"The original carving number has been fired to 800."

On September 15, 2020, the open world action RPG "Genshin Impact" developed by domestic game studio miHoYo started the open test of PC-side technology. At about noon that day 1 1 point, such a message appeared in Yuhang's game player group.

Genshin Impact world outlook design exhibition. Image: official website screenshot

After class in the afternoon, Yuhang returned to the dormitory, turned down his friend's invitation to play Monster Hunter: The World online, and spent 1 yuan on the online shopping platform to buy ten empty numbers of Genshin Impact, and began to brush the initial role. Another friend in the group, Ashi, joined in after hearing about it. They cooperated to brush the number for half an hour, and finally planned to send the money for selling the number to the group: "If you can really brush it out and carve it, the group will send 800 red envelopes, and everyone will have a midnight snack."

At the same time, a "Genshin Impact initial number price list" began to circulate in various game groups. The initial transaction price marked with a few rare characters on the table. The initial number with "Carving Green" as the role has the highest price, which can be sold for 500 to 700, and other characters with the lowest price can also be sold for 80. In large and small game groups, players constantly brush out screenshots of rare characters and successful trading records. Most players didn't expect that on the first day of the open test of this free game, the "value" of an initial number without any equipment could be doubled by drawing cards.

"Market Price List" circulating on the Internet

This is probably the least important event in recent events related to Genshin Impact.

After the opening of the open test, the specific content of this game is finally presented to the players: in addition to the fighting and exploration in the traditional open world, players can switch between different roles and use different "power of elements", and different elements can play the role of "element fusion"-this is also the "unique mechanism" repeatedly emphasized by the developers of Mihayou Studio. Different from other console games, Genshin Impact will land on the mobile phone platform in addition to PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. The game also includes in-house purchases. In addition to the first two characters, players can also recharge their cards and get more characters and rare equipment.

Although there is still some time before the real online date of September 28th, Genshin Impact has caused quite a controversy among players. Perhaps, there has never been a game that can accurately hit the topics that domestic console players are most concerned about like Genshin Impact-content plagiarism, platform barriers, and internal purchase elements. Never before has a game been so embarrassing: nowadays, players from different platforms have gradually formed their own circles. Genshin Impact couldn't find his own position between the mobile game and the end game. He tried to impress the host player with the idea of continuously operating the game, but in the end he pushed the host player further and further.

On June 8, 20 19, after the first preview of Genshin Impact was released, the controversy about this game began.

In the trailer, Mihayou shows the open world scene and the battle scene in the game, but no matter the climbing, swimming and gliding movements of the characters or the monsters appearing in the fast-moving clips, there are many similarities with TGA's annual game "Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wilderness" 20 17. At that time, Weibo user @ Night God samaQAQ showed these similar details through screenshots and thought that Genshin Impact was suspected of plagiarism.

Weibo user @ samaQAQ sorted out the similarities between the two games, with Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wilderness on the left and Genshin Impact on the right. Photography: BB Ji

The reaction of domestic players was unexpectedly fierce. On August 20 19, at the China Joy venue, Sony announced that Genshin Impact would land in PS4, and set up a game demo booth at the scene. After the news was released, many players came to the exhibition to protest. They held up Switch and the physical CD of The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wilderness in front of Sony's booth, raised their middle finger at Genshin Impact's booth, and even one player smashed his PS4—— angrily-at the exhibition site-and he thought it was a shame to log in a "plagiarism game" on the PS platform.

In contrast, the reaction of foreign players is much more peaceful. In August 19 and 17, BeatEmUps, creator of YouTube game video, also talked about the similarities between Genshin Impact and The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wilderness, but neither the video content nor the comments below severely criticized the plagiarized words. Similarly, in the related articles of foreign game media, the evaluation of Genshin Impact also stays at the level of "imitating but not copying": "gliding, endurance setting, environmental response, item management interface, cooking system, hunting mechanism and other elements. It seems that all the articles originated from Nintendo's excellent works, ......................................................................................... IGN, are written like this.

