I shouldn’t have to say this, but guys… gambling for women is bad, actually. While I make it a point to focus on women's issues in this video, it should go without saying that this has negative effects on men, too. This video is in no way saying that men do not have issues. If it wasn't clear, men and women are both victims here. I don't want anyone to get the weird idea that I am ignoring the men. I'm not. That's just not the focus of this video. So, keep in mind that what I am saying about women is also harmful to men by proxy. That being said, let's not make a video about women's issues about men. Please be careful of that. Love ya. ♥
I don't think the argument is that it needs to be 100% realistic, but more that that form of stylization can be harmful, especially in the context of a gacha mechanic. Long legs in of themselves are fine, part of him mentioning them was also comedic because they look silly. IMO
I agree with a lot of your points here, I completely agree with your statements about the walking animations and sexualization, and yes the monetization is 100% a horrible tactic however in my view, the game never tries to hide or anything, its well known as a gacha game, and while I also think that it could be much better without it, if its going to ruin your experience, you're the one in the wrong spot. It's akin to playing poker for money knowingly and then complaining about it. Another thing I would note is that when making a video like this, I would try to do more research into the lore, beyond just the surface level. A side effect of an anime art style is that often every character looks younger than they actually are (something that has a whole slew of issues and problems that I don't want to get into right now) and criticizing that is important to do because it is incredibly problematic, however using the word canonically without what it was used on being confirmed can cause misinformation. All in all, yes there are a lot of problems that I would love for them to fix (sexualization, monetization, lack of variety, etc), yes I do enjoy the game and all the exploration that comes with it, and I would recommend this game to people who are into open world exploration as long as they can get over the fact that it IS a gacha game and at present, the monetization is something that will probably not change.
i agree with everything said other than your thoughts of the combat. ok hear me out. you are right about most of it other than waiting for cooldowns. so this is where team building, rotations, different weapons, different artifacts, different characters, and different reactions come into play. the best team in the entire game at the moment has zero cooldown issues if you play it right. just my little thought. other than that you are 1000000000000000000% right. and there is no clear age of the mc. just thought i should say this. its very likely we are a couple thousand years old based off of lore.
Most male characters are fujobait as I see it. Male characters are built more like shojo/yaoi characters like none of them having a beard, closest us getting to a mascular character being Itto. Genshin's female characters are at least somewhat developed like Navia's and Furina's stories being front and ceter in Fontaine. Other gatcha games are way worse in sexualization and general comodification departament. The overabundance of female characters is mostly a demographic thing though since of course the game wants to sell. As I see it both are comodified, but more people actively spending on female characters causes more female characters to be implemented.
This video is just so wierd.... I agree that Gacha is predatory, but you are complaining about the ratio of female to male characters? And how those characters are represented and male characters are shoved aside in the story? Ironically the two current rate up characters are Zhongli and Neuvilette, two of the strongest characters meta wise, two of the strongest characters lorewise, two of hte most significant characters in the story. I completely disagree on some of the characters looking to young, just because a girl is petite doesn't instantly mean they are underaged, like you have drawn conclusions with Amber. That is a perfectly normal way for a young woman to look. You compare the games rating to GTA, a game with prostitutes, actual nudity, drug use and more. like what? You claim "No one walks like that" as a woman, yes, some woman walk like that lmao, ua-cam.com/video/UEZrNLagwls/v-deo.htmlsi=Yy55z5-FyNAWab6B there is a video on why it happens. Thats natural. And you then complain about jiggle physics? I'm sorry should part of a characters body stay perfectly still while the rest of them is moving and stopping. Lisa is a case where maybe its exagerated a bit too much? But if thats what your spending the game looking at thats a you issue. You complain about how the woman are designed, look up the designs of Furina and Charelotte, those are perfectly normal woman, Amber is a perfectly normal woman. yet you complained about her seeming to young? I've had to stop this video 19 minutes in because its just... badly constructed. Your arguments aren't in good faith, but nearly entirely built around Lisa, who is meant to be an incredibly flirty character. and no MC is not underaged, no character ages are even stated in the game. And this all feels incredibly ungenuine when you clearly haven't played the game past Liyue, You spoke briefly on 2 dimensional character design, where either a female is badass or a damsel in distress, no inbetween. When Ironically genshin is one of the games that has shown me very clearly that isn't always the case. There are tons of unique intresting female characters in genshin, Chiori, Charelotte and Ayaka, to the incredibly complicated and emotionally intresting characters like Furina. I spent 5 minutes of a character that is just a "Damnsel in distress" and the only one who I think fits that bill is Barbara. I think most of this video is built on spending an hour playing Lisa and her character quest lmao. The flirty character who calls everyone cutie. Maybe individually you could argue she is a problem, but that simply isn't a character trait or visual trait across every character in the game. Are no female characters allowed to flirt or be even slightly provacative? As someone who was massivley inspired by the female characters in genshin, and feel they are one of the few games who do female represenatation fairly well, same for Star Rail, Firefly is one of my biggest inspirations in life fullstop, this video comes across well intended but ultimatley unfounded, there are games which have issues with how they portray woman, Zenless Zone Zero would of been a perfect topic for this video as there characters 100% are sexualised and its done by the same company, but genshin, where yoru arugment is "Womans hips move and there breasts bounce slightly" it comes across as a you issue rather then a criticism of the game. My comment is a mess but I just wanted to talk about the 2 dimensional portrayal of woman again, in one of the lastest quests, we explore a mother who lost her child, she kidnaps another child, one who looks incredibly similar to her own, and basically gaslights her into acting as her old child did. It goes much deeper then that but I won't explain ti all, but I just fail to see how characters like that fit your bill of "Damnsel in distress" or "Badass hero"
@@TheGeekFactor What are you on about bro, that thought never even crossed my mind and I've been playing the game for 4 years. This is definitely a "you" problem...
you can pretend that there's no female sexualization if you want, but as a woman yes the jiggle physics are way unrealistic and just looking at it actually hurts my chest to think about, two characters (furina and charlotte) having mostly unsexualized designs doesn't really make up for the rest of the female cast (rosaria is a nun in fishnets, fischl in an adventurer in lingerie, clorinde is a fighter in a super tight restricting shirt, half the characters are adventurers or fighters who wear high heels, yae miko's religious attire is sexualized, raiden's kimono is sexualized and she is not dressed like a shogun at all, i could go on and on), and just because two of the strongest characters are male doesn't mean you can't criticize the male to female character ratio (although i personally think it's understandable from a character design perspective because feminine fashion is much more diverse and developed than masculine fashion). you could say 'oh well it's an anime gacha game so it's gonna have a pretty girl bias' and i'll understand you, that's valid, but yea the female cast is oversexualized like there's no need to defend it
This sexualisation is a problem in most gacha games unfortunately. The only one I can think of that doesn't have this problem is infinity Nikki but even then most of the characters all look like the standard pretty like barbie dolls, Which I guess is intentional because its a dress up game but still.
Ok, the point about monetization is true and fair. But I feel like you got offended a bit too hard by literal pixels. I understand that the characters are very hypersexualized to sell but like, have you ever seen a cologne ad? Have you seen ANY ad? This is nothing new, nor exclusive to this game. Also, have you seen any anime ever? This crap is like the standard, and it also happens to men, but I don't see you complaining that jojo's makes "unrealistic bodies" for men. I'm with you on the predatory monetization, the company is one of the shittiest companies out there and I'm not saying it's ok to treat characters like that, but the point kind of falls flat when you link them like that.
Idk how you missed the multiple times that I said “I don’t have a problem with sexualizing. Characters.” It’s the specialization PLUS the monetization. Gambling where sexy women is the prize is bad.
