Do Video Game Boycotts Work?

[@Aeon_Productions]

Here's the thing about Boycotts: if you want them to work, everyone around that boycott has to agree to stop using that product, which let's be honest here, trying to get any gamer to stop playing is like pulling teeth it's gonna be difficult to impossible

[@flockinify]

Most people criticizing weren't even paying to begin with. The publicity potentially brought even more paying customers on board.

[@jonnysilia5740]

yep, easier to boycott a game by never having played that game in the first place than having played that game regularly before the outrage started. Blue archive is the biggest example since it has the mark of the lolicon.

[@RenoKyrie]

​@@flockinifyWuthering Waves moment A lot of people hate on WuWa and Kuro Games as a whole end up only promoting them more

[@tunguska2370]

War thunder, the players make a threat and it worked

[@perpetuallyexhausted-pl6gn]

well you can't say the same for War Thunder - the player base has a unanimous hatred for the game lol

[@i_dont_pay_taxes491]

Tsunul boycotting PM as soon as they reveal that Sinclair is actually straight

[@Tsunul]

I'm boycotting them after that ugly ass Devyat drip for him 😭

[@mitacestalia7532]

at least my boy canonly a bisexual disaster in the book

[@Inktrailler]

Never

[@tatey9812]

@@mitacestalia7532 real he love demian and demian mother

[@sayugulnazar8704]

​@@tatey9812 i thought it was his sister

[@Latency345]

Here’s the thing. Boycott’s _can_ work. How? Stop using the product you’re boycotting. Ignore it entirely. DO NOT give it any sort of publicity that will bring it attention. This is a recipe for a boycott. But people an’t even do the first step, so I doubt they’ll be able to do a successful one.

[@hafirenggayuda]

Concord failed not because boycott, but people are NOT into it.

[@Accountthatexists]

Poof of this is hogwarts legacy, it was fairly mediocre game overall with little hype Snd then the boycott happend, the game came into mainstream, and instead backfired and had many people buy it purely because they wanted to support JK Rowling and her delusional politics And that would of never happend if people didn't "Spread awarness" and bring it to the mainstream, making it so the boycott had the opposite effect people wanted

[@FedericBan-tz9cq]

​@Accountthatexists Agree on almost everything expect on two things: the first is having "little hype". I don't know much about how the reveal trailer was first received from the audience outside/not interested to the franchise, but inside the community itself there was a lot of hype and many speculations and expectations on it. The hype kind of declined a bit with time because some time passed between updates on the development and such but still, everytime the game reappeared in gaming-related events there was a lot of joy and hype around it (or at least, as I said, inside the community). Then at the release the whole "wizard game" happened and the rest is... Whatever was that shitstorm, with stupid harassment coming from both fronts. Also I would add that the reason why some people bought the game wasn't even because they were necessarily agreeing with Rowling's politics, when they "simply" wanted to spite on that portion of boycotters who were harassing people for owning the game, even if perhaps they hated or weren't interested to Harry Potter to begin with (which is even worse). At the end it was a vicious circle of hate and spiteful actions. The second is "the game became mainstream thanks to the boycott"; in a way you're right, but we're also talking about Harry Potter's IP, which is still really huge and profitable. We don't really know how the sales would've been if all the dramas related to the game didn't happen, but I wouldn't assume that it would've disappeared. Sure, the game isn't really talked about in comparison to many older games of the same genre, but I read in a lot of forums that Hogwarts Legacy attracted many non-gamers simply because it was Harry Potter and exploring that world is always cool, especially for a fan; for them it was the definition of a "comfort game", indipendently from the related drama. In short, the game might not be talked much but it still has its players.

[@ousou78]

That depends. The War Thunder community made the devs give up on many BS they tryed to implement in the game. The game was massively reviewbombed until the devs had to react and announce actual improuvment for the game insteed of greedy mechanics.

[@saiv46]

​@Accountthatexists Well, Hogwarts Legacy was published by multi-billion corporation with huge marketing budget. As Russian I can't even buy the game, but still got ads nevertheless. Combining this and popularity of Harry Potter franchise makes boycotting pretty much impossible, it was rigged from the start.

[@Winters004]

As a certain bald streamer has said, all game boycotts are just a single two minute trailer away from completely collapsing. As for Valve, they actually are a company that's very concerned about their public perception and customer service. As a storefront, they spend a HUGE amount of time (and money) on customer service which is why they go push so many consumer friendly measures like refunds. Also, another thing for pushing boycotts, DON'T BULLY/HARASS OTHERS INTO BOYCOTTING. That just makes you look like the bad guy and that most definitely backfired on the side trying to boycott the Wizard Game.

[@hafirenggayuda]

I also found that many boycotters of that wizard game suddenly change their tone, delete their previous statement, and try to gaslight people on what actually happen

[@ozzi9816]

To save you some time watching this 25 minute video… this has a name: consumer activism. Consumer activism doesn’t work. There’s been study after study that shows consumer activism doesn’t work, because the amount of fans of something that are involved enough to be reading discourse make up a tiny fraction of the actual player base. If a company is receptive and nice they’ll listen to that player base, but they’re never under any pressure to. They only have to care about what the majority cares about, and if the majority doesn’t care about the issue then they don’t have to either. Believing consumer activism actually works is not only pointless, but it’s actively harmful because it placates people into a false sense that they’re doing and contributing something and takes away energy from other solutions that might actually work (eg. If it’s something legally dubious, going through proper channels or filing a class action). In a word, it’s virtue signaling. I think the reason why people delude themselves into thinking consumer activism works is because it makes them feel empowered in a situation where they otherwise feel powerless. If there are no other viable options (which is common nowadays) then consumer activism not working means they can’t do anything. And yeah! Sometimes you can’t do anything and it sucks. That’s why every time it crops up I’m going to have to get up on my soapbox again, unfortunately