Domestic players boycotted Genshin Impact. Photo: kotaku

There is a sharp contrast between the anger of domestic players and the ambiguity of foreign players. The reason is that the game environment is different. 20 19 the data given by a game industry market report shows that domestic console games only account for 1.8% of the game market against the background that the global console game market share is 32%. The huge gap in market share means different player cultures. In foreign countries where a mature host culture has been formed, players' attitude towards the game is generally mild. But in China, very few console players are often regarded as "hardcore players". Whether it is the popular "game contempt chain" in online communities or the actual stratification of players, it reflects that domestic console players have higher requirements for games than players on other platforms.

Therefore, in this atmosphere, a domestic game with the label of "host" and "3A" was brought into the more stringent evaluation system formulated by "a few elite players". Genshin Impact's landing on the PS4 platform means that its target is no longer Yin Yang Shi and the glory of the king, but The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wilderness, Wizard 3 and A handful of dollars. The goal of Mihayou Studio has also changed from Mei Tian Studio to more complex CD project and R star. Under such standards, it is difficult for Genshin Impact to reach the height expected by the players, and the criticism is not difficult to predict.

In addition, the experience of logging in to host platforms such as PS4 in China is not rich, so Genshin Impact has become a pioneer with more industry significance. The anger of domestic players lies in that if a work that stays at the level of mobile game production and is suspected of plagiarism can log on to the host, it will bring worse demonstration effect, that is, works that do not need to be polished with care can actually enter the host market and achieve commercial success to a certain extent. Next, the story of bad money driving out good money will repeat itself.

After the contents of Genshin Impact's games were completely made public, Weibo user @ raccoon Neazle found that in addition to The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wilderness, Genshin Impact also imitated a variety of games, including Neil's Mechanical Age, Dragon Valley, Blade of Alienation, etc. Almost all other games can be seen from the map, action and specific combat content. Subsequently, the Weibo was complained by Mihayou Company on the grounds of "infringement of reputation" and was officially deleted by Weibo.

In the process of playing this game, we did find many elements similar to other games.

Players' discussion of plagiarism has gradually risen to the legal level. A Genshin Impact player suggested in a comment that Nintendo can sue Mihayou if it is really suspected of plagiarism, but now Genshin Impact has decided to log on to Switch, which means Nintendo has admitted the originality of Genshin Impact's game content.

In fact, even if Mihayou did copy all the elements of Dress in Zelda: Breath of the Wilderness, Nintendo could not sue Mihayou. Because the content of the game is not protected by copyright laws in various countries. The domestic intellectual property law clearly points out that the rules of intellectual activities are not protected by law, which means that the plagiarism of gameplay does not belong to the scope of "plagiarism" in the legal sense. Therefore, often a gameplay rises, and a large number of works of the same type will appear on the market. A typical example is "Dota Self-Walking Chess" developed by Giant Bird Duoduo Studio on 20 18. After attracting more than one million players to play in a short period of time, the self-moving chess game quickly became popular, and since then, various self-moving chess games such as "Knife Tower", "Genting Game" and "Tavern War Chess" have been derived.

However, the current copyright law in the United States obviously failed to take into account the details of a single dance movement and specific elements in the game, and the case was finally dropped.

Keru, a foreign player, sorted out the similarities between the two games.

On the Zhihu, "Does game plagiarism count as plagiarism?" A lawyer pointed out that in most cases, copyright law protects the expression of works rather than ideas, so the judgment of "plagiarism" mostly depends on the form of expression. In other words, even if another game completely plagiarizes the whole content of The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wilderness, Nintendo may not be able to take legal measures against it as long as it does not involve plagiarism of art and character appearance.

One voice thinks that the essence of law is to prevent the pluralistic openness of art from being obliterated. If the world's first open-world game regards the gameplay as its own gameplay, then players will not see the continuous innovation and lasting vitality of this category in the hands of many creators.