The first problem that comes up in topics like these is the artist, the developers. Mihoyo is a company who's entire goal in mind for creating games, is making cute women and story second. Theyre sexualized because the game is made for people who like sexualized women, thats why their slogan was Tech "otakus" save the world. Your complaints are valid, but that doesnt mean that what genshin is doing is bad. It just means the game isnt for you, just as Tlou2 isnt for everyone bc people dont like Abby and what she exemplefies. I also feel like i could debate many of the complaints you feel, but uh; those discussions are literal hell in the genshin fandom xP Edit: I forgot to mention, the development team is chinese with their main concern pandering to their chinese audience. Their culture is astronomically different from us, which also becomes problematic when comparing issues that bother us, that culturaly dont bother the chinese, ie: the age of consent is lower than our. Its gross, but its gross to us, not to them. Asians are also generally more petite than Americans, which explains the design philosophy of many of the women looking younger
Hey there. Active genshin and star rail player here. I took the time to watch through your entire video and even took notes throughout to give you the best possible shot at convincing me of your points. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find that most of this video was ranting and pinning strawmen. None of the articles linked have even an indirect link to the main topic to the video. Of course they were mentioned, but that was largely on tangents and in strawman accusations. 26 minutes in is when I found your first really good point, and that is that genshin will eventually shut down and be unplayable, and that sucks. But that has nothing to do with womens issues or the games monetization, and everything to do with corporate greed and apathy. I'm all for a world in which preserving live service games post-death is normalized and actively encouraged by developers and publishers. Going back to your headline topic, I did try taking notes without trying to refute anything, but there was a point where I just had to put a little note so I wouldn't have to rewatch the video to write this comment: - I'm sure you've been made well aware of this by now, but the canon ages you list are not, in fact, canon. The absence of canon ages is likely very much intentional to keep a sense of "plausible deniability", but I would argue that isn't a bad thing. - Comparing sexualized fictional characters, particularly those that are heavily stylized, to fellow tiktokers in reference to this "idol effect" is, in my opinion, very flawed. They look nothing alike, and I don't think anyone except a cosplayer would strive to look like these characters. - I do think that polarized female representation of girlboss/masculine vs. sex object is a problem, but I find it more productive to champion the nuanced portrayals we've got rather than ranting about the faults of those with a narrow target audience Just to end on a positive note, I think your video production and presentation is pretty good. I'll likely check out your other content, since I assume this rant was more of an exception rather than a rule. Happy holidays.
As someone who doesnt spend money in microstransactions (less than 20$ in my life),I never understood the appeal of the cod/xdefiant monetization method. Im not against it but also i dont mind lootboxes as long as they let the players get loot and cosmetics for free because the price you pay is influenced by the amount of time you spend in the game. If you compare genshin gacha systems or cs case system to Riot's new gacha in league, you can see the difference. ( Rito pls fix that shit )
Honestly this video js still relevant but thankfully it had gotten better during Fontaine only to get 1000 times worse during Natlan. Like even though Fontaine has fan service it is still decent, not overly sexualized but at the same time is modest enough meanwhile natlan has a blacksmith wear just a bra along with booty shorts 💀
100% agree!!!! also theres a few general rules for chinese pronunciation, like q is pronounced ch, x is pronounced sh, zh is pronounced soft j. i think its worth doing a bit of research to pronounce the words youre saying, especially if theyre in a different language cus otherwise it can seem kinda disrespectful. based video good points i hope you can get through to some of the male audience of this game lol
Thank you for the advice! I did actually look up a couple pronunciations. Why I didn’t do the rest, beats me. I totally see how that’s disrespectful. But uh… have you seen this comment section? I don’t think I got through to anyone lmao 😂
Shout out to you for having your own opinion! I've played genshin for 4 years and just dropped it this year for some of these reasons. The genshin community likes to gaslight people for criticizing a game they have an obsession with, I Wish you luck!😅
I just don’t understand the point of this video as he bounces from one unrelated point to another. Genshin has a bunch of flaws that are worth criticizing (Gacha, FOMO, story/character writing, etc) but this video and GeekFactor himself seem entirely uninterested in actually talking about it because he’d rather go off on a tangent about subscriptions, modern day politics and feminism. Those are all valid and important things to talk about but I don’t get why they had to be forced into a video about Genshin’s combat and monetization. At the end of the day if he didn’t like the game I’m not gonna be angry I can entirely understand someone avoiding Genshin like the plague solely because it’s a glorified slot machine or because the writing can be mediocre to bad at times but ignoring all the other positive aspects of the game while hyper focusing on Genshin’s fanservice and blowing it way out of proportion is kind of pointless IMO. If Genshin had fanservice like Zenless Zone Zero or Nikke then I’d understand his points more, hell I wouldn’t even play Genshin if it was like those games, but the fact is that it’s not like them and is in fact pretty fucking tame when compared to other Gachas. (Holy yap sorry for that)
You have this backwards. I wanted to focus on the problems with genshin’s monetization and briefly touch on things I like. This video was not about “combat.” It was about the monetization and how it bleeds into other aspects of our culture. Also, all of the stuff you mention in this comment are things I talk about. I talk about the gacha system. I talk about the FOMO. I talk about the positive things I like. You didn’t watch this video. You- at the very least- didn’t pay attention. I literally talk about how I like the exploration, how I like the world and the people therein, how I enjoy some aspects of the combat and how the story is okay.
P.s. if your argument is just “it’s the style >:,(“ that may be true, but he makes points that clearly articulate the problems he has with the style. No one is arguing that Genshin isn’t stylized. Also, he encouraged you to play the game and give it a try, it’s clearly a nuanced topic.
I watched the whole video. I do play, and I do pay because I do enjoy the game and have the stability and income to do so, but the reason I enjoy it is not because of these sexualized aspects, if anything I'm literally still on about looking for Lumine so I'm committed to the story. The thing is, Hoyoverse, despite being a huge company is private, which means the issue of say what happened to xdefiant because of its publisher ubisoft, being a publicly traded company. This game is definitely not indie. This company is definitely not indie either. Genshin is a huge money maker and I don't really ever see it going anywhere, ever. I don't ever play P2W and that is a huge misconception about this game that I agree with you on. I just think P2W games are an absolute scam and are garbage, but this game, you choose to pay or not. I just like playing as the characters for their kits, team comps, and stories, especially in co-op. Also I hate gambling so every time i pull it's calculated and I'm never on my knees praying.
im just gonna put this out there, as a genshin player, most of the progress in the game is not done via getting characters, in fact theres some relatively easy-to-get 4-star characters that are better than some of the 5-star characters, most of the progress in the game is gotten through artifacts, which you CANNOT do by using money...rather you need a more experienced player to tell you how to gear up each character for each purpose, where to get certain artifacts, and what artifact stats you need to look for
I hope you understand how irrelevant that is to my point. How does the game make its money? Gambling where sexy women are the biggest prize. That’s a totally separate point from progression
First of all, I wanted to say that you have a ton of courage to touch anything about Genshin Impact. Gacha games in particular can be very questionable when it comes to their designs and overall functionality. I can see a lot of people get hooked on it due to its style and characters, but I can also see people enjoy it for the adventure and storytelling. I'm sure you see that side of the argument too, but the way that Hoyoverse designs their advertisements can be a BIT controversial (Hell, as I'm writing this comment, I'm seeing a Zenless Zone Zero ad with the shark girl in a maid outfit. Like, WHAT??). One thing I wanted to comment on were the walk cycles. Yes, the female characters have a bit of unnecessary "bounce" to it, but I have a theory as to why that is. All the puffy dresses, flowing ribbons, and other garments are able to be shown off more, simply due to the walk cycle. But for characters that DON'T have those qualities in their outfits, that walk cycle shouldn't be there; you're completely right about that. The gliding part is even more bizarre. I totally agree with you on that. In my opinion, fantasy games are usually allowed to have these traits in their art style, simply because it's not meant to be hyperrealistic. But with all that aside, I'm looking forward to a full review on the game. Incredible work on the video!
