Genshin Impact is an open-world adventure RPG created by the video game developer miHoYo. It’s playable on mobile devices, PC/desktop, and console platforms and is aimed at older teens and young adults who enjoy exploration, character collecting, and gambling (heh). In Genshin Impact, gambling appears through the “Wish” system, where players spend currency for a probability-based outcome to roll for a rare character or weapon. If players don’t have enough in-game currency to roll, they have the option to spend real-money to buy the in-game currency. The player is never in control of what they receive from the Wish system, creating a cycle of emotions. They’re encouraged to keep trying because the next wish could be the one that finally gives them the character or weapon they’ve been trying to get. Genshin Impact shows how randomness can become exploitative when a game turns emotional attachment to characters into a monetized cycle of hope, disappointment, and repeated attempts.
The important thing to understand about this “Wish” system (coming from a victim) is that it’s built about very low odds and delayed guarantees. A 5-star character, which is a character that’s rare and most-desired, has a very small chance of appearing on any single roll. Most players will not get what they want right away. On top of this, earning enough free in-game currency for every one roll can take a noticeable amount of time, which makes buying currency with real money feel like the faster path, especially when a desired character is featured on a limited-time “banner,” a rotating event page that disappears after a set period. These design choices connect to a larger criticism of live-service games, they’re designed to make the player return repeatedly. As Evans-Thirlwell writes in Rock Paper Shotgun, live-service games “seek to install themselves as habits,” which is exactly what the Wish system does by making the player feel like every login, quest, and roll is part of a longer path towards the reward they want. The game also has a “pity” system, where after a certain number of unsuccessful rolls, the player is guaranteed a higher-rarity reward. However, this creates a sunk-cost trap. If a player has already wished 60 times, they may feel like quitting now would waste all the progress they have already made toward pity or to possibly getting the character by luck, so they’ll keep playing and trying.
Another layer of pressure comes from the fact that the game has a massive player community where wishing has become a shared social event. Players post their pulls, compare luck, and make videos about “winning” or “losing” a banner. This can make the Wish system feel less like a private choice and more like something players are expected to participate in if they want to stay up-to-date and relevant within the community. As Schull mentions in Addiction by Design, the opaque internal operations of gambling machines become a “source of great wonderment and conjecture among gamblers,” which helps explain why chance becomes so socially powerful. In Genshin Impact, the “opaque internal operations” are the hidden calculations behind each Wish such as the 50/50 featured-character system and the probability rules that determine what item or character the player gets. For example, when I was still free-to-play, I rolled for a 5-star, Yoimiya, because I liked her character design and personality. However, I lost the 50/50 and got a different 5-star instead (</3). Since that reset my pity and her banner was ending soon, I realized I wouldn’t have enough time to earn enough Primogems through gameplay, so spending money felt like the fastest way to get closer to another chance. This shows how the game’s randomness becomes ethically concerning because it turns a player’s attachment to a character into a timed, socially reinforced spending loop where the next roll always feels like it could fix the last loss.
Compared to other games that use chance, Genshin Impact feels more ethically concerning because probability is directly tied to money and scarcity. In Minecraft, chance appears through world generation, mob drops, or finding rare materials, but randomness mainly supports exploration rather than pushing for purchases. In Hearthstone chance appears through randomized card packs and in-game effects, but Genshin Impact intensifies the pressure by attaching probability to highly designed characters with stories, aesthetics, and community hype. This makes each Wish feel less like a neutral game mechanic and more like a paid emotional gamble.
I think chance is morally permissible when it allows for surprise, fairness, and meaningful uncertainty while still letting players clearly understand the real cost of each attempt, setting limits on their spending, and enjoy the game without feeling pressured to pay. In Genshin Impact, chance becomes morally impermissible when it blurs costs and monetizes emotional attachment to characters strategically. One deceptive pattern at work is sneaking because they game doesn’t ask players to spend money directly on a character, but rather, players buy Genesis Crystals, convert them into Primogems, and then use them on Wishes, which makes the real-life cost of each attempt feel less immediate. The layered currency stem skews the player’s perception of how much they’re actually spending.
All of these factors work together to make addiction more likely. Low odds create uncertainty, pity creates sunk costs, banners create urgency, community pressure creates social relevance, and layered currency makes spending feel less real.
