By Angela Sheu and Jordan Chan

People Editor, Editorial Editor

In September of 2020, Chinese game developer MiHoYo released hit action and adventure game Genshin Impact into the world, indirectly causing millions of players to develop poorly veiled gambling addictions and inexplicable fixations on fictional characters.

Genshin Impact is an open world role-playing game in which players can switch between characters to fight enemies and complete quests. Critics praise its beautiful art, whimsical soundtrack, and regular updates with endless content to satisfy players. However, what’s often the most appealing aspect of Genshin Impact is the wish system.

The Genshin wish system — not gambling system — is actually very simple. Players earn primogems by playing the game, which they can spend for Acquaint and Intertwined Fates. They can also get Fates with Masterless Stardust or Masterless Starglitter, which is from — well, we don’t have time to get into that, and we really can’t take ourselves seriously when we just put the word “starglitter” in our school newspaper. You see, players can spend one Fate on a wish — a one-pull — for characters or weapons, or spend 10 Fates on 10 wishes — a 10-pull. And in a 10-pull, players are guaranteed to get a four-star item on their 10th wish. And if a player does not win a five-star item for 89 wishes, then the 90th wish will be a five-star. That’s called pity. Pity is also what we’re feeling for you right now, as the reader of this convoluted nonsense. Of course, there’s also soft-pity, which means that after 75 pulls players’ chance of getting a five-star item increases by 0.6 percent until it reaches 100 percent on the 90th pull. Naturally, there are three banners on which to wish – well, actually, there are four, but we only count three. Well, maybe we only count one.

Okay, maybe it isn’t that simple at all. Actually, it’s one of the worst things we’ve ever had to write into the world, and we wish that it never existed in the first place. It’s this confusing wish system that causes our best friends to lose their free-to-play cards just so they can play as some fictional character to which they have an unhealthy attachment. 

There is nothing like walking into a tutorial at 10 in the morning and seeing someone you used to respect squished next to the only available power outlet to do their 10-pulls instead of their Calculus homework. You know they’re playing Genshin because if you’re not squished next to the only power outlet in the classroom, their phone will run out of charge faster than they can get the game to load.

There’s also nothing like your friends ghosting you to read a 90 page manual on the best build for their characters for maximizing DPS. Or your friend desperately searching for someone to do their commissions (we don’t have time to get into that) while they’re away on vacation so that they receive their primogems to feed their crippling gambling addiction. Or listening to your friend blast Genshin remixes (something called Rasputin Tartaglia??) of music in your ear on the way to math class.

We are, of course, kidding. We love our Genshin-playing, gambling-addicted friends, no matter how many Genshin characters they ask us to rate out of 10 or how much of their paycheck they’re spending on the upcoming banner. However, believe us when we say we will avoid falling into the trap of Genshin Impact like they did. 

Post-script: Since the completion of this article, one of the authors has begun playing Genshin Impact.