The beginning of the game easily has the most...questionable...parts of the game. 4/10 voice acting and good voice acting sticks out like a sore thumb early on(Venti to name one massive one). Pretty much all of the early game voice acting feels bizarre in comparison to the new ones. Regarding character ages, quite literally no character has a confirmed age so dont believe the wiki, however you can kinda just tell in the way they act most of the time. For some of the players to ignore those blatant childish traits is kinda weird ngl(makes it worse to think what some people think about the literal toddler looking characters). With some of the playerbase being like this, the devs clearly know what to do to make money as a result, as unethical as it may be. As for the male to female ratio, it used to be so much more balanced but recently it's been messed up completely where there is only two shown male characters in the new region in comparison to 7 female characters whereas the previous region was balanced by this time with 6 females to 5 males. Even the character designs are different now with male characters clearly being more catered to women and female characters pretty much staying the same as before(with some exceptions but still not good obviously, what'd you expect lol). The amount of time you need for this game is absolutely insane. As you stated, the game is grindy but thats only scratching the surface on how grindy it truly is. You have to grind to get the currency to get characters which can take 1-2 months for 5 star characters in the end game, but this isnt even the worst grind. Artifacts are the absolute devil in this game. For example, I've been trying to get one specific decent->good artifact for a character for the past 3 years of casual play to no success, and this is just because the artifacts are based on odds that I believe are skewed to give you less of a chance on what you need. This artifact system is truly the worst thing in this game without a doubt. The game, while leaning more toward time > money, has it's blatant points of monetization as stated by your point on weapons and characters, but it has a step beyond even this point. All of the characters have a thing called constellations where the more copies of such characters give them a permanent buff. After a while, 4 stars are abundant, but then you realize that some 5 stars are sometimes on the same league as c6 4 stars, meaning you're inclined to get MULTIPLE 5 star characters, which each copy can cost you around 200 dollars usd at worst possible luck without including the weapons that dramatically upgrade your characters and are usually borderline locked to their character due to how they individually work. Even if you CAN get everything without spending, it usually takes MONTHS -> a year to save up enough unless you can clear the borderline whale territory endgame content. On that topic, the best characters in the game were female for around 4 years until a year ago where a male character powercrept them and did nearly irreversable damage to the game as a result, adding fear onto which character will be powercrept next. The powercreep is now so ridiculous where you can barely even beat the end game content with the old characters, even if you got them c6 with their main weapon. While the game is clearly flawed(now more than ever), it is a chinese game and they only listen to their chinese players for the most part due to how genuinely crazed they are(some guy threatened to eliminate someone at their studios if they didn't revert a nerf). The game is good but it does NOT value your time in the slightest and has been in a clear decline in terms of character powercreep for the past 6 months. The story is great(5th region is the all time high with 6th following up in that high), the character personalities are alright for the most part with the best characters having a clear advatage due to better voice actors, and the regions all look incredible and differing in design, but these cannot hide the blatant design problems the game has accumulated. Personally, I can only reccomend Genshin Impact if you have time or if you like exploration games that have certain RPG elements like crit stats. At the very least, they are changing their game for the better, albeit slowly as shown by the new anniversary rewards now giving a free standard 5 star of your choice for the rest of the anniversaries the game will have. I would also argue that this isn't even a democrat vs republican issue considering you're putting all of the republicans' views into only two negative choices in a means to make them look worse where there is obviously more than just those choices: not all republicans think in your implied manner such as not all democrats think the same way you do. I would instead argue it's more of a Chinese culture thing vs an American culture thing, and my main point is their stance on putting characters of a different race in their game. They essentially told someone that it is a game based in a fictional setting and that it does not directly correlate to real life, hence why there are no characters of a darker skin tone. This may seem racist(it is), but it is just how the Chinese are in their own culture. I am fully aware that this sounds similar to the conservative views you speak of regarding men and women, but I still believe most conservatives would still have some characters of other races if they were to create their own games just like the democrats and unlike a big chunk of the chinese culture. To sum it up, this game is great in some aspects, but you need too much time/too much money and you need to ignore some of the more questionable things in the game to have fun with the game. I will likely edit my comment to fix grammar, spelling, punctuation, and phrasing, thank you for understanding.
I feel like the gacha system in genshin or other solo gacha games is less of an issue IF they're not paid to win. Genshin isn't p2w because 1) there are busted early characters, 2) numbers aren't as important as something like hsr, 3) there are free rewards even if they're slow, and 4) there are RERUNS. The only issue I still have is the weapon banner, which was much worse during the “staff of homeless” incident, but I wish the 5* weapons on the banner were separated. Kinda cheezy but your main (big DPS character) can be anyone, hell I main Jean (before the furina buff) who is a healer support. The main word for the gacha system like this is “patience,” but I do want more primogems or wishes for a f2p.
I at least think the finals has a great monetization system. My only problem with it is the battle pass is very fomo but other than that all the cosmetics are available at all times Plus you can get tons of free cosmetics that look really good.
Genshin impact is just too grindy for me to enjoy it. Ive tried many times to enjoy the game but it just feels like im playing on auto pilot. Its a shame alot of new games are taking inspiration from it. Like wuthering waves. Hopefully we get games inspired by tears of the kingdom because thats a fun open world.
You make some good points here but the whole gacha is bad and game is pay to win mentality without actually having played a significant amount of time nor having done any research into the topic shows. One thing that is really important to note here is the fact that genshin is historically the most expensive game to ever have been made and its not even close to 2nd place, as well as the fact that mihoyo spends hundreds of millions to maintain and continue developing the game. With this said, gacha is simply the best way to monetize a free to play online game like genshin, and genshin never tried to hide the fact that the game revolves around a gacha system. Complaining about the gacha system while playing genshin is like walking into a casino and complaining that gambling tables exist at the casino. Even with this said, most of the people I know that play genshin don't spend any money on the game, and have completed and can continue to complete all of the game's contents, including the abyss (monthly resetting end game boss-rush mode), with ease. In this sense, I find that genshin is actually on the much more free to play friendly side of gacha games, at least compared to other games that I know of. It's one thing to criticize a competitive multiplayer game for having pay to win elements, but its downright stupid to complain that a 99% single-player game that can be easily enjoyed for free gives players the option to spend money on the game if they want a character without farming for it. If gacha simply existing in a game is the problem, then you need to offer an actual real-life alternative to monetization systems like it that work outside of fairytale land. How is a company with 5000 employees supposed to continue making revenue, maintain job security for its employees, and invest hundreds of millions of dollars back to the product if they don't make any money? If mihoyo followed your advice and gave all players every character (which costs money to develop, voice, animate, and integrate into the story) for free because its "pay to win", and just relied on "donations" for some cosmetic items in the game, the company would go bankrupt overnight and put the lives of everybody working under the company in jeopardy. This entire argument sounds like something I watched against pyrocynical's slop fairly recently, where a creator criticized pyrocynical for making low effort content despite his "slop" content being necessary for him to fund his main channel projects (which loses him money, he employs many people for, and takes months to make), with the sole criticism simply being that its low effort content and no matter the reasoning, low effort content = bad, all without giving any real alternative. In the same sense, you disregard all of the context (cost of development, consistent updates, publicly available odds and open marketing for their gacha system, genuinely free to play friendly game design, and the employment of all of the people working under the company that depend on the company's success for continued employment) all because in your mind you're hard set on the mindset of gacha = predatory, which in and of itself assumes everybody is dumb as hell and can't manage their finances and are prone to overspending because of marketing tactics like fomo, when realistically most people that indulge in spending on games like genshin are adults that just have some money to spend on their hobbies. As I said in the beginning, you do make some good points (game is clearly trying to heavily market a lot of the characters for gooners), but when arguing about money, you genuinely should either give a better alternative before complaining or do better research on the topic before complaining simply because you dont like it.
Sorry, but my issue isn’t the gacha system alone. It’s that they sexualize their female characters very intentionally and then put them as prizes in said gambling system. That’s bad. Gambling where sexy women are the prize is bad. It being the most expensive game ever doesn’t justify that. A better alternative? Make it paid? Just buy the game? They literally have a battle pass system in the game and that is clearly better than a gacha system.