At the same time, it is not uncommon for games to pay tribute to each other and learn from each other. Death Cell, which won the best action game of 2065 438+08 TGA, draws lessons from the design mechanism of Galaxy Demon City in terms of gameplay. During the play, players will also find many tribute elements. Producers make famous action games in the history of games into pixel murals and hang them in various game scenes. In the cutscenes and lines, they teased their peers in a humorous tone, and in the description of equipment and weapons, they incorporated a large number of classic lines of literary works. These details not only didn't make Death Cell bear the stigma of "plagiarism" and "embezzlement", but became a bright spot that caused players to smile. The fundamental reason is that the development of genre games has always been inherited and originated, and excellent works never lose their uniqueness because they follow the strengths of their predecessors.

If we can still hold the attitude of "plagiarism", then Genshin Impact is still a game that is far from reaching the passing line, no matter how controversial plagiarism is.

After entering the game, various details that cannot be ignored will bring different sense of disobedience to the players. Players will find that even if the handle has vibration feedback, they can't operate the character with the handle, because the game is operated by the keyboard by default, and the default settings need to be modified by the keyboard. The operation key settings of the gamepad are also contrary to the traditional key positions and cannot be changed, so trying to press attack becomes jumping in place, and trying to press OK only to find that pressing Enter becomes annoying.

Genshin Impact game scene design. Photo: official website

If these problems can be overcome, then the setting of the plot and the battle has completely exposed the shortcomings of Mikhail Tour. As an open-world work, The Wild Breath has an "initial platform level" called "the best novice guide in history" by players, while Genshin Impact's novice guide has become an out-and-out negative textbook: players who enter the game for the first time must strictly follow the instructions in the game, but the game named "Open World" has no freedom, and players clearly know where to go and what to do, but they still have to follow NPC slowly.

Until the most anticipated part of the game, Genshin Impact was still disappointing. Compared with other similar works, Genshin Impact's The First World War is too challenging. Even when I met the first BOSS Phoenix Magic Dragon in the game for the first time, Phoenix Magic Dragon completely became a stake that would only be beaten and would not fight back. Players only need to look to Feng magic dragon and press the left mouse button for a long time to repel.

In fact, in game design, the novice guide and the first part have always been considered as an important part of laying the whole game style. In "Wizard 3", the training includes novice guidance, and players can quickly realize all the skills and operational actions, while the number one enemy of "Dark Soul 3" makes players realize that the whole game is very expressive and needs patience and fine operation.

The first boss style that players encounter in the game is magic dragon. It takes no skill to reject it at the first meeting.

These considerations are not reflected at all in Genshin Impact. In the prologue, the players muddled through the battle and somehow won, which greatly reduced the playability of the whole game and the desire to explore the game. The shortcomings of playfulness run through the whole process. In the subsequent process, whether it is too dull plot, lack of new world view or empty expression core, the fact that Mihayou can't control a console game is revealed everywhere. When the mechanical process of listing a "ToDoList" and completing it item by item is over, players don't even understand why they play such a game.

All these decide that Genshin Impact will not be a qualified console game-maybe it doesn't want to be. In the process of playing, two translucent touch floating buttons in the lower right corner always remind players that this is a game that can be played on mobile phones, and even its widest audience is the mobile game players who followed the "Collapse" series produced by Mihayou. In order to realize the "non-shrinking" transplant on the mobile phone, Genshin Impact's game scene follows the style of mobile games, replacing solid modeling with low-quality maps and smooth curves with angular shapes, which makes the process design and combat system of the whole game lean towards mobile games to a greater extent, and the game experience of the host naturally becomes bad.

Mihayou has not made up his mind to give up the mobile game market that he has already got. As a result, Genshin Impact wavered between hand tour and end tour, and became a game of "two unlike".

But for an open-world game, "free travel experience" is not only as simple as players can explore the map at will, but also means whether players with different game concepts can fully experience the game content prepared by the producers.