[@McCaroni_Sup]

Consumer Activism doesn't work until it does lol. Like how Blue Archive fans in South Korea lead a successful campaign to audit the GRAC. On Global they successfully boycotted the game due to the censorship of Aris' CG. Or how Bud Light backtracked on their agenda due to the boycott of their brand. Boycotts only don't work when people don't care about the issue enough. Crazy Genshin fans deluded themselves into thinking anyone actually cared about Natlan's skin tone diversity - spoiler alert: 99% of players didn't. It's only the loud minority that did. But the majority of the Blue Archive fandom DID care about the censorship. The majority of Bud Light's audience DID care about their promoting of an agenda they disagreed with. You're acting like these companies are the government. They're not, unless they're lobbying them which they are. In which case you should be advocating for smaller government, really. Regardless of what you think governments aren't accountable to you even in a democracy, since they have all the guns. Unless they don't...

[@Redheart709]

​​@@McCaroni_Sup it's from self selecting their fans. if you are/were a genshin player who wanted to see dark skinned characters, you likely gave up and decided to continue or drop it back when sumeru dropped a whopping 3 slightly tanned characters. by the time natlan came out, most players had already decided whether they cared about dark skinned characters or not, and most of them *didn't. because if they had, they would've already dropped the game around sumeru* meanwhile blue archive is a coomer bait game. if you're not playing for coomer reasons, you likely stopped playing the games the third time they made a joke about your self insert teacher preying on their students. while not all the designs in the game are sexualized (some of them are pretty normal and cute!) a *lot* of them are, and they don't even try to pretend the characters are 18 and just plainly tell you that almost all of them are underage. if you're the type of person to have an issue with this, you didn't stick with the game for long, because its a reoccurring thing.?

[@InfinitySevens]

Didn't that one Helldivers 2 boycott over the attempt at forcing linking a PlayStation Network account or something actually work? IIRC PSN was just outright unavailable for people in several countries (i.e. the Philippines) so had that gone through, it would have just made the game literally unplayable for people there.

[@hafirenggayuda]

​@@McCaroni_SupI feel the main difference between Genshin and Blue Archive case is, the Genshin one are voiced by those who not really playing the game, "activist". While BA were done by the player base and real consumers.

[@rokkudayo]

​@@McCaroni_Sup The BA situation was a bit of a special one. It got enough buzz to get the right eyes on it which led authorities to find out the rating board was committing fraud, and in that they got their rating fixed.

[@superbeaner4428]

I'll be honest I really couldn't care less about the Natlan controversy. Mainly because this is a fictional game in a fictional place. They took inspiration from certain regions, but they're not trying to be historically accurate to a T because, again, it's a fiction place, but also because China is well known (infamous?) for darker skin tones not being a main focus for most of their characters.

[@xarksins]

The reason why natlan boycott fail was main because genshins biggest revenue generator is asia mainly china or japan. Most of the people angry about the skin color are from the west. This is the exact situation as the league Ahri boycott. People in asia don't really care about the "political" side of the game they just want to play the game.

[@RandomGuy-bu5pn]

I thought the Ahri one happened because the skin costed 500$?

[@augustuslunasol10thapostle]

Theirs also the fact they don’t care that this chinese company is just appropriating other peoples cultures and slapping white skin in them

[@xarksins]

@@RandomGuy-bu5pn yes i was talking about the ban ahri boycott because of the skin. It had a decently big impact on the west but on the east the ban maybe when up by 1 - 5% and that was before people gave up on the boycott.

[@xarksins]

Actually it was more of a protest but i think boycott also fits.

[@reed3863]

Exactly. We in Asia will spend if we want to, and don't care about all the stupid political nonsense from the West.

[@TurboVirgin_TBVG]

How every boycott campaign goes: THIS GAME SUCKS, DON’T PLAY THIS GAME *keeps playing it*

[@zaeroi]

genshin players be like

[@darkthunder301]

Needs to be said; even if boycotting as an individual likely won't matter to the company, if doing so makes your life healthier then boycott for yourself. Blindly following the crowd ain't a healthy way of life anyways.

[@mitacestalia7532]

yeah, i stop playing the sims 4 because the game is very broken. i hate how neighbour just can enter your house and play with your laptop. like it's so buggy too and not worth as sims 2 or 3.

[@Roland...]

They Don

[@polance4705]

Its always Don

[@0RandomInternetGuy0]

An idea most ingenious.

[@youmu8331]

Quixote

[@WanderingStranger3]

Limbus Company has become Wokeus Company!!! They turned our beloved sinners into: Don THEYxote IshLESBIANmel GreGAYgor QUEERtis FAUST RoTRANSya Sinclair NONBINARY lu MeurALLYsault ACE sang BISEXUALcliff RyoPANSEXUALshu

[@DonQuixoteTheGremlin]

Me!

[@zapp5er284]

Every failed boycott stems from majority of the player base simply not giving a damn, or most of the people that give a damn not being the actual player base which doesn't affect the company's wallet

[@augustuslunasol10thapostle]

Boycotts will only work when you get the vast majority of players to deprive the company of money and i mean like 95% of players

[@far_centrist]

not necessarily. single player triple A games for example, needs an upwards of a 1-2 million copies sold to break even and 3-5 million copies to profit. the production cost alone can range upwards of 50-100m usd, as well as marketing which is usually half that. so yes, it can actually work, as shown with many triple A release of today (AC-shadow, concrod, etc) it simply won't work on a popular franchise and done by the minority of the playerbase, especially on gacha titles. a sudden 60% drop in player spending alone is enough to topple the company value by a few margins. but the only reason for that to happen is for the company to have messed up big time, not because a few ideological players decided to throw a tantrum.

