Genshin Impact Deconstruct
Genshin Impact is a mobile ARPG Gacha success story—a game that has created a compelling story while making millions of dollars in revenue. In this post, I will be showing a deconstruction of my thoughts as to why I think Genshin is such a success.
Reean’s Deconstruct - Genshin Impact
Platforms: Mobile, PC, and PlayStation
Taking into account that the game is available on multiple platforms is one of the reasons for its success.
According to ‘Newzoo’, there are 2.5B Mobile gamers, 1.3B PC gamers, and around 800M console gamers (including Xbox/Switch). Around 4.1B potential users (probably closer to 3.8B if we take Xbox and Switch out of the equation)
Genre(s): Action RPG, Gacha
A very popular Genre is action RPGs; similar series such as Final Fantasy, Nier Automata, Yakuza, God of War, and Dark Souls are all Action RPGs. Since 2010, there have been thousands of ARPGs on multiple platforms, according to Wikipedia.
Core Gameplay Loop: Open-World Combat, Quest System, Gacha System, Mini-Games, Events, and Boss Battles
In the traditional sense, this is an Open-World game with combat, boss battles mini-games, and a quest system. The player progresses via character level, adventure rank level, and story-progression.
Additionally, there is also a gacha system, which is a pull-system for characters with a percentage to get the character you want. This is imperative to the core function of the game
Monetary Loop: New Characters, New Weapons, Day pass, Battle Pass, and Additional Items
The bread and butter of Genshin’s success is due to their Monetization system. Since the game itself is so compelling (an anime arpg with comprehensive story-telling), it sets its characters up for success and leaves lasting impressions on users. Due to this, users will pull for their favorite characters. From anywhere from $100 all the way to $2500+ if you go for the characters C6 and R5 weapons there are also battle passes, day passes, and other additional items a player can get for an advantage.
User Engagement: Weekly bosses, compelling story, game updates every 3 weeks, explorable open-world, world events, daily quests.
There is plenty of user engagement, as there are daily quests, weekly bosses, and the game updates every 3 weeks with either story updates or big world events. The compelling story also keeps users engaged, and there is a leveling system for characters, weapons, artifacts, and adventure ranks. To get to the higher end of the adventure rank (which finishes at level 60), players will have needed to play for nearly 2–3 years.
