Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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Although DEworks certainly didn't think that much when they designed this pattern.

Even in interviews, the official statement was quite straightforward: they directly referenced gashapon machines.

Overall, however, the pay-to-win experience in FGO still has its merits.

The only way to spend money in FGO is through gacha pulls.

Although DEworks messed this up badly, they created the "Noble Phantasm" or constellation-like setting in order to entice players to spend money.

But putting that aside...

The only monetization point FGO uses is characters.

Aside from the characters, there are no other ways to spend money.

Compared to other mobile games on the market, drawing cards isn't enough; I also make you draw equipment, and drawing equipment isn't enough; I also make you spend money to upgrade it.

The character cap differs depending on whether you spend money or not.

It's like a player simultaneously drawing an SSR Valkyrie from Honkai Impact 3rd and a 5-star Servant from FGO.

Although both of them drew a rare character.

But in Honkai Impact 3, you only pulled out a "fragment". The Mei of an ordinary player and the Mei of a rich player are completely different things.

Meanwhile, in FGO...

At least you don't need to spend money on weapons anymore. Once you've leveled them up, they're usable, except for their slightly lower Noble Phantasm cap.

This is why FGO didn't have a pity system for a long time in its previous version, and why it usually takes several 648 (presumably in-game currency) to pull a character.

Since there's only one way to spend money, the price naturally has to be raised.

However, on the other hand...

Because players can use characters immediately after drawing them in FGO, so many players are willing to spend money to draw characters.

For Lin Li, he wants to bring the Spark Standard and Spark Model to the forefront and onto the world stage.

There is a major premise: he must prove that his method will work.

Otherwise, even if Spark Games acts as a disruptive force in the market, it won't change anything.

Other manufacturers saw this and thought, "Damn, you can't make money by copying Spark!"

So what should we do? Let's learn from Mi.

So regarding spending money on in-game purchases.

Lin Li had been thinking about it.

Here, I would also like to thank miHoYo.

In its previous life, miHoYo wanted to go public in 2017, so it released a detailed prospectus.

This prospectus clearly outlines miHoYo's monetization strategy and one of the core elements of its profitability.

That is, concentrated consumption.

The gameplay has been downgraded.

From the era of PC games, a wide variety of pay-to-win systems, such as enhancement, pets, and tempering, have been simplified into two.

Characters and weapons.

Apart from that, everything else is free.

This is actually why Genshin Impact became a turning point for miHoYo, while Honkai Impact 3 did not.

Honkai Impact 3rd still retains many of the pay-to-win habits from the PC game era.

But Genshin Impact is a completely different path.

Even though many players said back then that they had been suffering from pay-to-win mechanics for too long, in all fairness, after Genshin Impact, many players were indeed freed from those trashy PC games that were full of pay-to-win elements.

You can get a great experience for a small amount of money.

The newly appeared Genshin Impact was like a sword in the hand of a hero, slaying an evil dragon with a single strike.

However, if that's all there is to it...

Genshin Impact has not yet achieved such tremendous commercial success.

Sell ​​characters, sell weapons.

Essentially, it's about selling a portion of the game's core content. But how can we maximize the profits once we've sold it?

At this point, another unique skill of miHoYo emerged.

That is price differentiation.

What is price differentiation?

It's very simple; it's just the act of pricing the same product differently.

It's based on a very common phenomenon: different people have different maximum acceptable prices for the same thing. For example, with a AAA game, Person A might think, "Wow, this game is amazing! I'll buy it without hesitation if it's under 3."

But B might think that this thing can only sell for a hundred at most.

If the game is priced at 300 yuan, then person A will buy it without hesitation, while person B will pretend not to see it.

In this case, the manufacturer's revenue would be 300 yuan.

Chapter 114 miHoYo's Pay-to-Win Rules [Bonus Chapter Recommended]

However, for manufacturers, especially single-player game manufacturers, once the game is developed, the cost is practically zero.

How can I make money off both of them?

It's actually not complicated. If you price A at 500 yuan and B at 100 yuan, you can make 600 yuan.

Of course, this situation does not exist in the actual sale of standalone games.

But various apps that use big data to discriminate against customers are essentially using this theory.

In the world of anime-style games, miHoYo is the best at using this technique.

Let's take the characters from Genshin Impact as an example.

According to miHoYo's own data, in a single UP banner, if you put both the lucky and unlucky players together, the cost of pulling for one character is almost equal to one for every 14000 Primogems.

Converted to RMB, it's roughly around 1,000 yuan.