[@augustuslunasol10thapostle]

⁠​⁠@@far_centrist cultural appropriation is a pretty big fuck up as tsunul him self said thats really fucked up, yet genshin still stands so no a big fuck up isn’t enough to kill a games revenue and profit look at COD its fucked up so many times yet people play it and it still rakes in the money so theirs actually far more to it than that next your examples of successful boycotts were 1 a game that never actually had s fanbase in the first place(concord) and 2 a game attacked for bullshit culture war reasons rather than calling out the blatant attempt at making ghost of Tsushima (AC shadows) and it hasn’t even come out yet

[@far_centrist]

@@augustuslunasol10thapostle "cultural appropriation is a big f up" this is an opinion, not a widely accepted ideas. I don't have an issue when a fantasy game does something different than the real life sources of inspiration and clearly many think the same, because it's a fictional fantasy, not a "representation" as some would consider. Otherwise the boycott would have had more effects. Dragon age, for example, had an established fanbase, yet it can't break even in terms of profits. Another established titles, such as star wars outlaws, also did very poorly. Ac shadows have not released yet, true, but the pre-order numbers and wishlist alone does not give a good impression that the company alone is getting angry at players and steam for it's statistics. And all of those failed games had something in common, didn't they? It seems like what you consider an issue is what many consider a non-issue, while what you consider "culture war bs" seems to be a bigger issue for many gamers.

[@cronagorgon6435]

I can sum up the genshin boycott with Natalan situation with a simple: "It's a chinese game, and in China people with skin past a certain level is viewed as ugly." It's horrible yes, but seeing as the US isn't even on the top 20 of Genshin's income per area (Im serious there's a list and somehow Switzerland is almost double the US's in how much they spend in Genshin) they could literally care less about the people boycotting it in the west. Culturally it's some messed up thing and I agree it would be nice to see a character with a skintone matching or at least being darker than Kaeya but so long as the main market which is their home country has the issues with race that they do then it won't. Someone did a video about this and showed how deep china's views toward other races are exceptionally poor to the point that they are one of the least accepting countries of other races in the world. Specially those with darker skin tones even have a slur used. It's some mixture of anti-indian propaganda since China is at active war with the southern provinces of India for land that sits on each of their borders, to landgrabs and actual indentured "slav-ing" of africans in land they buy for ports. It's bad, notably horrible, but boycotting a game wouldn't of fixed the root of the problem anyways. ZZZ one of Hoyoverse's other games feature a very, very dark skinned robot character. There was an actual public outcry in china about this and it's been wild to imagine people up in arms that much but they ARE. And unlike us, Hoyo has financial incentive to listen to them and somehow has not replaced her. The only chance you'll honestly have of seeing more varied skintones is if Hoyoverse leaves the chinese market... but like I said the US dosen't even spend more than a tiny country less than 1/50th of it's size and yet has double it's spending power apparently for gacha games. So most likely they won't.

[@Hyo_Panda]

the most useless thing i hear when i see a news about boycotts is "can/allow to still playing the product" i mean, from what i understand, time investment is matter too for company. yes, maybe that not as huge as revenue report. but still, if the data still show "oh people still play this game" that mean company still have a chance to milk money. thats why, i remember clearly when ginshen boycotts happen, and one of the condition is allow to play, i laugh so hard ngl.

[@dandyshark6094]

thats and spending money for said company, what worse is they attack people who still play and spend money on game , oh the irony

[@Marst101]

Cause the way most of them do it is just soooooo darn stupid

[@Izaiyusa]

Thats it im boycoting the game Continue spending and playing the game :v

[@Halfcrabs]

Your pfp is making me get Hatred

[@Marst101]

@@Halfcrabs deal with it :3

[@Halfcrabs]

@@Marst101 queen of hatred should be suppressed like Julius Caesar, I HATE her

[@plutonix5792]

"You took EVERYTHING fro me." "...I don't even know who you are."

[@deedeedee5866]

Tsunul will boycott limbus if he doesn't get enough twinkclair ids

[@SettingSunAlt]

Thankfully... Devyat Sinclair seems to be feeding him good.

[@bungerthatoneguy]

@@SettingSunAlt*5 Michelin star

[@matcroaks8953]

we literally just go thim YESTERDAY

[@KevvoLightswift]

What's the joke with sinclair being a twink? Is it because of his infatuation with the dark haired airbender? (forgot his name)

[@SettingSunAlt]

@@KevvoLightswift He just has that kinda build to him.

[@TNuuv]

from what i understand specifically about the gesnhin thing, is that the west was the only one that saw the skin color as an issue and the game's highest paying audience are in the east, who do not care one bit correct me if I'm wrong but the sales from the west are not that great comparison, so they would rather satisfy their high earning region above all else, remember when they almost nerfed Neuvillete's rotation capability and the eastern players went off? they immediately relented and gave apology gems if I was incorrect about anything, then feel free to correct me

[@stealthbrandon]

That is correct Lol. you can also lump this with the western rants about fanservice and sexy characters , Eastern consumer like that and this is hard for the tumblr twitter crowd to accept they like pretty character , they like sex appeal and they like pale character ,that is the chinese market lol. it like going to a bollywood movie and being surprised it cater hard to hindu in india . Not to say it impossible to sale a dark skin character (Those exist ) even in genshin , and All dark skin cast yeah that going to be hard sale to the chinese to pay for it , you can sale that to the japanese breath of the wild works . Most consumer in asia though like buying hot characters you can sale hot dark skin character sure , but they don't care that much about western internet culture war or representation for there fantasy products . It's not a historical work it's a gatcha game for chinese and japanese consumers .