In Genshin Impact, the existence of in-game purchase and card drawing mechanism means that the game itself is unbalanced. After reaching level 20, players will find that the simple and rude experience before is gone forever, and the difficulty of the game increases sharply. The main story of Miha Tour at this time has arranged a level far higher than the player's level. For players who don't have krypton gold, it is difficult to pass this level smoothly without powerful characters and equipment. From then on, players will find themselves caught in a vicious circle: without smooth customs clearance, they will not get high-quality equipment, and without high-quality equipment, the game will become more and more difficult. At this point, Genshin Impact has completely become a "pay to win" (a buzzword in the game community, meaning to gain an advantage that other players don't have by recharging).

At present, the rarity of five-star characters in the game is the highest. Photo: Persimmon provided.

Internal content has always been regarded as the original sin of the host game. If the internal content is linked to the game experience, it will only attract the boos of the players. 2017165438+1October 12 Some players found that after purchasing the deluxe edition of Star Wars: Frontline 2 produced by EA for $80 in advance, there were still unlocked contents in the game. Players have only two choices to unlock these contents, either spending thousands of hours to accumulate enough virtual currency or taking out real money.

Players expressed their anger on Reddit, and then EA publicly responded: "This setting is to make players feel independent when unlocking these contents."

Star Wars: Frontline 2 propaganda map. Photo: DoNews mutual entertainment

At this point, EA and game developer DICE finally chose to follow the advice of the players. In the next two years, the in-game purchase system was gradually changed and all roles were opened. Although some unpacking contents were retained, these contents did not directly affect the game experience, and cash recharge was completely abandoned. On E3 20 18, the project leader also announced the free DLC content for subsequent updates, which players can download as long as they have EA accounts.

Two years later, IGN reevaluated the sequel to the Star Wars series with a score of 8.8. On Metacritc's scoring page, a player who scored 8 points wrote: "Thanks to DICE's efforts, this game has achieved a fairy-tale transformation."

Now, Genshin Impact, which is also in a low reputation, has no plans to change the design of the internal purchase. For a long time, domestic game manufacturers have become accustomed to such a marketing strategy: first attract players with free games, and then add various purchase options to the game to induce players to spend money. We have analyzed the reasons for the formation of this method, which is the inevitable result of the relatively closed game ecological evolution. Now Genshin Impact is looking forward to doing the same thing for game players, but obviously this time it failed.

On the Douban rating page in Genshin Impact, the current rating of this game is only 3.3, and a player in the comment area called Genshin Impact "the pioneer of the mobile game circle, the sugar-coated cannonball with high investment in art and low investment in gameplay, which infected the' patient zero' in the current game industry environment". Fierce rhetoric not only points to Genshin Impact, but also points to Mihayou Studio's attempt to make games.

Genshin Impact game scene design. Photo: official website

Perhaps the core problem of Genshin Impact lies in its intentions. Many times, the player's evaluation of the game is always fluid. When Star Wars: Frontline 2 changed the in-house purchase system, the player's anger turned into gratitude; When the creative team of "Unmanned Deep Space" spent several years correcting various defects in the game, its evaluation on Steam changed from the initial "mostly bad reviews" to "particularly good evaluations". In fact, there are too many factors that can affect the player's evaluation of a game, from plot, picture and mechanism to an action and a line, but the most decisive part is whether the developer of the game is sincere.

Sincerity does not seem to be a quantifiable object, but it is not untraceable. Legend of Zelda: Wilderness Breath has prepared a treasure chest hidden in the depths of the maze for players who dare to explore, and Blue has set up an extra plot for players who are willing to spend time through higher difficulties. This design is intended to tell players: We have seen your efforts in the game, so I will make you realize that it is worthwhile.

Sincerity game aims to provide players with a wonderful game experience. Players trust the developer and are willing to spend their time and energy on a virtual thing because they know that during this time, he can get an experience comparable to or even beyond the real world, which often goes beyond the simple sensory stimulation and brings a shocking experience. A insincere game, no matter how packaged, can't hide from the player in the end: it just stares at the money in your pocket.