Anyone want to spend 1,000 yuan to draw a character?

Most normal people don't smoke.

Therefore, miHoYo thoughtfully set different prices for different players.

For free-to-play players, you can obtain characters without spending a single penny, as the game provides resources through various means such as daily tasks, events, and the main storyline.

In a typical version, a hardcore player who completes all the events and daily tasks can obtain 7000 to 8000 stones.

In other words, even if you're extremely unlucky, you can still pull one of the characters you want from either version.

For these players, the characters are practically free.

For monthly pass players, the highest price for a character is 150 yuan.

In other words, the resources you get from buying five monthly cards can also be used to draw a character.

For low-spending players, you can get 7000 Primogems for free in one version, and you only need to spend another 6000, which is a few hundred dollars, to pull for it.

To break it down further, if you buy another monthly card and get another 3000, you only need to spend another 100 or 200 to draw a character.

As for those whales who have plenty of money, a single character costs a real thousand dollars.

This is miHoYo's open strategy.

Price discrimination is automatically implemented based on the choices made by different players.

It's the same character, Keqing.

Some nouveau riche spend thousands of dollars to buy a full set of their own.

Free-to-play players don't spend a single penny; lucky players might get Keqing in a single pull, while unlucky players might get her during the second rate-up event or by chance.

Monthly card players received a replacement monthly card.

Mid-level spenders used their own resources to add several hundred more.

Low-spending players used resources, then bought a monthly card, and ended up spending a couple hundred yuan.

If it only stopped there, and the pity system were removed, this model would be the same as the gacha system of the previous FGO.

However, miHoYo is, after all, a commercial company, not a charity. In addition, due to the early development of Genshin Impact, there are constellations, signature weapons, various material packs, and stamina.

If you're willing to spend money, we'll fill all your accounts.

However, everything has its limits. If you spend money on everything, the price you pay is a lower gaming experience for all players.

This problem wasn't obvious at the beginning of Genshin Impact.

After all, compared to PC games, Genshin Impact is incredibly generous.

Many players praise Genshin Impact because they have a lot of fun playing it without spending a single penny.

Yes, without spending money, the character's strength might not be as good as those who spend money.

Yes, characters with 0 constellations and characters with full constellations are not the same species at all.

But I can grind! At worst, I won't do the Abyss, I won't touch those challenging gameplay modes, and I won't spend money on constellations. It just means I'll be slower at killing monsters. Please add me as a whale friend and ask for my help.

What's wrong?

But as time went on, in 23 and 24, it began.

Genshin Impact has entered a period of fatigue.

When in-game purchases in PC games have almost disappeared in anime-style mobile games, and when most games have adopted the "pay-to-win" system...

This logic is starting to break down.

The problem isn't commercialization.

In fact, Lin Li believes that miHoYo's commercialization is a good thing.

However, from a game development perspective...

miHoYo's monetization strategy has a major problem from its underlying architecture.

When a game's two most core elements are explicitly priced, the game will inevitably move towards a path of lighter gameplay and heavier storyline.

Although the world of Genshin Impact is vast, it's essentially just a landscape simulator.

In its previous life, miHoYo also tried many methods: treasure chests, Aegis, mining, gathering, and a bunch of upgrade materials...

The map looks like it's brimming with resources, but in the end, these resources couldn't save the large map from being unfun.

Even these scattered treasure chests and Aegis have become a burden for players.

You can't collect items without a guide, but reading a guide is time-consuming, laborious, and eliminates the fun of exploration.

As for farming monsters, that is, grinding in the wild, that is even more boring.

Many players say, "Oh, that's how it is. The large map is just for sightseeing. The development team has been trying to find a solution, and they've worked very hard, but it's just not fun. What can be done about it?"

And look, isn't Mingchao the same? That's just how open-world mobile games are, so please understand.

However, if Lin Li were to say that there is only one reason why miHoYo's large map is not fun, it would be because miHoYo has turned all the important resources into pay-to-win items.

If all the taxes for Goose City are collected by 2024, it's naturally not fun.

The most basic principle that makes a game fun is that players should receive positive feedback that exceeds their expectations when they do something.

At the very least, you should at least see some direct feedback after doing something.

But what happens when a game separates characters and weapons and turns them into a pay-to-win system?

This means that these two things are now linked to real-world currency.

Players naturally find it difficult to receive positive feedback.

All the positive feedback is focused on the ability to obtain gacha items.

Daily tasks give a little, quests give a little, and treasure chests give a little.