[@puffton9782]

Tbf the Neuvillette thing was an annoyance for literally anyone who had neuvillette, I’m not well read on the subject but I’m very sure that western players also spoke out against the ‘bug fix’ alongside eastern players

[@mitacestalia7532]

Yeah, and this is why they also pander to CN community so much. Honestly it's just company strategy. They listen to their biggest consumer the most.

[@Hie_Hyoumaki]

Neuvi's fixed bc it's basically a fraud.

[@m.1sha]

​@@puffton9782 yeah western players complained about it. but chinese players took it to their government thats what made them undo it.

[@kemiya1750]

Mexican here. Most Latinos don’t care about skin color. It’s very rare for a game to take African or pre-Hispanic culture as inspiration (it’s more common to see Nordic or Egyptian themes) So, on the contrary, we were happy to be acknowledged and don't care about skin tones. Most of the complaints came from American-Hispanics who wanted to speak or make drama for us or push their own ideologies, either for clout or to feel sanctimonious about it

[@DanHengSimp]

this, these people seem to care more about skin color than the actual culture.

[@proximaeon]

Guatemalan here. Agreed.

[@tteqhu]

It's sensitive topic, but I think it's hard to get mad at genshin, as it's probably never treating itself as serious or historically accurate with plot. And people only protest once there's non-white culture involved... At least I think it had referenced some other cultures loosely to form an interpretation (which in itself is common plot device, for example see fate series)

[@Archangels_righthandboi]

@@tteqhuHow is it sensitive? We are more than happy to see our culture in more and more games. If it’s completely borked then we get a little mad, but DO NOT call any of us “Latinx”. That’s a racial slur for us, similar as the n-word is to black Americans.

[@BladeClatter]

It was based off but not the same thing so I don’t get why it was an issue skin color wasn’t the same. They are making it too weird by trying to make the culture in the game like the original.

[@kariellokwell914]

As someone who works in the tabletop RPG industry... I can say that boycotts are pointless... WoTC wanted to privatize the hobby and charge for all third party material that was made, like a lot of things that came to light... It was pointless, because D&D players are addicted to the product and treated poorly by the company... and it all died after the D&D movie came out... I have faith in the games and what they can do... but I don't have much hope for a real change in the short term anymore...

[@Willie_Shakes]

WoTC fall into the "too big to fail" category now imo, D&D isn't even good but it's "the one everyone knows" despite the fact that tons of TTRPG systems outshine it in pretty much every aspect

[@kariellokwell914]

@Willie_Shakes Well, at least because of the bad publicity they did not continue with the privatization plan... Although we can say the same about all the big companies, they only make minor adjustments to pretend they are doing something and continue abusing.

[@Mangacide]

For the Natlan thing in particular a large part of it's failure has to do with the fact that hoyo cares a lot less about the global playerbase than the chinese one, and the chinese playerbase didn't know or care about the concerns the rest of us were having. Most of what I heard from the chinese players that did know about it was that as long as the characters are pale and attractive they don't care. I didn't bother with boycotting either because after sumeru I knew they weren't going to make any changes to the character's skin tones. Like that's just not a thing they're going to do. Which is a shame because all the edits I saw of natlan characters online were amazing and made the characters look so much better.

[@croftant2]

From a personal viewpoint, the Natlan situation is really annoying. I wasn't really expecting much in the way of darker skinned characters, but I wasn't expecting them to turn Olorun into a Sasuke look-alike.

[@Redheart709]

i lost hope when they literally never released a character as dark as kaeya. it's been downhill since then. my expectations for natlan were low but like *damn not a SINGLE character with dark skin??? none??? the best we got was iansan with GRAY??* and supposedly she's barely even relevant to the archon quest at all?? its so blatant lmao...

[@InfinitySevens]

I haven't tuned into Genshin itself that much lately due to lack of motivation. But wow, the anachronistic designs of many Natlan characters just look terrible, with Olorun probably being the worst offender. Bro looks like some 11 year old's Gacha Life OC.

[@mitacestalia7532]

​@@Redheart709 Ifa who is just chilling around waiting for his drip market: 😎

[@セチャワン]

​@@Redheart709oke chud Enjoy your diversity, I mean THE MESSAGE of MODERN AUDIENCES

[@koyangtsai]

Here's the thing, Natlan wasn't the first time something like this happened. Two years ago, Sumeru had similar concerns over representing culture.

[@GameBooAdvancePlus]

Probably because announcing boycott is purely done by people trying to virtue signal or otherwise be performative. The same people who buy it day one and "hope" others do the work for them. The real boycotts are done short term, near silently or gain momentum through reasons beyond the perjorative. Whenever a modern game comes out a broken buggy mess, we are technically forming a boycott by publically refusing to purchase the game until they fix their shit. Ubisoft dying a pathetic death right now because of their horrid workplace culture and stagnant products making a boycott super easy, but people don't *Call* it a boycott because... well they simply don't care about ubisoft. It's the indifference and destain for practices that makes a boycott work, not a strong desire to uphold some public good, I believe.

[@kaiju4240]

Most gacha game boycott are just a player personal view aspect....It doesn't even affect the actual game nor is it about the game...If boycott was being use for the right reason its good, but a majority of it is just dumb.

[@MasterP86]

In the big majority of time, they dont work, specially in gacha games or games with microtransactions. Simple because the company only care about the money, and the whales dont give a damn about any issue that doesnt affects their own ego and most people that criticize will keep consuming the product. At this point, i simple drop a game when something starts to get too bad because i know that its more likely than not that it isnt going to get better. Each day, its more clear for me that whales dont keep games alive, instead, they are exact the people that enable companies being scummy in the first place.

