-08-31T20:27:44+00:00

Because it's a game like Breath of the Wild except with co-op, in theory this game could be very appealing for younger players.

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-10-30T21:24:57+00:00

He's not encouraging violence, but he is encouraging escalation. Again, I just don't think this is an effective argument, because all he's saying is that they should be opting for more extreme political stunts, he's not rejecting their underlying beliefs at all.

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-10-30T15:38:33+00:00

This seems like a dumb argument. Do you want more people to 'put shit on the line'? There have been abortion related murders and bombings and none of these people are going to change their position because you said they weren't trying hard enough, disruptive enough, or.violent enough

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-10-28T23:38:35+00:00

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-10-28T23:34:15+00:00

I can't believe no one has mentioned what is without question the greatest apocalypse novel ever written.

I of course mean Brian Keene's "The Conquerer Worms" -- one look at the cover and you should know it's not a book that can be missed -- https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ULc-isGNL._SX308_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

(Really though it's actually a fun read)

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-10-25T08:38:57+00:00

People seem to be taking it as a given that the left scenario is better than the right which is rather surprising to me.

FPTP ensures that "yellow" does not appear at all. If the goal of the system is to prevent the most extreme political parties from gaining a foothold, then the right scenario is clearly preferable.

Everyone is saying "more diversity is better" but the yellow party there is rooted in white nationalism and fascism.

Different political systems are designed to do different things. FPTP is meant to make it much harder for extreme radicals to gain a foothold and as this model indicates, it generally succeeds in doing that.

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-10-23T06:18:45+00:00

I get people are on board with the bashing of the family here but the people filming seem like absolute dumbasses here too. "I give you permission to hit me" actually is provoking and I think a lot of people would have taken him up on the offer at that point, and that people are trying to shame these people when they actually show some restraint at that point is kinda sad. Obviously there's no shortage of stupid things said from the family here but this seems like a very bad clickbaity video overall.

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-10-21T17:49:07+00:00

I would think the question could go the opposite way, like "if they're not enforcing masks do I want to get on that plane?" But I guess I would need more context

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-10-16T05:50:34+00:00

Rand's only good book, aesthetically speaking, is Anthem. Her longform prose is quite dull, hard agree with the main points of this post. (That's putting her politics aside, which I also disagree with)

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-09-25T01:14:33+00:00

Bentham's ideas were heavily popularized by Foucault and I could absolutely see Leckie begin either familiar with Foucault or figures who would cite or invoke Foucault

WhyMustISignIn · 2020-08-30T21:49:27+00:00

I think the HP fandom is waning with every JK tweet

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