@@TheGeekFactor Understandable, and I wrote at the end of my rant that the sexualization of their 80% female cast is a very valid argument (and one that turns most people off, as well as make the game hard to recommend despite me personally finding the mechanics and team building elements of the game to be genuinely fresh and fun compared to competing titles). I don't think most normal people would argue that genshin doesnt over sexualize their female characters, and I also believe that given the choice, most people would rather have their characters look/walk/act more... normal. And in conjunction with the gacha system, sure, the whole idea of "gambling for (oversexualized) women" is pretty yucky. But I still hold firm in believing that the gacha system on its own isn't necessarily the problem. By your own words, all else the same, would it be okay if overly sexualized characters could just be bought outright? Doesn't that just shift the narrative from gambling for oversexualized women to oversexualized women as a commodity that can be bought for money? And please, if you could, elaborate on how the cost of development of a game doesn't justify anything. The gacha system exists because its statistically and historically proven to be the best way for game developers to make money, and the company is investing a hell of a lot of money into the product. Once again, like you said, if the developers moved to other monetization methods such as making characters purchasable or putting characters into a battlepass, they would straight up just make less money. This is just a fact, and the company is not obliged to make less money or invest less into their game. Does this speak about the predatory nature of the gacha system in general? Maybe, you can genuinely argue that this is the case. But under the specific context of genshin, where the game makes it as optional as it does (you can genuinely just play the game for a few minutes every day and get new characters for free every once in a while, and the game outright gives you many free and powerful characters as part of the story), and they make it as abundantly clear in their marketing that genshin is in fact a gacha game, I think the blame is more so on the individual if they can't control their impulses and spends more money than they can afford on a god damn mobile game of all things. I'm really not trying to argue about anything other than that I just think that the gacha system in genshin is an optional part of the game, and one that most people will never put any money into. Every other point you made in the video was fair game.
bruh if you think genshin sexualize characters that much then you didnt see the rest of hoyoverse games and other gacha game in general.. in gacha sphere genshin is the most tame one if you think of sexualization of characters... i think you only made this video for genshin as main topic because its the most popular gacha because if you serious about the gacha game selling female characters for sexualization then genshin is not the best example for this i would pick like nikke or zzz for more solid pick for this type of vidoe.
While I do play Hoyo games a lot and have a slight bias towards it I do think the title is divisive and even tho you do encourage people to play they game if they dont watch the video and they just see the thumbnail it can give them a bias towards Genshin and other anime games and can just cause more divide and prejudice towards anime styled game. Yes the characters are sexualized quite in a bit in not just Genshin but pretty much every anime game and while its bad, the people who play those games dont see it as a problem so to then seeing that title is just going to make them come into a video already with a bias against what you say. And people who have never heard of Genshin or gacha games are going to see that and its just going to push them away from that type of game and give them a prejudice against people who play those type of games and the games itself. Also pointing out some of the more nuanced things like the walking and the gliding (I dont even notice it then again i dont really pay attention to the gliding) can further prejudice people against those who play the game. The title and thumbnail and your lack of emphasis on the things that genshin does do right minus what you did say which was like 2 things, just makes this video seem like an anti-genshin video and not why overall overly sexualization in video games and in gacha can be harmful which is what I'd had assume was your original intention in making this. and i say can because it doesn't absolutely cause harm in and of itself. While the gacha system can make the characters mostly women appear as objects I dont sit there and pull for a character and think "Yes im going to own them" I pull them because I either Like the character and their personality or I like their combat and abilities. Most normal people who play Genshin arent going to start thinking women are objects and prizes to be won because they got a banner character. And while body positivity and self image is important I don't think Genshins really a contributing factor of that more than the celebrities who are going and getting a million different plastic surgeries and using copious amounts of makeup. My main point is titles like this can make people who play these games feel attacked and ostracized while people who havent tried Genshin for themselves will avoid the game even more because of the already negative criticisms against it (some valid because there are bad apples in the community and the wild stuff they say gets spread around more than the positives). I think a better title that would've made me atleast and maybe other Genshin/Gacha players who have played the game clicked on the video with less negativity coming in wouldve been something along the line of "Sexualization in genshin and why its harmful" highlighting a harmful and negative aspect of the game while not entirely shitting on the game itself have played the game clicked on the video with less negativity coming in wouldve been something along the line of "Sexualization in Genshin and why its harmful" highlighting a harmful aspect of the game while not shitting on it entirely. Anyways thanks for listening to my TEDTalk lol. And if your whole reasoning for making the title that was for shock then I don't blame you it total worked. Im not saying I disliked the video Im just saying that I feel like there was a better way to ago about talking about the subject.
Its so funny this guy is deleting a bunch of comments, didn't even bother to learn the pronounciations of names that are said in game, and didn't play past Liyue, then focused a whole video basically on one character who is meant to be very flirty. I check back and half the comments are missing xd
Even tho i disagree with your political positions you did bring up some fair points, but some of the problems you have with the game are more about the anime genre as a whole than specifically a genshin problem (for exemple the sexualization of under age looking woman)
This game was not for you i understand that much. Issues with women archetypes? Complete the game till Natlan, you yourself will meet some good written women. All the women are sexualised? Meet Nahida… P2W? Just see people 36 star the abyss with free characters Age issue? Brother anything related to anime has that issue if you see. You know why they still do it because this game is not made in america and hence you feel it’s weird. Should they do it? Hell no but it’s acceptable for the intended crowd. Predatory gacha? Yeah i will agree to it. Cannot help that as this is the golden goose for Mihoyo. Comparing to fps? Why? are they in the same genre even? Seems like you need to understand not everything is made according to your taste.
@@TheGeekFactor both genders are treated equally when it comes to gamble in genshin, its the same primos you need to collect to get a male character ie 90 pulls, characters are treated as a prize, yes
@@TheGeekFactor brother then this point holds up for anything related to anime. which comes from Japan where this sells and everyone does enjoy it enough to be a mainstream thing. What are you going to do about that to stop them from thinking that way?
Let me break down some points you failed to consider. First you said he needs to play the game more to find well written women. Why should he need to complete any section of the game to find well written women? A well written woman should be the standard, any game that forces you to play for hours before finding a well written character is a badly designed game. Second you bring up that not all the characters are sexualised and use nahida as an example. Nahida as a character is designed to look like a young child, her canon age doesnt matter when she looks the same age as other characters like qiqi who is canonically 8 years old. The fact they designed a character who looks like a preschooler and put her in a miniskirt is bad enough as it is. Even if nahida isnt sexualised, she is one character amoung about 60 that are absolutely sexualised. Third you mention how the game isnt pay to win because there are several people who 36 star abyss while being free to play. Pay to win doesnt mean you cant do well without paying, it means that if you spend money on the game you can gain an advantage which is why the people who do 36 star abyss without paying consider it an acheivement, because its so much easier when you do pay Fourth you mention how the age issue is designed for an audience that is ok with it. An audience that is ok with minors being sexualised is not an audience that should be marketed toward, regardless of societal norms. Fifth you agree with it being a predatory gacha (no notes on that one) And finally sixth you say he shouldnt be comparing it to a shooter game because they are in different genres. He isnt comparing the genres, hes comparing the way they make their money. Its an example of a good vs bad monetary system. Thats like saying you cant compare how they market apples and oranges because they are different fruits Thats about everything i think
A lot of unfortunate coincidences undercutting your points here like the 2 chars on banner right now being male. And you showing Heizou while saying how sexualized the voice lines for fem chars are compared to guy chars. Or saying how men get treated differently while best girl Venti was on screen. Tho I do agree that its fucked to be gambling on people. Especially ones that are meant to get you to pull for them in part by being sexualized and or being simulacra of companionship. I do find it weird that you don't consider genshins male chars sexualized. Tho you didn't play the game that much yet so I guess you haven't seen chars like wriothesley or leney or heard some of the infamous voice lines of some male chars.
Don't worry. I'll only play Genshin if I get sponsored. The environment looked cool but everything else looked meh. Also I don't want to be called things by people. Even if they're right.
P.s. if your argument is just “it’s the style >:,(“ that may be true, but he makes points that clearly articulate the problems he has with the style. No one is arguing that Genshin isn’t stylized. Also, he encouraged you to play the game and give it a try, it’s clearly a nuanced topic.
I shouldn’t have to say this, but guys… gambling for women is bad, actually.
While I make it a point to focus on women's issues in this video, it should go without saying that this has negative effects on men, too. This video is in no way saying that men do not have issues. If it wasn't clear, men and women are both victims here. I don't want anyone to get the weird idea that I am ignoring the men. I'm not. That's just not the focus of this video. So, keep in mind that what I am saying about women is also harmful to men by proxy. That being said, let's not make a video about women's issues about men. Please be careful of that. Love ya. ♥
I agree with most of this but the long legs thing is actually stylization, it's very common in anime for characters to have longer legs
I don't think the argument is that it needs to be 100% realistic, but more that that form of stylization can be harmful, especially in the context of a gacha mechanic. Long legs in of themselves are fine, part of him mentioning them was also comedic because they look silly. IMO
Bro downloaded a gacha game and then complained about it being a gacha game... honestly fair lol its mainly waifu gambling but its fun
I agree with a lot of your points here, I completely agree with your statements about the walking animations and sexualization, and yes the monetization is 100% a horrible tactic however in my view, the game never tries to hide or anything, its well known as a gacha game, and while I also think that it could be much better without it, if its going to ruin your experience, you're the one in the wrong spot. It's akin to playing poker for money knowingly and then complaining about it. Another thing I would note is that when making a video like this, I would try to do more research into the lore, beyond just the surface level. A side effect of an anime art style is that often every character looks younger than they actually are (something that has a whole slew of issues and problems that I don't want to get into right now) and criticizing that is important to do because it is incredibly problematic, however using the word canonically without what it was used on being confirmed can cause misinformation. All in all, yes there are a lot of problems that I would love for them to fix (sexualization, monetization, lack of variety, etc), yes I do enjoy the game and all the exploration that comes with it, and I would recommend this game to people who are into open world exploration as long as they can get over the fact that it IS a gacha game and at present, the monetization is something that will probably not change.