[@lenen9456]

Ok im only gonna say this just so I can get this off. The Genshin drama goes deeper than people think, it’s not just a Mihoyo issue but a Cultural issue. China happens to be racist towards darker skinned people, and the player base of Genshin mostly is in China and around that region. The boycott was gonna fail anyways. Now though my personal take on it is this. They made a big deal with Sumeru when no one was really offended. And from the discourse im seeing and hearing it’s mostly just the western fans who are offended (note that this is just from what ive seen.). But im firmly against the people who wanna boycott since it’s just an attempt to virtue signal again and im against Mihoyo cuz its fucking Mihoyo.

[@MagitekBahamuto]

I invite every living being in the universe to boycott Mihoyo for not adding a Skip Button into the game, let's go guys!!

[@Oyi_14]

And for no actual sub Saharan African characters, I know hoyo reserves the right to do as they please with character designs. But I reserve the right to bitch and moan about it as long as I have breath

[@dandyshark6094]

1. Talk with money 2. Dont play the game company care more for their business, boycotting usually do nothing (hoyogames are example) UNLESS majority of player boycott the game, by MAJORITY it mean 50%+ playerbase

[@TheKhaosLord911]

A lot of people already commented how boycotts fail to work because most people refuse to bother with refusing to spend on the game. Instead I’ll comment how way too many people use “boycotts” as justification to be horrible people online.

[@Splatter5524]

On the Genshin Boycott: While I am on the side of not caring about the skin color of a created character, the reason -as stated - is not because of the cause. The people apart of the boycott had two problems, being hypocrites and being silly. Ignoring the fact that they refuse to uninstall the game, I presonally saw several accounts that were trying to boycott hoyoverse while also advocating for people to roll for their favorite character. That goes against the purpose of a boycott, whether or not you meant with free currency only. The people complaining about skin color, while some were understandable, others were being really dumb. Ranging from "white washing" the characters that was always light skinned, to saying they cant be "blank" (they werent) because they werent dark enough. Even while seeing that the loose basis on the culture is in play (8-bit super from green guy), they still complained that it wasnt one-to-one on all aspects. TL;DR: Those who were heavily complaining were too much of a jerk to want to listen to and they refused to stop playing, so no wonder it didnt work out well.

[@ricecola9609]

My main gripe was the actual deities and people that were used as inspiration for certain characters were darker than the characters we got. Just feels like taking the culture without the people. I feel like the same could be said for ZZZ with clear inspiration from black culture but once again completely removing the people for a guilt trip free experience.

[@Splatter5524]

@ricecola9609 I can understand that. Personally, I've looked at too many FGO characters to care that much about skin color matching (one guy got turned into a literal lion man). But it is still a fair complaint, people were just being dickishly stupid with their method of complaining.

[@ricecola9609]

@@Splatter5524 Honestly think Fgo manages to balance itself out in a weird way, the gacha is ass but they're at least not stingy with the melanin. Also just realized you've got a Heathcliff pfp nice.

[@Splatter5524]

@@ricecola9609 I meant more on the note of accuracy of the characters basis in general (melanin is not much of a problem over there). Ranging from Genderbends, to species changes, to the infinite Sabers, they didn't really care too much with full accuracy with the only way which character is which through some reference in the art background or there NP (Nobunagas only identifier being the guns). I never cared much about accuracy in skin tone if it's an original character (or loosely based on something real), especially if they never once acted like anything in the game was accurate or that they were supposed to be proper representation. While I don't know much about Genshin, I'm guessing they never really cared too much about proper representations for the regions they take from. The sole problem here was the area, same practices, just a certain area.

[@Splatter5524]

I'm sorry for the paragraphs of texts, it's just how I type and try to explain all of my thoughts.

[@dreamer-fz9ct]

Boycott would require every one to care and some gamers like me just want to play games and unwind and don't care about irl stuff tbh

[@ITAndroMedian]

On a personal level a boycott can work, as in, if you've lost interest in a game. Exhibit A: me with Honkai Impact 3rd.

[@neurofiedyamato8763]

That's called quitting not boycotting

[@Depression_timelost]

that's not boycott, that's apathy, you don't care about the game anymore

[@imdead7913]

No, this is Patrick

[@justanothershrimp1908]

Talking about Natlan, as someone from the south of Latam (South of Brasil and North of Argentina) I can say that we have a lot of white people in that region, but I feel that we a minority compared to rest of Latam and Africa should not comprise the majority skin tone of Natlan, and the way they use names outside of their contexts without even a nod to whose names are being used, Natlan feels like Latam for a tourist and something any local to any area with a lot of tourists go can say is that we hate tourists, I stopped playing Genshin not because of this is just because the writhing somehow plummeted in 5.0, they had 0 interesting quests in that update in my opinion, the characters having mobility is legit terrible, I remember having a bad taste when Venti locked the equivalent of Revali’s gale behind Gabling but Natlan just pushed that to the extreme, and I also quit HSR because I couldn’t take another Xianxou update after they failed to make me interested in the first, second and third main quest in the Xianxou I just stopped liking any character from there.

[@Aritulpa]

As someone from Yoruba culture I remember being pretty pissed but I thought I was overreacting, it was only after showing my mother, someone who spent most of her life in that culture, and seeing her disgust about how certain characters looked, was when I decided to put the game down permanently and delete my account. Basically wouldn't have cared if they didn't take important religious names.

[@ricecola9609]

I'm not from Africa or the usual diverse regions that Genshin was based on, but as a person if color I did do some research on the deities and important figure names used for the characters of Natlan. The community of Genshin seems to completely ignore that fact, or say it just doesn't matter because they're fictional characters or "inspired". I think the same case can be said for ZZZ using many things usually associated with black culture such as R&B and completely removing the people of that culture. Throughout every hoyo game there's realistically only 3 maybe 4 actually black characters with the rest of them being light skinned or tan. This is just a me thing tho tbh

[@mitacestalia7532]

​@@Aritulpa funny enough, the yoruba one might not even the right one. Ororon comes from Ororongo in Maori language which means sounds/audio, which is closely related to bats aka his theme. It's also revered to maori mythos as pekapeka, which is related to hoikoi (a mythical nightbird who foretell disaster or death). Honestly still have no idea why people think it's related to yoruba. where this is even coming from?

