Gacha! Lessons from Genshin Impact

Genshin Impact has taken the gaming world by storm. The highest grossing mobile game in October, Genshin Impact brought in a staggering USD 239 million in player spending for the month. It’s users mostly came from China, with Japan and the US coming right behind it.

At this point, it’s really important to take note that Genshin Impact is FREE to play. So how did it earn all that money? Gacha. For those familiar with the actual machine, gacha machines are a popular vending-type machine where once you plop in the quarter equivalent, you get a randomized toy. It’s a little like spinning the lottery wheel, which is the exact mechanic gacha games implement within their systems.

While the game is free to play, players can spend real money to “spin the wheel” to obtain some sort of in-game incentive. In the case of Genshin Impact, these are alternative characters which the player can use while running through the game.

Currently, to “roll the dice” within the game, it costs roughly 125 Philippine pesos. Which may not seem like much, until you realize that the rarest (and usually strongest characters) have a miniscule 0.06% chance of showing up. And if you want them to get stronger, you have to roll the same character up to 6 times.

That’s…. a lot of money. Some players spend several thousand dollars just to get the characters they want.

But what keeps players interested? Genshin Impact has an incredibly rich and interesting storyline. You don’t NEED to spend money, but playing through a compelling story, which topnotch animation really helps to immerse players in the game. While some people definitely spend a lot, there are a whole ton of players who never put in a single cent, which is a testament to how good of a game this is regardless.

There’s definitely a marketing lesson to be learned here: bring value to your target market, and they will pay (sometimes a whole lot) for that value. Whether that’s painting a rich story, or utilizing FOMO (the fear of missing out), there are lots of mechanics that can help you monetize. Maybe it’s gacha, who knows?