You do not, in fact, gotta hand it to MiHoYo azhdarchid.com/you-do-not-g... - ThreadSky

brunodias.bsky.social • 49 days ago

You do not, in fact, gotta hand it to MiHoYo

https://azhdarchid.com/you-do-not-gotta-hand-it-to-mihoyo/

Comments

I hate MiHoYo and gacha in general but I kinda disagree with the article. Free users have values in a F2P (who the paid users are gonna be above if they aren’t here ?) so the game do tries to retain them. Most gacha have an abondance of free gifs and content doable by free users.

noldea.bsky.social•48 days ago

If gachas were just predatory towards people that can afford their spending I wouldn’t have problems with them. But they are predatory towards everyone; they want you to spend absurd amount of time in them and whales aren’t always very rich people that can afford it.

codarobo.online•49 days ago

Oh thank god i was feeling genuinely crazy at the insinuation that people don’t like mechanically thin gambling games because of their uncheck bigotry

codarobo.online•49 days ago

I do absolutely want to read and learn more about regional gaming scenes and think that is important, but i think we should stop short of vaporizing exploitation outright just because other places have more of it or whatever

codarobo.online•49 days ago

valorizing*

codarobo.online•49 days ago

Also i think about how like… it’s seen as a problem that nobody takes games historically played more by women seriously, but so much of that started with the developers of games marketed at girls not taking them seriously either! Much of the stuff “made for girls” was genuinely slop!

codarobo.online•49 days ago

And like, there is a whole vicious cycle there, where devs patronize the players, produce crappy games, which are then not taken seriously by media, and help reinforce the idea that “they just don’t have good taste in games like i/we do, it’s a lost cause”

bunnicula.bsky.social•49 days ago

a lot of it was SO bad. 6 cynical tie in reskins for every tokimeki memorial girls side, and the idea of games actually enjoyed by women get skewed in a lot of revisionist ways too, eg: straight men getting flat out hostile towards whole genres in the 00’s in part because women embraced them.

codarobo.online•49 days ago

Yeah, like the genuinely bad and truly vapid shovelware becomes the face of “what girls like”, to men who make, market, write about and play games during the 90’s especially i feel like. The expectation is already set that girls just have bad taste in their minds

wrengr.org•49 days ago

While they definitely push a lot of sexist slop, i kinda feel like they're also pushing this narrative...

E.g, The Sims is one of the largest franchises out there, and the majority of players are women, and yet somehow it *never* *ever* comes up in these discussions. That's too glaring an omission

codarobo.online•49 days ago

I also feel like it wasn’t given the “obnoxiously gendered toy aisle” marketing treatment in the same way the more shovelware type stuff was

qvotoms.bsky.social•49 days ago

imo i think its less that 'much of it was slop' and more that the stuff that got marketed and pushed was. like there's a long and rich history of compelling games for women that influenced the broader industry, but nobody's mentioning angelique, they're mentioning kim: kardashian hollywood

codarobo.online•49 days ago

that’s a great point!

willpierce.bsky.social•49 days ago

There was a really fascinating conversation about that on an early Video Game History Hour around a 90s Barbie game https://gamehistory.org/episode-3-ally-mcleans-barbie-as-rapunzel-journey/

argonaught.bsky.social•48 days ago

I saw that take and got so angry I had to go stand in the yard

kougeru.bsky.social•48 days ago

I hand it to them for making actually fun games, even as a free player. But the criticisms are valid.

snackbyte.bsky.social•49 days ago

this was an excellent read

as someone also from the global south and a dev with similar background, i feel this very strongly

i made a similar thread about this last month, and you really hit the nail on the head with how you wrote it

queen-calamity.bsky.social•49 days ago

I was generally pro Genshin when it first released and I was surprised by the effort put into it.

Recently I realized that the nature of selling characters pulls means those characters have very little, if any room to change.

The business model defines the limits of the games creative potential.

muttonbandit.bsky.social•48 days ago

I found the game to "story" itself, across all their games, to just be extended ads for each character then they don't matter anymore. They're only brought to life by the fans.

jjhaell.bsky.social•48 days ago

”business model defines the limits”

Unfortunately this has always been the case.

Arcade
Short games to pump those quarters

One time purchase
Steep cost -> longer & harder games

MMO
Subs require ever more content to justify the price

F2P
Power creep with each new class/hero to sell ‘em

ruffian.price.audio•48 days ago

lmao this happens every time a journalist needs to excuse getting hooked on erotica

babayaga25.bsky.social•48 days ago

I'm reminded of the old quarter eating arcade machines, except juiced by an order of magnitude.