Don’t think he said the game hides it, more that it’s not inherently part of the marketing and that it’s weird in a game rated 12+ 💀
@@AwwShucks The game doesn't chose its rating
i agree with everything said other than your thoughts of the combat. ok hear me out. you are right about most of it other than waiting for cooldowns. so this is where team building, rotations, different weapons, different artifacts, different characters, and different reactions come into play. the best team in the entire game at the moment has zero cooldown issues if you play it right. just my little thought. other than that you are 1000000000000000000% right. and there is no clear age of the mc. just thought i should say this. its very likely we are a couple thousand years old based off of lore.
Bro really downloaded a gacha game then complained about anime waifus
You gotta experience something to make a case for or against it no?
Most male characters are fujobait as I see it.
Male characters are built more like shojo/yaoi characters like none of them having a beard, closest us getting to a mascular character being Itto.
Genshin's female characters are at least somewhat developed like Navia's and Furina's stories being front and ceter in Fontaine.
Other gatcha games are way worse in sexualization and general comodification departament.
The overabundance of female characters is mostly a demographic thing though since of course the game wants to sell.
As I see it both are comodified, but more people actively spending on female characters causes more female characters to be implemented.
This video is just so wierd.... I agree that Gacha is predatory, but you are complaining about the ratio of female to male characters? And how those characters are represented and male characters are shoved aside in the story?
Ironically the two current rate up characters are Zhongli and Neuvilette, two of the strongest characters meta wise, two of the strongest characters lorewise, two of hte most significant characters in the story.
I completely disagree on some of the characters looking to young, just because a girl is petite doesn't instantly mean they are underaged, like you have drawn conclusions with Amber. That is a perfectly normal way for a young woman to look.
You compare the games rating to GTA, a game with prostitutes, actual nudity, drug use and more. like what?
You claim "No one walks like that" as a woman, yes, some woman walk like that lmao, ua-cam.com/video/UEZrNLagwls/v-deo.htmlsi=Yy55z5-FyNAWab6B there is a video on why it happens. Thats natural. And you then complain about jiggle physics? I'm sorry should part of a characters body stay perfectly still while the rest of them is moving and stopping. Lisa is a case where maybe its exagerated a bit too much? But if thats what your spending the game looking at thats a you issue.
You complain about how the woman are designed, look up the designs of Furina and Charelotte, those are perfectly normal woman, Amber is a perfectly normal woman. yet you complained about her seeming to young?
I've had to stop this video 19 minutes in because its just... badly constructed. Your arguments aren't in good faith, but nearly entirely built around Lisa, who is meant to be an incredibly flirty character. and no MC is not underaged, no character ages are even stated in the game.
And this all feels incredibly ungenuine when you clearly haven't played the game past Liyue, You spoke briefly on 2 dimensional character design, where either a female is badass or a damsel in distress, no inbetween. When Ironically genshin is one of the games that has shown me very clearly that isn't always the case. There are tons of unique intresting female characters in genshin, Chiori, Charelotte and Ayaka, to the incredibly complicated and emotionally intresting characters like Furina. I spent 5 minutes of a character that is just a "Damnsel in distress" and the only one who I think fits that bill is Barbara.
I think most of this video is built on spending an hour playing Lisa and her character quest lmao. The flirty character who calls everyone cutie. Maybe individually you could argue she is a problem, but that simply isn't a character trait or visual trait across every character in the game. Are no female characters allowed to flirt or be even slightly provacative?
As someone who was massivley inspired by the female characters in genshin, and feel they are one of the few games who do female represenatation fairly well, same for Star Rail, Firefly is one of my biggest inspirations in life fullstop, this video comes across well intended but ultimatley unfounded, there are games which have issues with how they portray woman, Zenless Zone Zero would of been a perfect topic for this video as there characters 100% are sexualised and its done by the same company, but genshin, where yoru arugment is "Womans hips move and there breasts bounce slightly" it comes across as a you issue rather then a criticism of the game.
My comment is a mess but I just wanted to talk about the 2 dimensional portrayal of woman again, in one of the lastest quests, we explore a mother who lost her child, she kidnaps another child, one who looks incredibly similar to her own, and basically gaslights her into acting as her old child did. It goes much deeper then that but I won't explain ti all, but I just fail to see how characters like that fit your bill of "Damnsel in distress" or "Badass hero"
your comment is what i was looking for
It’s crazy you wrote an entire essay to justify the weird sexualization of female characters in a game rated 12+ 💀
@@TheGeekFactor What are you on about bro, that thought never even crossed my mind and I've been playing the game for 4 years. This is definitely a "you" problem...
you can pretend that there's no female sexualization if you want, but as a woman yes the jiggle physics are way unrealistic and just looking at it actually hurts my chest to think about, two characters (furina and charlotte) having mostly unsexualized designs doesn't really make up for the rest of the female cast (rosaria is a nun in fishnets, fischl in an adventurer in lingerie, clorinde is a fighter in a super tight restricting shirt, half the characters are adventurers or fighters who wear high heels, yae miko's religious attire is sexualized, raiden's kimono is sexualized and she is not dressed like a shogun at all, i could go on and on), and just because two of the strongest characters are male doesn't mean you can't criticize the male to female character ratio (although i personally think it's understandable from a character design perspective because feminine fashion is much more diverse and developed than masculine fashion). you could say 'oh well it's an anime gacha game so it's gonna have a pretty girl bias' and i'll understand you, that's valid, but yea the female cast is oversexualized like there's no need to defend it
@@okbuddywhattheflip Thank YOUUU omg
This sexualisation is a problem in most gacha games unfortunately. The only one I can think of that doesn't have this problem is infinity Nikki but even then most of the characters all look like the standard pretty like barbie dolls, Which I guess is intentional because its a dress up game but still.
Bro just learned about gacha games.
and he pick genshin as topic for sexualization.. when literally its the most tame one of bunch
@@JohnCivor Maybe thats the point? But its a shit point either way ngl
Ok, the point about monetization is true and fair. But I feel like you got offended a bit too hard by literal pixels. I understand that the characters are very hypersexualized to sell but like, have you ever seen a cologne ad? Have you seen ANY ad? This is nothing new, nor exclusive to this game. Also, have you seen any anime ever? This crap is like the standard, and it also happens to men, but I don't see you complaining that jojo's makes "unrealistic bodies" for men. I'm with you on the predatory monetization, the company is one of the shittiest companies out there and I'm not saying it's ok to treat characters like that, but the point kind of falls flat when you link them like that.
Idk how you missed the multiple times that I said “I don’t have a problem with sexualizing. Characters.” It’s the specialization PLUS the monetization. Gambling where sexy women is the prize is bad.
Political implication of anime game with flying talking fairy thing. Truly the discussion of all time
The first problem that comes up in topics like these is the artist, the developers. Mihoyo is a company who's entire goal in mind for creating games, is making cute women and story second. Theyre sexualized because the game is made for people who like sexualized women, thats why their slogan was Tech "otakus" save the world. Your complaints are valid, but that doesnt mean that what genshin is doing is bad. It just means the game isnt for you, just as Tlou2 isnt for everyone bc people dont like Abby and what she exemplefies. I also feel like i could debate many of the complaints you feel, but uh; those discussions are literal hell in the genshin fandom xP
Edit: I forgot to mention, the development team is chinese with their main concern pandering to their chinese audience. Their culture is astronomically different from us, which also becomes problematic when comparing issues that bother us, that culturaly dont bother the chinese, ie: the age of consent is lower than our. Its gross, but its gross to us, not to them. Asians are also generally more petite than Americans, which explains the design philosophy of many of the women looking younger
Hey there. Active genshin and star rail player here.
