Video games have found a lot of ways to monetize themselves other than traditional sales. Some of those are lucrative that the game can actually be free to play. The popular title Genshin Impact uses a gacha model that is extremely popular among mobile games.

Gacha games allow players to buy loot boxes that drop random content which can be anything from weapons to powerful characters. Even though players usually tend to avoid this kind of games, Genshin Impact has a player base that exceeds 50 million monthly players.

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Back at the end of 2021, a product manager named Ling Cheng Mong found himself with $20,000 in overdue credit card debt linked to almost a hundred unknown transactions. Apparently, his daughter spent all this money buying Genshin Impact pulls over a six week period. At first, Mr. Lim managed to get a refund for half of the money, but since then the bank has reimbursed the whole amount.

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Gacha systems have always been very controversial in the gaming industries and while some players tend to avoid those, others show a level of support that exceeds most others. Fans may have seen the term "whale" tossed around when talking about gacha games. Whales are users who spend a vast amount of money, and they play a crucial part of a gacha game's ecosystem, allowing them to make a continual profit.

Luckily even though Genshin Impact is considered to be a multiplayer game, the focus for the majority of the community lies in the solo journey. This means that spending big does not give an unfair advantage over other players because players are not going head-to-head and competing with each other. However, there are certain "traps" that can force players to pull for a character in order to maximize their potential by acquiring much-needed constellations. For example, Xiao is a decent damage dealer with no constellations, but at C6 Xiao ascends to a new level and becomes one of, if not the strongest DPS in the game.

The official Genshin Impact live stream has confirmed the arrival of a brand new five-star character Yae Miko. She's become a fan-favorite since her first appearance in the Version 2.0 preview. According to multiple leaks she will take the role of a DPS or sub-DPS which means that there is a chance that she can break the record for being the most pulled character in the game held by Raiden Shogun.

Genshin Impact is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, and mobile devices. A Switch version is currently in development.

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Source: The Straits Times