[@sunglassfrog89]

Honestly if u played natlan and see the npc most of the npc are tanned skin colored to brown even most of the chief is in range of that skin color but imo the biggest problem I have with natlan is the character design is kinda a downgrade from regions before the clothes etc

[@breakthewall.mp3126]

I realized that hoyoverse doesn't care about any "political" problems when they announced an irl event in a certain terrorist country, and after some players complained about that, they removed that country from the list, but still held the event. After that they stopped even pretending to give a shit and straight up partnered with that country's major companies for promotion

[@WyvernLord11th]

The fact that people have time to do this kind of thing pretty baffle me cause i legit don't even have the time to play games nowadays let alone trying to even boycott a game bruh

[@Bland_Spaghetti]

Tbh it’s kind of sad how people getting mad about genshin trying to nerf a character prompts more of a response than a boycott

[@KhezuOnYourScreen]

Because there's a difference between genuine vitriol and passion and slacktivism for Internet brownie points.

[@mitacestalia7532]

Well yeah, between your biggest consumer and people who all talk but barely throw money at you, who will company listen?

[@Mei-dos]

The thing with Neuvillette was actually serious, a straight up consumers' right violation in China, to the point Hoyoverse was getting reported to the government Natlan's drama is just something genshintards came up with to feel better about defending a culture they didn't give two shits about until they put it in their chinese game

[@revagong8918]

I always am filled with joy when a new video pops up!

[@4g3nt06]

Genshin players' "boycotting" wasn't even Boycotting because they still played lmao

[@Meicer]

I still have no clue why people get so angry when a corporation called taiwan a counry, our father do fairly large business deal with taiwan and i asked if taiwan is a country and he said it is a country. I just think these people who gets angry calling taiwan is country is just people that follow the trend and have no clue what is happening behind the scene

[@Shadow6OO]

*cough* bugmen don't like that it challenges the tyranny of their awful, dictatorship country *cough*

[@Hie_Hyoumaki]

What "people" that got so angry? Are they mainlander CN? If yes, why dont u get their anger...?

[@yoiko89]

The natlan controversy won't affect Revenue sale for genshin at all. Funniest thing those who boycott still playing the game

[@PowerCreep-mx5sv]

5:49 "people enjoy them". That's also quite the stretch

[@KopaczDziur]

That's like saying that people enjoy sports games. Some surely do, doesn't change the fact that those games are lazy slop. Weird, it's like Tsunul was afraid to just call Activision and CoD for what they are.

[@Necro-xy5ej]

if the fanbase for said game or franchise is already stabilished they just don't, now if it's something new coming up the it is far more likely to work because people are just gonna be like "well i just have to not get into it right? easy" or just don't have an interest in it meanwhile if you are already invested in a product you're probably gonna keep coming back for more

[@bunbunny8851]

It's amazing how fast Genshin's "boycott" fizzled out into nothing. I swear more people acted like they cared about boycott because of clout and not whatever cause they claim to fight for. It really did absolutely nothing.

[@kindred6453]

Unless directly harmful to the well-being of people. Maybe we should focus more on sharing our criticisms of an action a game dev takes rather than constantly calling for boycotts. Allowing players to enjoy a game with the added context that "while fun remember that there are some issues that are problematic and that shouldn't be replicated." I think this is a more healthy way of addressing issues rather than harrassing each other over the topic, and a better use of time because ideas are easier to share to players rather than forcing a company to change their actions all together. I just think boycotts are useful in some scenarios and critical analysis and criticism is more useful in others, and if a issue matters more to you then you are always free to drop the product all together at your own discretion. Focus more on preventing similar actions in thr future rather than trying to change what millions of others do in the moment.

[@belluh-1huey102]

Simply no, because people will go back to their habits of gaming.

[@simplyrem779]

The reason genshin didn't make darker skin characters is because Chinese players wouldn't like it. They cater to their Chinese audience. Over there, players prefer lighter tone skin. Is it a bit messed up? Probably, but it won't change Hoyo's mind because we can't change China's mind.

[@neurofiedyamato8763]

It's not really messed up at all. It's a beauty standard. People in the Far East like fair skin just like in the West people like a bit of tan. It isn't based on race. That said most people find people that look similar to themselves attractive. It is a well known phenomenon, so their games cater to that preference.

[@stealthbrandon]

They've been into light skin for several dynasty that literally traditional Chinese culture Lol.. and there majority of the audience is Chinese so yeah there going to sale to that audience. If you look at any chinese drama it a sea of pale asians .

[@hunter-wt7wv]

@@neurofiedyamato8763I guarantee if some other game added a Chinese based thing to there game and made everyone black china would start bitching 💀

[@trashqueen656]

​@@neurofiedyamato8763in the context of genshin specifically, it's messed up. 100%. People rag on cultural appropriation half heartedly a lot, but in genshin's case, it truly is cultural appropriation. Using cultures as quirky aesthetics to make profit without bothering to pay any respect to the cultures they stole ideas from is messed up. They didn't have to choose cultures from south America and Sub-Saharan Africa to base their new region on. But they did. And purposefully made all characters whiter than paper for revenue. Because as you said, Asian beauty standard.

[@alma_h2410]

I agree, what power does EN f2ps have against the Chinese whales? Hoyos gonna continue to cater to their mainland fanbase and not us.

[@tapseymoth803]

tldr of this: Voting with your wallet just means that those with more money get more votes.