I took the time to watch through your entire video and even took notes throughout to give you the best possible shot at convincing me of your points. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find that most of this video was ranting and pinning strawmen. None of the articles linked have even an indirect link to the main topic to the video. Of course they were mentioned, but that was largely on tangents and in strawman accusations.
26 minutes in is when I found your first really good point, and that is that genshin will eventually shut down and be unplayable, and that sucks. But that has nothing to do with womens issues or the games monetization, and everything to do with corporate greed and apathy. I'm all for a world in which preserving live service games post-death is normalized and actively encouraged by developers and publishers.
Going back to your headline topic, I did try taking notes without trying to refute anything, but there was a point where I just had to put a little note so I wouldn't have to rewatch the video to write this comment:
- I'm sure you've been made well aware of this by now, but the canon ages you list are not, in fact, canon. The absence of canon ages is likely very much intentional to keep a sense of "plausible deniability", but I would argue that isn't a bad thing.
- Comparing sexualized fictional characters, particularly those that are heavily stylized, to fellow tiktokers in reference to this "idol effect" is, in my opinion, very flawed. They look nothing alike, and I don't think anyone except a cosplayer would strive to look like these characters.
- I do think that polarized female representation of girlboss/masculine vs. sex object is a problem, but I find it more productive to champion the nuanced portrayals we've got rather than ranting about the faults of those with a narrow target audience
Just to end on a positive note, I think your video production and presentation is pretty good. I'll likely check out your other content, since I assume this rant was more of an exception rather than a rule. Happy holidays.
No matter how you spin it, sexualizing women and then putting them behind a gambling system is bad. That’s the thesis of this video.
As someone who doesnt spend money in microstransactions (less than 20$ in my life),I never understood the appeal of the cod/xdefiant monetization method. Im not against it but also i dont mind lootboxes as long as they let the players get loot and cosmetics for free because the price you pay is influenced by the amount of time you spend in the game. If you compare genshin gacha systems or cs case system to Riot's new gacha in league, you can see the difference. ( Rito pls fix that shit )
Honestly this video js still relevant but thankfully it had gotten better during Fontaine only to get 1000 times worse during Natlan. Like even though Fontaine has fan service it is still decent, not overly sexualized but at the same time is modest enough meanwhile natlan has a blacksmith wear just a bra along with booty shorts 💀
100% agree!!!! also theres a few general rules for chinese pronunciation, like q is pronounced ch, x is pronounced sh, zh is pronounced soft j. i think its worth doing a bit of research to pronounce the words youre saying, especially if theyre in a different language cus otherwise it can seem kinda disrespectful. based video good points i hope you can get through to some of the male audience of this game lol
Thank you for the advice! I did actually look up a couple pronunciations. Why I didn’t do the rest, beats me. I totally see how that’s disrespectful. But uh… have you seen this comment section? I don’t think I got through to anyone lmao 😂
Would you consider doing a video on the Mineplex revival? A lot of the things you talked about in this video brought that whole mess to mind
Never heard about it
Shout out to you for having your own opinion! I've played genshin for 4 years and just dropped it this year for some of these reasons. The genshin community likes to gaslight people for criticizing a game they have an obsession with, I Wish you luck!😅
It is surprisingly hard to have this opinion and not get dislike bombed!
This video having less than a thousand views is criminal. Genuinely such a good video man keep it up👍👍👍
I love genshin and find this video silly but hey if this is how you feel whenever
I just don’t understand the point of this video as he bounces from one unrelated point to another. Genshin has a bunch of flaws that are worth criticizing (Gacha, FOMO, story/character writing, etc) but this video and GeekFactor himself seem entirely uninterested in actually talking about it because he’d rather go off on a tangent about subscriptions, modern day politics and feminism. Those are all valid and important things to talk about but I don’t get why they had to be forced into a video about Genshin’s combat and monetization. At the end of the day if he didn’t like the game I’m not gonna be angry I can entirely understand someone avoiding Genshin like the plague solely because it’s a glorified slot machine or because the writing can be mediocre to bad at times but ignoring all the other positive aspects of the game while hyper focusing on Genshin’s fanservice and blowing it way out of proportion is kind of pointless IMO. If Genshin had fanservice like Zenless Zone Zero or Nikke then I’d understand his points more, hell I wouldn’t even play Genshin if it was like those games, but the fact is that it’s not like them and is in fact pretty fucking tame when compared to other Gachas. (Holy yap sorry for that)
You have this backwards. I wanted to focus on the problems with genshin’s monetization and briefly touch on things I like. This video was not about “combat.” It was about the monetization and how it bleeds into other aspects of our culture.
Also, all of the stuff you mention in this comment are things I talk about. I talk about the gacha system. I talk about the FOMO. I talk about the positive things I like. You didn’t watch this video. You- at the very least- didn’t pay attention. I literally talk about how I like the exploration, how I like the world and the people therein, how I enjoy some aspects of the combat and how the story is okay.
P.s. if your argument is just “it’s the style >:,(“ that may be true, but he makes points that clearly articulate the problems he has with the style. No one is arguing that Genshin isn’t stylized. Also, he encouraged you to play the game and give it a try, it’s clearly a nuanced topic.
I watched the whole video. I do play, and I do pay because I do enjoy the game and have the stability and income to do so, but the reason I enjoy it is not because of these sexualized aspects, if anything I'm literally still on about looking for Lumine so I'm committed to the story. The thing is, Hoyoverse, despite being a huge company is private, which means the issue of say what happened to xdefiant because of its publisher ubisoft, being a publicly traded company. This game is definitely not indie. This company is definitely not indie either. Genshin is a huge money maker and I don't really ever see it going anywhere, ever. I don't ever play P2W and that is a huge misconception about this game that I agree with you on. I just think P2W games are an absolute scam and are garbage, but this game, you choose to pay or not. I just like playing as the characters for their kits, team comps, and stories, especially in co-op. Also I hate gambling so every time i pull it's calculated and I'm never on my knees praying.
im just gonna put this out there, as a genshin player, most of the progress in the game is not done via getting characters, in fact theres some relatively easy-to-get 4-star characters that are better than some of the 5-star characters, most of the progress in the game is gotten through artifacts, which you CANNOT do by using money...rather you need a more experienced player to tell you how to gear up each character for each purpose, where to get certain artifacts, and what artifact stats you need to look for
I hope you understand how irrelevant that is to my point. How does the game make its money? Gambling where sexy women are the biggest prize. That’s a totally separate point from progression
First of all, I wanted to say that you have a ton of courage to touch anything about Genshin Impact. Gacha games in particular can be very questionable when it comes to their designs and overall functionality. I can see a lot of people get hooked on it due to its style and characters, but I can also see people enjoy it for the adventure and storytelling. I'm sure you see that side of the argument too, but the way that Hoyoverse designs their advertisements can be a BIT controversial (Hell, as I'm writing this comment, I'm seeing a Zenless Zone Zero ad with the shark girl in a maid outfit. Like, WHAT??).
One thing I wanted to comment on were the walk cycles. Yes, the female characters have a bit of unnecessary "bounce" to it, but I have a theory as to why that is. All the puffy dresses, flowing ribbons, and other garments are able to be shown off more, simply due to the walk cycle. But for characters that DON'T have those qualities in their outfits, that walk cycle shouldn't be there; you're completely right about that.
The gliding part is even more bizarre. I totally agree with you on that. In my opinion, fantasy games are usually allowed to have these traits in their art style, simply because it's not meant to be hyperrealistic. But with all that aside, I'm looking forward to a full review on the game. Incredible work on the video!
The beginning of the game easily has the most...questionable...parts of the game. 4/10 voice acting and good voice acting sticks out like a sore thumb early on(Venti to name one massive one). Pretty much all of the early game voice acting feels bizarre in comparison to the new ones.
Regarding character ages, quite literally no character has a confirmed age so dont believe the wiki, however you can kinda just tell in the way they act most of the time. For some of the players to ignore those blatant childish traits is kinda weird ngl(makes it worse to think what some people think about the literal toddler looking characters). With some of the playerbase being like this, the devs clearly know what to do to make money as a result, as unethical as it may be.
