Genshin Impact is one of the most popular gacha games in the world. The free-to-play action RPG from HoYoverse lets players spend a virtual currency called Primogems to have a chance (a “wish”) to obtain rare characters of varying power. It’s a microtransactions system that has proved controversial, but a money-spinner for the developers, generating billions of dollars in revenue over the years.
In most games of this type, the amount of money you have to spend to eventually pull a character is withheld from the player — and you can see why given the poor odds available. But now, HoYoverse has updated Genshin Impact to do just that, revealing front and centre just how much needs to be spent.
The Genshin Impact shop now tells U.S. players how many pulls you’re getting with each purchase (you can buy wishes directly with a direct conversion rate displayed) and how much you need to spend to guarantee pulling a character, which varies between $1.98 to $475.20. The figure is based on the base prices of the pulls (without bonuses) and if you hit the max pulls to guarantee the character (180 pulls).
So, while the posted figure assumes the highest possible price if you intentionally don’t buy the higher value (and more expensive) bundles, you could face spending nearly $500 pulling just one character in Genshin Impact.
Players have reacted with a mix of disbelief and positivity at the transparency.
“Whole thing is weirdly…. Transparent,” said redditor Zion-plex. “You see it clear as day, 100 bucks 50 pulls every time staring at you (whales think or maybe don’t even care they ‘know’ the math). Man, that’ll sting, even for those who can and will spend, there’s a lot of mental suppression that goes on.”
”Unmitigated positive,” said Whilyam. “The only people helped by obscuring costs are the ones who want to take advantage of people or make it easier for people with addictions to justify spending money.”
“I think it’s harder to justify the spending with abysmal conversion rate visible with your eyes,” added Mtboomerang. “I think the biggest problem with addicts is they follow the emotion then they will calculate. With the conversion rate visible now, their logic will shut their emotion down in time before they are deep in emotion abyss trying to come up with a reason.”
“Good changes that should be standardized for all Gachas and other similar games with gambling/loot box type mechanics,” said mikethebest1.
Some players are now calling on HoYoverse to just let Genshin Impact players buy characters directly, given they now know how much it could cost to obtain them through the gacha system.
“I wish they would just freaking sell the damn characters,” said yuusharo. “Horse armor works on me, I’d pay a freak ton on these games if I knew I’d get what I wanted every single time.
“Instead, the vast majority of their revenue comes from a tiny percentage of players exploiting gambling tendencies, preying on people like vultures. I hate it, I feel so gross whenever I succumb to that.”
So, why has HoYoverse added this layer of transparency to Genshin Impact now? It’s because it lost a court case against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) back in January that resulted in a ban on selling loot boxes
If you are wondering why, back in January HoYoverse reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that resulted in increased transparency around parental consent and virtual currency practices within its games. The results are now kicking in.
As part of this, HoYoverse is now required by U.S. law to age verify U.S. player accounts. That’s because as part of the FTC’s settlement order, sales of Genshin Impact loot boxes to kids under 16 without their parents’ consent were banned.
The age verification process will be rolled out to all U.S. players by May 20. If you don’t provide your age information by July 18, 2025, you could see your account suspended, the developer warned. If the verification is not completed by July 20, 2026, the personal information of your HoYoverse account will be deleted permanently.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