[@randypc1]

Honestly, when a game references a culture, they don't reference everything about it. They reference key points in said culture, dance, song, accessories and food are the few things that first come to mind. Definitely not "skin color". And if you think skin color a key aspect of a culture, then, I think that is actually racist. Look at Assassin Creed, Japanese don't really hate it cause black, no they hate cause Ubisoft got everything else wrong. Only westerners seem to care about skin color in games. Skin color shouldn't denote anything, let alone culture. Westerners' fixation on skin color is what's racist.

[@InfinitySevens]

I think that's a smidge disingenuous because I understood the concern coming from people being effectively excluded from partaking in their own culture. I guess it's like one made an overtly Chinese region but then everyone there ends up appearing very melanated. The AC:O situation was literally just racist armchair historians trying to educate Japanese people on their own culture because they couldn't wrap their heads around the fact Yasuke was an actual guy who existed. Not to mention the actual game supposedly wasn't looking very good, hence the delays.

[@randypc1]

@InfinitySevens I'm chinese and if I see non-chinese practice chinese culture in-game, I would think that would be an odd choice but I wouldn't be mad. I can practice my own culture irl, why do I need to be mad over "excluded from partaking in my own culture" in-game.

[@mitacestalia7532]

Yeah, I keep saying this. Skin color barely tell where are you coming from and the culture overall. Give a character melanin, you will have zero idea what culture they're practicing. Give the character specific outfit while holding a plate of food, that will give better idea I live in a country island where we have many tribes across the country. You can look like from other tribes, but it doesn't guarantee much since your culture is decided by where you're living for a long time, environment and the practice.

[@lechant7991]

​​@@InfinitySevens to be clear, even the Japanese took issue with AC:S, based on the comments in its japanese trailer

[@lechant7991]

​@@randypc1 this, it'd be weird and jarring of course but imo it'd only be an issue when its done by people who would bar us from doing the opposite.

[@Gasten950]

I think I only would've cared about the skin colour in a video game if they were trying to be realistic. Teyvat is fictional though so saying they are suposed to have anything but what the creators want is kind of pointless and has no basis besides personal opinion.

[@Narrator1]

"We must stop eating," cried Toad as he ate another.

[@defaulted9485]

They works, just look at Ubisoft or EA's Online Star Wars and Anthem and Battlefield 2042. My issue with the ones in this video however, is that their motivation to boycott wasin conflict of interest with their actual intent. Most of these "boycott" were not meant to harm the bottom line, but to chase clout, claim personal moral high ground, and fanservice.

[@decoder_main6875]

#FixTF2 :

[@SettingSunAlt]

I mean.. #FixTF2 was a LARGE movement. Nearly every major content creator in TF2 behind it, TF2 being one of the biggest game communities ever... yeah.

[@roqui_]

​​@@SettingSunAlt i agree on it being big, but people kept using the taxed market and still failed. sadly i dont think it will work if they try a third time, personally also bots coming back is just a matter of time, i hope i am wrong though

[@InfinitySevens]

​@@roqui_Something something treadmill work

[@askaz971]

I will add one boycott. Its about War Thunder. At the time just as usual Gaijin announced their usual next planes for the game and basically what they were planning to do was to decrease basic currency you get from playing the game for all types of vechicles and ranks. It already was pretty bad and was kind of forcing people to buy premium account (you get 100% more currency and exp for every game you play) and/or premium vechicles. And it wasnt first time either, Gaijin did it before, but on smaller scale, so this time shit hit the fan, because it was going to affect everyone. Review bombing started, planned boycot, content creators be it freelancer or those with partnership with Gaijin (its specific thing with Wargaming responsible for World of Tanks etc and Gaijin with War Thunder, that they go in agreement with content creators by giving them earlier or special access to new stuff and other special things and they make videos about the game, simple as, there is no requirement to behave or say certain things, they are free to criticize Gaijin which they very much do) started making videos about this planned change and planned boycott against it. Finally day of boycott came to be and people observed numbers on server carefully, something everyone can do in game. And from this point it didnt seem like it didnt do much, hell, from what I recall number of players actually was really high for standards of this game. Ofc boycott extended beyond that and was also to affect Gaijin finanses. To not buy premium account and vechicles. And looks like, it actually worked. Because some time later Gaijin came with special announcement that they are not going to implement this change and that they are also going to release new roadmap for rest of the year some time soon. People waited again if they are just going to stall time and wait for people to forget or not care anymore, but actually Gaijin did it and released this roadmap. And to suprise of everyone they actually announced to change things for the better and they stayed to their word from this roadmap for the most part. Changes were big and there was a lot and even if I listed them without context of playing this game I could as well write some magic chants, but lets just say that f2p players life became better and grind was reduced.

[@E1Alpha]

When you're dealing with an industry that engages with millions, it takes a very specific kind of f-up for enough people to unite to boycott something successfully. Trying to organize a boycott has never worked in this industry. Trying to enforce your opinion to boycott or support something will always fail. Heck, it will likely have the opposite effect. We see this with both failed boycotts like Genshin and Hogwarts, as well as games themselves failing like Outlaws or Veilguard. In the end, you want to support or boycott something? Then do so. But do so genuinely. I personally am currently on a boycott of anything Nintendo. What does that mean? I don't interact with anything they make. I don't play any of their games. And as an artist, I refuse to create anything supporting their work. This is something that most people that "boycott" anything simply can't do. Heck, I myself even want to be excited for some of Nintendo's upcoming work, but I refuse. Will my boycott make a difference in the long run? No. It's simply something I want to do because of my own opinions, and I'm not going around insulting anyone who still supports them or try to force anyone to do the same. That's their choice. A boycott of a game only works when enough people WANT to do it for their own reasons. Trying to parade around your morals to try and convince others to follow your mindset will likely have the opposite effect. Especially if you decide to start slinging insults.