As for the male to female ratio, it used to be so much more balanced but recently it's been messed up completely where there is only two shown male characters in the new region in comparison to 7 female characters whereas the previous region was balanced by this time with 6 females to 5 males. Even the character designs are different now with male characters clearly being more catered to women and female characters pretty much staying the same as before(with some exceptions but still not good obviously, what'd you expect lol).
The amount of time you need for this game is absolutely insane. As you stated, the game is grindy but thats only scratching the surface on how grindy it truly is. You have to grind to get the currency to get characters which can take 1-2 months for 5 star characters in the end game, but this isnt even the worst grind. Artifacts are the absolute devil in this game. For example, I've been trying to get one specific decent->good artifact for a character for the past 3 years of casual play to no success, and this is just because the artifacts are based on odds that I believe are skewed to give you less of a chance on what you need. This artifact system is truly the worst thing in this game without a doubt.
The game, while leaning more toward time > money, has it's blatant points of monetization as stated by your point on weapons and characters, but it has a step beyond even this point. All of the characters have a thing called constellations where the more copies of such characters give them a permanent buff. After a while, 4 stars are abundant, but then you realize that some 5 stars are sometimes on the same league as c6 4 stars, meaning you're inclined to get MULTIPLE 5 star characters, which each copy can cost you around 200 dollars usd at worst possible luck without including the weapons that dramatically upgrade your characters and are usually borderline locked to their character due to how they individually work. Even if you CAN get everything without spending, it usually takes MONTHS -> a year to save up enough unless you can clear the borderline whale territory endgame content.
On that topic, the best characters in the game were female for around 4 years until a year ago where a male character powercrept them and did nearly irreversable damage to the game as a result, adding fear onto which character will be powercrept next. The powercreep is now so ridiculous where you can barely even beat the end game content with the old characters, even if you got them c6 with their main weapon.
While the game is clearly flawed(now more than ever), it is a chinese game and they only listen to their chinese players for the most part due to how genuinely crazed they are(some guy threatened to eliminate someone at their studios if they didn't revert a nerf). The game is good but it does NOT value your time in the slightest and has been in a clear decline in terms of character powercreep for the past 6 months.
The story is great(5th region is the all time high with 6th following up in that high), the character personalities are alright for the most part with the best characters having a clear advatage due to better voice actors, and the regions all look incredible and differing in design, but these cannot hide the blatant design problems the game has accumulated. Personally, I can only reccomend Genshin Impact if you have time or if you like exploration games that have certain RPG elements like crit stats. At the very least, they are changing their game for the better, albeit slowly as shown by the new anniversary rewards now giving a free standard 5 star of your choice for the rest of the anniversaries the game will have.
I would also argue that this isn't even a democrat vs republican issue considering you're putting all of the republicans' views into only two negative choices in a means to make them look worse where there is obviously more than just those choices: not all republicans think in your implied manner such as not all democrats think the same way you do.
I would instead argue it's more of a Chinese culture thing vs an American culture thing, and my main point is their stance on putting characters of a different race in their game. They essentially told someone that it is a game based in a fictional setting and that it does not directly correlate to real life, hence why there are no characters of a darker skin tone. This may seem racist(it is), but it is just how the Chinese are in their own culture. I am fully aware that this sounds similar to the conservative views you speak of regarding men and women, but I still believe most conservatives would still have some characters of other races if they were to create their own games just like the democrats and unlike a big chunk of the chinese culture.
To sum it up, this game is great in some aspects, but you need too much time/too much money and you need to ignore some of the more questionable things in the game to have fun with the game.
I will likely edit my comment to fix grammar, spelling, punctuation, and phrasing, thank you for understanding.
I feel like the gacha system in genshin or other solo gacha games is less of an issue IF they're not paid to win. Genshin isn't p2w because 1) there are busted early characters, 2) numbers aren't as important as something like hsr, 3) there are free rewards even if they're slow, and 4) there are RERUNS. The only issue I still have is the weapon banner, which was much worse during the “staff of homeless” incident, but I wish the 5* weapons on the banner were separated. Kinda cheezy but your main (big DPS character) can be anyone, hell I main Jean (before the furina buff) who is a healer support. The main word for the gacha system like this is “patience,” but I do want more primogems or wishes for a f2p.
I at least think the finals has a great monetization system. My only problem with it is the battle pass is very fomo but other than that all the cosmetics are available at all times Plus you can get tons of free cosmetics that look really good.
Genshin impact is just too grindy for me to enjoy it. Ive tried many times to enjoy the game but it just feels like im playing on auto pilot. Its a shame alot of new games are taking inspiration from it. Like wuthering waves. Hopefully we get games inspired by tears of the kingdom because thats a fun open world.
You make some good points here but the whole gacha is bad and game is pay to win mentality without actually having played a significant amount of time nor having done any research into the topic shows. One thing that is really important to note here is the fact that genshin is historically the most expensive game to ever have been made and its not even close to 2nd place, as well as the fact that mihoyo spends hundreds of millions to maintain and continue developing the game. With this said, gacha is simply the best way to monetize a free to play online game like genshin, and genshin never tried to hide the fact that the game revolves around a gacha system. Complaining about the gacha system while playing genshin is like walking into a casino and complaining that gambling tables exist at the casino. Even with this said, most of the people I know that play genshin don't spend any money on the game, and have completed and can continue to complete all of the game's contents, including the abyss (monthly resetting end game boss-rush mode), with ease. In this sense, I find that genshin is actually on the much more free to play friendly side of gacha games, at least compared to other games that I know of. It's one thing to criticize a competitive multiplayer game for having pay to win elements, but its downright stupid to complain that a 99% single-player game that can be easily enjoyed for free gives players the option to spend money on the game if they want a character without farming for it. If gacha simply existing in a game is the problem, then you need to offer an actual real-life alternative to monetization systems like it that work outside of fairytale land. How is a company with 5000 employees supposed to continue making revenue, maintain job security for its employees, and invest hundreds of millions of dollars back to the product if they don't make any money? If mihoyo followed your advice and gave all players every character (which costs money to develop, voice, animate, and integrate into the story) for free because its "pay to win", and just relied on "donations" for some cosmetic items in the game, the company would go bankrupt overnight and put the lives of everybody working under the company in jeopardy. This entire argument sounds like something I watched against pyrocynical's slop fairly recently, where a creator criticized pyrocynical for making low effort content despite his "slop" content being necessary for him to fund his main channel projects (which loses him money, he employs many people for, and takes months to make), with the sole criticism simply being that its low effort content and no matter the reasoning, low effort content = bad, all without giving any real alternative. In the same sense, you disregard all of the context (cost of development, consistent updates, publicly available odds and open marketing for their gacha system, genuinely free to play friendly game design, and the employment of all of the people working under the company that depend on the company's success for continued employment) all because in your mind you're hard set on the mindset of gacha = predatory, which in and of itself assumes everybody is dumb as hell and can't manage their finances and are prone to overspending because of marketing tactics like fomo, when realistically most people that indulge in spending on games like genshin are adults that just have some money to spend on their hobbies. As I said in the beginning, you do make some good points (game is clearly trying to heavily market a lot of the characters for gooners), but when arguing about money, you genuinely should either give a better alternative before complaining or do better research on the topic before complaining simply because you dont like it.
Sorry, but my issue isn’t the gacha system alone. It’s that they sexualize their female characters very intentionally and then put them as prizes in said gambling system. That’s bad. Gambling where sexy women are the prize is bad. It being the most expensive game ever doesn’t justify that. A better alternative? Make it paid? Just buy the game? They literally have a battle pass system in the game and that is clearly better than a gacha system.