Games designed not to be fun so much as obsessive.

dante45p.bsky.social•48 days ago

It was pretty over in the states the second sports gambling online was made legit

I'm not shock people at large stop caring about gacha

jadefae.bsky.social•49 days ago

“ "well, this is what people in the Global South can play, they can't afford $60 games or $400 consoles," I just roll my eyes.

You might as well be telling me that payday lenders are "banking the unbanked." “

WOW this is such a great case in point. Knocked it out the park.

adistantdream.bsky.social•49 days ago

Nobody has to pay a cent for these games if they don't want to. You just have to choose which characters you want instead of trying to grab them all. Nobody would complain about payday lenders if the interest was optional.

jadefae.bsky.social•49 days ago

Don’t care didn’t ask. They are predatory and everyone knows it. Studies confirming it and everything.

adistantdream.bsky.social•49 days ago

They're as predatory as Taylor Swift. Some people spend thousands of dollars they don't have to see her in concert. Most people don't.

moooomoolex.bsky.social•48 days ago

Just because some people don't fall prey to them doesn't mean they're not predatory.

These games thrive with a minority spending all the necessary money to keep them alive, but they ARE designed predatory to secure this minority.

norah.xyz•49 days ago

Ah yes, concert ticket prices. Something no one ever criticizes!

This is an own goal when you consider all of the criticism she got for releasing barely different compilations to boost her position in the charts by leveraging fomo. Pretty good comparison actually!

ironknuckle.bsky.social•43 days ago

Citation please.

drestlemare.neocities.org•48 days ago

Much as I agree with the first bit, you have to admit that's something you settle on after being experienced with this sort of game over time, and not common knowledge outside its communities. "Save to spark/pity", "Don't worry about rolling this one", the game doesn't emphasize these things upfront

quadraticink.bsky.social•49 days ago

The problem is that a lot of predatory tactics explicitly called out in this text are not present in (at least some) MiHoYo games. You aren't pitted against paying players, because it's PvE. You aren't shown excessive ads. You aren't gated from content. You can have good F2P experience.

quadraticink.bsky.social•49 days ago

I don't want to paint them as some sort of a paragon. Yes, there's still gambling, both with real money and with the time investment for F2P players. Yes, the game's making that first purchase very easy. But there are great examples there of how you make a game that's not hostile to F2P player.

quadraticink.bsky.social•49 days ago

I agree with the thesis that, "You don't need to hand it to MiHoYo," because I don't think they're doing this to be good and responsible - if they did, they'd take it further. And they're still predatory. But they do show methods that can be used by an ethical dev to monetize in F2P space.

quadraticink.bsky.social•49 days ago

If you want to discuss how media falsely portrays MiHoYo as "one of the good ones," when there's plenty wrong, that's fine. And that feels like that was the point. But a lot of the arguments miss the mark, because they don't match the actual state of MiHoYo's games, undermining the message.

darshiro.bsky.social•49 days ago

To add on top of this, they have been filling a space people actually want. Big, gorgeous, open worlds with meaningful things to do in them? Check. Big budget, story based turn based RPG? Check. Big, fun action game? Check. All of them always evolving? Check. All things people want.

darshiro.bsky.social•49 days ago

Of course, one can apply all of the legit criticisms to Hoyoverse. Absolutely. Not wrong about any of them. However, ignoring the simple and basic truth that they provide high quality games people want at the same time? Ignores the other big elephant in the room.

kipenyan.bsky.social•48 days ago

Christ. The contortions people have to make to maintain their virtuous self-image with very obviously unethical practices.

kipenyan.bsky.social•48 days ago

Making the game non-hostile to F2P players is entirely the point. That is not a mark in their favor and it’s wild to not see that. Other F2P games that fail at that are doing a worse job of being effectively exploitative, not a better one.

quadraticink.bsky.social•48 days ago

Agreed. But the article focuses specifically on MiHoYo, then brings up all the failings of other F2P games that MiHoYo specifically doesn't fail in. That's a very bad way to make a point.

kipenyan.bsky.social•48 days ago

It does muddy the message, and I think “F2P players don’t actually have a good experience relative to paid” is a weak enough point to be worth dropping entirely, but I don’t think it undermines the broader point at all.

corvursus.bsky.social•48 days ago

As someone who has been put off playing more Star Rail due to the power creep issues... yeah no it's very explicitly a problem which encourages dangerous gambling tactics.

