Why Genshin Impact Is More Popular Than Breath of the Wild
Genshin Impact has been an astounding success, and the biggest launch for any game from China.
screenrant.com
Despite claims of being a Zelda clone, Genshin Impact has had phenomenal success since its launch, attracting even more players than Breath of the Wild. There's a pretty clear cut reason as to why that is, however.
Genshin Impact is available to far more players
The most obvious answer as to why Genshin Impact is more successful than Breath of the Wild is simply a much larger player-base. While the Switch has sold over 65 million consoles to date, that's still nothing compared to the number of iOS and Android devices out there. Genshin Impact hit 17 million downloads on mobile just days after its release and as a free-to-play title, it can attract those that may not be initially interested. Hundreds of millions of mobile users can simply go to their app store and see Genshin Impact as a recommended new game. This is totally separate from players on PS4 and PC, which adds hundreds of millions more. Breath of the Wild has been a phenomenal success, but a free game is always going to be more attractive to a lot of players than a $60 price tag, plus the price of buying a Nintendo Switch. It's easy to see why Genshin Impact would attract a wealth of players, especially with strong word-of-mouth and marketing. However, its success is also tied to the core design of a gacha game.
Genshin Impact is the first AAA gacha game
Genshin Impact is really one of the first games of its kind, a full-fledged AAA gacha game. The "gacha" genre derives its name from a series of Japanese vending machines where people pay to get a capsule containing a random figure or character. Known as gacha machines, the idea carried into video games when titles started using random draws to award players new characters, items, etc. For years now gacha games have blown up on mobile, but it's rare to see one with a huge budget, and one that hits any kind of success on home consoles. Genshin Impact does both of these things, and strings players along with the promise of new playable characters. The gacha mechanics and microtransactions don't feel as insidious in Genshin Impact because there's a lengthy, quality experience at the core of the game that players can get through without spending a dime.