@@TheGeekFactor Understandable, and I wrote at the end of my rant that the sexualization of their 80% female cast is a very valid argument (and one that turns most people off, as well as make the game hard to recommend despite me personally finding the mechanics and team building elements of the game to be genuinely fresh and fun compared to competing titles). I don't think most normal people would argue that genshin doesnt over sexualize their female characters, and I also believe that given the choice, most people would rather have their characters look/walk/act more... normal. And in conjunction with the gacha system, sure, the whole idea of "gambling for (oversexualized) women" is pretty yucky. But I still hold firm in believing that the gacha system on its own isn't necessarily the problem. By your own words, all else the same, would it be okay if overly sexualized characters could just be bought outright? Doesn't that just shift the narrative from gambling for oversexualized women to oversexualized women as a commodity that can be bought for money? And please, if you could, elaborate on how the cost of development of a game doesn't justify anything. The gacha system exists because its statistically and historically proven to be the best way for game developers to make money, and the company is investing a hell of a lot of money into the product. Once again, like you said, if the developers moved to other monetization methods such as making characters purchasable or putting characters into a battlepass, they would straight up just make less money. This is just a fact, and the company is not obliged to make less money or invest less into their game. Does this speak about the predatory nature of the gacha system in general? Maybe, you can genuinely argue that this is the case. But under the specific context of genshin, where the game makes it as optional as it does (you can genuinely just play the game for a few minutes every day and get new characters for free every once in a while, and the game outright gives you many free and powerful characters as part of the story), and they make it as abundantly clear in their marketing that genshin is in fact a gacha game, I think the blame is more so on the individual if they can't control their impulses and spends more money than they can afford on a god damn mobile game of all things. I'm really not trying to argue about anything other than that I just think that the gacha system in genshin is an optional part of the game, and one that most people will never put any money into. Every other point you made in the video was fair game.
bruh if you think genshin sexualize characters that much then you didnt see the rest of hoyoverse games and other gacha game in general.. in gacha sphere genshin is the most tame one if you think of sexualization of characters... i think you only made this video for genshin as main topic because its the most popular gacha because if you serious about the gacha game selling female characters for sexualization then genshin is not the best example for this i would pick like nikke or zzz for more solid pick for this type of vidoe.
While I do play Hoyo games a lot and have a slight bias towards it I do think the title is divisive and even tho you do encourage people to play they game if they dont watch the video and they just see the thumbnail it can give them a bias towards Genshin and other anime games and can just cause more divide and prejudice towards anime styled game. Yes the characters are sexualized quite in a bit in not just Genshin but pretty much every anime game and while its bad, the people who play those games dont see it as a problem so to then seeing that title is just going to make them come into a video already with a bias against what you say. And people who have never heard of Genshin or gacha games are going to see that and its just going to push them away from that type of game and give them a prejudice against people who play those type of games and the games itself. Also pointing out some of the more nuanced things like the walking and the gliding (I dont even notice it then again i dont really pay attention to the gliding) can further prejudice people against those who play the game. The title and thumbnail and your lack of emphasis on the things that genshin does do right minus what you did say which was like 2 things, just makes this video seem like an anti-genshin video and not why overall overly sexualization in video games and in gacha can be harmful which is what I'd had assume was your original intention in making this. and i say can because it doesn't absolutely cause harm in and of itself. While the gacha system can make the characters mostly women appear as objects I dont sit there and pull for a character and think "Yes im going to own them" I pull them because I either Like the character and their personality or I like their combat and abilities. Most normal people who play Genshin arent going to start thinking women are objects and prizes to be won because they got a banner character. And while body positivity and self image is important I don't think Genshins really a contributing factor of that more than the celebrities who are going and getting a million different plastic surgeries and using copious amounts of makeup. My main point is titles like this can make people who play these games feel attacked and ostracized while people who havent tried Genshin for themselves will avoid the game even more because of the already negative criticisms against it (some valid because there are bad apples in the community and the wild stuff they say gets spread around more than the positives). I think a better title that would've made me atleast and maybe other Genshin/Gacha players who have played the game clicked on the video with less negativity coming in wouldve been something along the line of "Sexualization in genshin and why its harmful" highlighting a harmful and negative aspect of the game while not entirely shitting on the game itself have played the game clicked on the video with less negativity coming in wouldve been something along the line of "Sexualization in Genshin and why its harmful" highlighting a harmful aspect of the game while not shitting on it entirely. Anyways thanks for listening to my TEDTalk lol. And if your whole reasoning for making the title that was for shock then I don't blame you it total worked. Im not saying I disliked the video Im just saying that I feel like there was a better way to ago about talking about the subject.
i love gambling
Its so funny this guy is deleting a bunch of comments, didn't even bother to learn the pronounciations of names that are said in game, and didn't play past Liyue, then focused a whole video basically on one character who is meant to be very flirty.
I check back and half the comments are missing xd
Why don’t you try limbus company then
Even tho i disagree with your political positions you did bring up some fair points, but some of the problems you have with the game are more about the anime genre as a whole than specifically a genshin problem (for exemple the sexualization of under age looking woman)
Also the designs are pretty bad. Fortunally with have great gacha games that don't sexualizes womans, like Arknights, Reverse:1999 and Limbus Comapany
lol "arknights dont sexualizes" the heck are you talking about?
This game was not for you i understand that much.
Issues with women archetypes? Complete the game till Natlan, you yourself will meet some good written women.
All the women are sexualised?
Meet Nahida…
P2W?
Just see people 36 star the abyss with free characters
Age issue?
Brother anything related to anime has that issue if you see. You know why they still do it because this game is not made in america and hence you feel it’s weird.
Should they do it? Hell no but it’s acceptable for the intended crowd.
Predatory gacha?
Yeah i will agree to it. Cannot help that as this is the golden goose for Mihoyo.
Comparing to fps?
Why? are they in the same genre even?
Seems like you need to understand not everything is made according to your taste.
@@TheGeekFactor sadly you didn't do any research on gachapon
@@TheGeekFactor both genders are treated equally when it comes to gamble in genshin, its the same primos you need to collect to get a male character ie 90 pulls, characters are treated as a prize, yes
@@TheGeekFactor brother then this point holds up for anything related to anime. which comes from Japan where this sells and everyone does enjoy it enough to be a mainstream thing. What are you going to do about that to stop them from thinking that way?
Let me break down some points you failed to consider.
First you said he needs to play the game more to find well written women. Why should he need to complete any section of the game to find well written women? A well written woman should be the standard, any game that forces you to play for hours before finding a well written character is a badly designed game.
Second you bring up that not all the characters are sexualised and use nahida as an example. Nahida as a character is designed to look like a young child, her canon age doesnt matter when she looks the same age as other characters like qiqi who is canonically 8 years old. The fact they designed a character who looks like a preschooler and put her in a miniskirt is bad enough as it is. Even if nahida isnt sexualised, she is one character amoung about 60 that are absolutely sexualised.
Third you mention how the game isnt pay to win because there are several people who 36 star abyss while being free to play. Pay to win doesnt mean you cant do well without paying, it means that if you spend money on the game you can gain an advantage which is why the people who do 36 star abyss without paying consider it an acheivement, because its so much easier when you do pay
Fourth you mention how the age issue is designed for an audience that is ok with it. An audience that is ok with minors being sexualised is not an audience that should be marketed toward, regardless of societal norms.
Fifth you agree with it being a predatory gacha (no notes on that one)
And finally sixth you say he shouldnt be comparing it to a shooter game because they are in different genres. He isnt comparing the genres, hes comparing the way they make their money. Its an example of a good vs bad monetary system. Thats like saying you cant compare how they market apples and oranges because they are different fruits
Thats about everything i think
@@TheGeekFactor tbh just using it as debate practice lol, im not all that invested
A lot of unfortunate coincidences undercutting your points here like the 2 chars on banner right now being male. And you showing Heizou while saying how sexualized the voice lines for fem chars are compared to guy chars. Or saying how men get treated differently while best girl Venti was on screen.
Tho I do agree that its fucked to be gambling on people. Especially ones that are meant to get you to pull for them in part by being sexualized and or being simulacra of companionship. I do find it weird that you don't consider genshins male chars sexualized. Tho you didn't play the game that much yet so I guess you haven't seen chars like wriothesley or leney or heard some of the infamous voice lines of some male chars.
@@TheGeekFactor yes, that's why his best girl, what's wrong with that?
Don't worry. I'll only play Genshin if I get sponsored. The environment looked cool but everything else looked meh. Also I don't want to be called things by people.
Even if they're right.
Called what things?
Oh look its another person who gets offended on behalf of people who aren't offended themselves because he knows better.
Whammy!
P.s. if your argument is just “it’s the style >:,(“ that may be true, but he makes points that clearly articulate the problems he has with the style. No one is arguing that Genshin isn’t stylized. Also, he encouraged you to play the game and give it a try, it’s clearly a nuanced topic.
The game is my style. I say I like JRPGs lmao that’s what’s so baffling. I talk about things I like in this video