Mihoyo EXPLICITLY eschews good balance for exploitative tactics to encourage gacha rolling.

quadraticink.bsky.social•48 days ago

You are encouraged to get new characters. Which you can gamble for, and yes, that's the predatory part. But you can get about 1 banner character per 1-2 patches on average, and you know in advance when power is going to step up. You can clear all content without paying. It's just easier if you do.

corvursus.bsky.social•48 days ago

You just highlighted the problem, tho. This methodology encourages a constant sense of FOMO - if you want to keep being on top of things, keep having the best characters, you need to keep playing and keep up with the meta. I stopped playing for a while and found myself SEVERELY outclassed.

quadraticink.bsky.social•48 days ago

Any game is going to come with FOMO. That's how games make money. There are absolutely masterpiece games that came out a decade ago that are either completely free or nearly so. The only reason to buy a $60 game is FOMO, and that's the only way new games get funded.

corvursus.bsky.social•48 days ago

...what? No I don't think you get how FOMO works if you think "wanting to play new good games" is FOMO.

corvursus.bsky.social•48 days ago

And this has the side effect of de-valuing what you rolled for before. Like I know folks who mained Seele and Blade in early chapters who got fucked because the game balance made them wildly ineffective at clearing challenges.

quadraticink.bsky.social•48 days ago

Yes, the game wants you to get a new top character every few months if you keep playing. You also should be earning enough stellar jade in these few months to guarantee a banner character you want.

corvursus.bsky.social•48 days ago

The fact that F2P clears are possible does not mean the game balance isn't EXPLICITLY built towards pushing people to whale or dedicate all their time to grinding.

luck3drag0n.bsky.social•36 days ago

📌

tronotized.bsky.social•48 days ago

Great writing!

generaltekno.bttoons.com•48 days ago

As someone who does enjoy their games, none of the stuff in here is wrong.

While I'm comfortable putting a little bit of $ in here and there the amounts required to get fully leveled characters in gachas are just plain insane.

tomsydi.bsky.social•48 days ago

I think they are *slightly* better in that there is no direct PVP element to their games meaning that people who spend aren't out competing others.

seanvaljean.bsky.social•49 days ago

Fully understand why you're not naming them, but thanks for pointing out the person who parlayed their journalism career defending gacha into a job promoting them. That remains one of the most contemptible things I've seen from a reporter ever.

avaaurora.bsky.social•48 days ago

Ok but who though so I can avoid them forever?

ghostlyperson.bsky.social•48 days ago

Honestly if you look at Kotaku articles written about how gachas are unfarly criticised you'll get who they are with 99% accuracy. They tended to twist arguments about how JRPGs and asian games in general were derided by western press to say that companies like MiHoYo were unfairly targeted.

kipenyan.bsky.social•48 days ago

If you read Kotaku during their stint there it’s not exactly subtle. Pretty much their whole tenure was gacha apologia.

otterchris.bsky.social•48 days ago

They're in marketing now so you will never directly interface with them

felipepepe.bsky.social•49 days ago

I get this is not a direct reply to my text, but was probably triggered by it.

I agree, gacha & F2P should absolutely be criticized. Roblox's evil thrives due to lack of criticism. What I reject is when it becomes an excuse to rewrite history, especially when US online games did whale-hunting first

gundroog.bsky.social•49 days ago

From what I understand, these numbers come purely from the amount of time people spent in the game, rather than monetization. Feels like it fits more into the now rarely talked about MMO/online game addiction, rather than F2P monetization practices.

felipepepe.bsky.social•49 days ago

These games were hosted by Internet providers, who charged per hour for internet AND for game access. They were designed to keep you connected, to be grindy as hell. The celebrated Habitat had micro-transactions and in-game currency with daily login bonuses. It was pure aggressive monetization.

gundroog.bsky.social•49 days ago

Sure, then Habitat could be a good example of this. I was talking about specifically what you posted, which is how much people were spending on a pay-to-play service, in response to a post about normalization of predatory F2P practices.

felipepepe.bsky.social•49 days ago

Paid games can have predatory monetization on top too, I don't see the point in making that distinction. Whale-hunting is whale-hunting, games like Diablo 4 are simply doing the double-dip and also charging upfront.

gundroog.bsky.social•49 days ago

That's not what I meant, the point is that people getting addicted to the game are not "whales" in the normal sense, because the only way for them to pay more than the average user is by playing more. Whaling comes into play when they are enticed with extra purchases.

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