The game I experienced is Genshin Impact, an adventure RPG developed by MiHoYo, available on PC and mobile devices (I play on PC). Its target audience primarily includes open-world game enthusiasts and fans of ACG (anime, comic, and games) culture. Genshin is a live-service game that also incorporates elements of chance. To be honest, I have been playing for two years. Just a few days ago, during the version update, I even spent some money.
Based on Edwin Evans-Thirlwell’s framework, Genshin is a typical “vampire game”: it attracts players to continuously play and spend money by consistently delivering suspenseful stories and charming characters. For me, its addictiveness lies not in wasting time, but in draining money. Genshin’s developers have stated that their design goal is not to “prolong playtime,” and there are even mechanics designed to help players save time. In other words, in Genshin’s business model, spending does not scale linearly with playtime. Its business model relies on guiding players to spend as much as possible through short bursts of peak experiences.
“Acquiring characters” is the primary monetization focus of Genshin, realized through a system called “Wish”. The mechanics of this system are shown in the figure: before the 74th pull, the probability of obtaining a 5-star character is merely 0.6%; after the 74th pull, the probability of obtaining a 5-star character increases significantly, reaching 100% by the 90th pull. When obtaining a 5-star character, there is a 50% chance to get the target featured character (and a 50% chance to get a “Standard character”), which is known as “the 50/50”. Once you lose the 50/50, the next 5-star character you obtain is guaranteed to be the target character.
Figure: Schematic diagram of Genshin Impact’s Wish system
This segmented probability design is a form of “Manufactured Incalculability”, which precisely manipulates player behavior, prompting “explosive spending” in a short period: in the 0 to 74 pulls range, players generally do not expect to obtain a 5-star (with only a 0.6% rate), ensuring they will willingly invest the cost of these 74 pulls without complaint. In the 74 to 90 pulls range, the thrill comes from whether they can win the 50/50. This uncertainty lures players into underestimating the true cost required to obtain the target character, convincing them to “throw in some resources to try their luck.”
Once players lose the 50/50, it triggers the “Frustration Theory of Persistence”: although the player has already wasted over 80 pulls, they are rewarded with the guarantee that “the next one will definitely be the target character”—as long as they continue to pay, they can cash in on this certainty. In contrast, if it were a purely random design (for example, every pull has a 1% chance to get the target character, with no 50/50 and no pity mechanism), players might completely lose hope due to being “too unlucky” and stop pulling altogether. In summary, Genshin uses “randomness” to entice players to start trying, and then uses “certainty” to keep players hopeful and continuing to invest, ultimately achieving monetization conversion. However, there is a ceiling to this spending: each character can be obtained as a duplicate up to 6 times, and the maximum spending cap per version update is roughly around $2,000.
Figure: A portion of my pull history; “檔 indicates losing the 50/50 to a Standard character
The “Wish” system provides the channel for consumption, while the motivation for this spending stems from two main aspects:
First, narrative design. The core purpose of spending is to acquire characters, and the vast majority of the game’s content is dedicated to character building. In every version update, the game sets up standout narrative moments for the character being “marketed” on the current banner. While progressing through the story, players may be emotionally moved to spend money. However, this also leads to a problem—because new characters must be “marketed” every cycle and the narrative bandwidth is limited, many previously “marketed” older characters often disappear in new storylines, lacking opportunities for deeper characterization. Furthermore, some players view the characters they paid for as their personal property. If these characters undergo significant changes in new storylines, players might feel their “personal property has been violated.” This causes the official developers to often lean toward conservatism in character development, making it difficult to write complete character growth arcs.
Figure: A standout narrative moment for the character “Kaedehara Kazuha,” resisting the strike of a god with the will of a mortal.
Second, combat design. As an action RPG, Genshin’s combat system is also a crucial component: each team consists of four characters, some acting as DPS and others as supports. When a team features specific synergies, it creates a “1+1+1+1>4” effect. I once experienced “having a team lacking in strength for six consecutive months due to missing a key support,” which induced a strong sense of FOMO —when a new character drops, it never hurts to pull one just in case. And after pulling a character, you are naturally inclined to complete their optimal team comp. This “synergistic team building” design causes the player’s sunk cost to grow larger and larger, making continuous pulling an irrational yet hard-to-resist choice.
Figure: Synergistic team comps; all four characters belong to the “Hydro” and “Cryo” elements to maximize damage output.
In conclusion, compared to “Zombie Games” littered with microtransactions and pay-to-win mechanics, Genshin’s design is relatively elegant: it does not demand massive time investment and lacks cluttered monetization entry points; instead, it focuses on cultivating the player’s desire to “acquire characters” and packages this acquisition as a meticulously designed “gamble.” As for whether this is ethical: in my view, when randomness is tied to real-money spending, it is morally acceptable if the mechanics are disclosed upfront and a spending cap is implemented. Compared to traditional slot machines, Genshin publishes the mathematical principles of its gambling system. Although gambling inherently possesses the psychological trait of being “hard to evade even when understanding the mechanics,” purely from a game design perspective, Genshin achieves fairness and clarity in its rules.