[@GalacticZ-q3j]

I never understand why people start insulting others as if that will convince others.

[@E1Alpha]

@@GalacticZ-q3j It's either that or admit they're wrong. And well, humans notoriously don't like admitting they're wrong.

[@HolyHadou]

Additional sidenote: If boycotting, maybe suggest alternative games that are in the same field but actually treat their players better. Or don't have that same controversy. If the game is legit better, people might leave outright. It was hard to boycott Genshin when it was the only open world gatcha but we've got a few more to give people options.

[@ericwijaya2119]

A kryptonite that kinda prevents me from actually committing to a boycott is that for me to actually partake in it, I have to either never have interacted with the medium in my life, or already have a generally unfavorable impression of the thing I'm boycotting due to previous exposure. Otherwise, it's basically just the Sisyphus boulder meme. Even if Nintendo were to strike a well-known and well-beloved fangame for the umpteenth time, or a revelation that the local McDonald's is apparently funding a genocide, I physically can't bring myself to boycott them. It's not that I don't sympathize with the potentially noble cause or believe that my personal needs are above those of others, it's just that I literally physically can't commit to them, the dedication required to the cause and the mental strain incurred afterwards is simply just too much for me to bear.

[@zerosyaoran]

Yeah. To really boycott something, you have to deprive yourself of it. It's honestly difficult to put something you're into down for a cause because what are you going to play in the meantime? Kinda like Twitter and social media in general. You know it's bad for you but you can't help but login and doomscroll anyway because what else are you going to do with your life without it?

[@Rekoyuu]

bro your grandfather was willing to put down his life for his country and you cant put down mcdonalds

[@scorpion-qk7rr]

Not able to put McDonald's down is the most American thing I have ever heard.

[@ericwijaya2119]

@@Rekoyuu my grandpa died of alcohol overdose you uneducated sperm-wasting birth defect just because he lived during a time of war does not mean he fought in it (or maybe he did I don't know I never recall my grandpa ever having a war story or anything of the sort and I'm not gonna force it out of my parents to debunk a shitty argument on the internet screw you) Your only contribution to this reply is to prove another point as to why I'm not fond of being a boycotter in the first place ; cause the moment I cave (and tbh I inevitably will) it's suddenly a morally righteous public spectacle to shame me for something I literally can't control I'm one for supporting a noble cause but guilt tripping me into contributing more to the cause isn't gonna give me a more favorable impression on the thing you're trying to promote you overexpectant centipede

[@ericwijaya2119]

@@scorpion-qk7rr I'm actually Indonesian lmao, unless I ran out of options for a lunch/dinner menu usually I buy McDonald's just for the french fries and not much else, I heard the brand has a less favorable impression in outer regions so maybe it could be a regional thing and the bar for quality there is lower, I dunno.

[@Gio-G10]

A Boycott is just another day

[@HolyHadou]

The Natlan thing already happened when Sumeru rolled out and I took place in a boycott not because of the region but because one of the characters from that region was released in the worst state and Mihoyo didn't seem to care to actually fix her. Pretty much got me to leave the game outright. I never expected Hoyoverse to care about representation but at least give a crap about releasing finished characters and they couldn't even be bothered to do that...

[@shikniwho7215]

there also a thing with people think the boycotts is bigger than it really is, all because they see few of other people doing too.

[@mitacestalia7532]

If you want to do boycott, the best way to do it is to hurt the developer wallet: stop playing their game and don't buy anything for them. I remember I'm so disappointed with a game called After Life. I love to play it, but I stopped playing it simply because the amount of bug that developer won't bother to fix, but they kept pushing update. Needless to say, dropping the game is good decision because it seems they're still have the same problem.

[@susssshitpostbasin5730]

they dont work because 90% of gacha players are addicts.

[@ShadowoftheMask]

I feel like boycotting is one of those things that is a personal choice about making a statement and not forcing company to do things, because if company genuinely loses customers then the company reacts and likely nobody is declaring themselves boycotting because that kind of behavior is bleeding of players over course of long time rather than sudden drop of player numbers at once :p

[@EdgeLie]

They generally don't work cause any of the important customers or most don't boycott, I only really seen them work when players actions start affecting the company badly like making a mess of their discord(some people go to an attempt no life the CEO or something which should not be done) Or when they get the government involved, which again isn't really a boycott, at most they might change how they do things in the future a bit

[@JaffaOrange]

I think one of the distinctions for why Valve moved to change TF2 was because they aren't publicly traded. And since they basically have a license to print money, they don't have to do the maths to decide that fixing/changing something was better for their bottom line. Instead, they just had to get off their ass and do it.

[@theboredgamer7236]

I'm such an addict...I open the video and in 3 seconds recognized Squad Unknown 😭

[@Willie_Shakes]

My approach to boycotting something is to have no expectations result wide, I boycott warhammer because i take issue with GW about a decade ago, has GW lost its bottom line? no, do I feel content knowing I don't financially support a company i despise, yes. I'm just one guy my impact is never gonna matter in the grand scheme of things so there's no need to expect things to change.

[@maddiehunter1336]

i think that boycotts of live service games are less effective than boycotts of regular console games because with console games you buy it once and you're not necessarily incentivized to keep playing it after you've already bought it, even if buying a game only to not play it would be a waste of money. for live service games, you're continually incentivized to keep playing and keep spending money on it. and once you're invested in the game, it's really hard to *force* yourself not to play it once it's been so integrated into your routine. it's kind of the same thing behind why so many people who try to diet or try to cut back on junk food end up failing and falling back into that habit. plus, i think the simple truth is just...a lot of these games are too big to fail. there comes a point where if a company is too big or a product is very widely used, boycotting it either becomes nigh impossible or attempts at boycotting will have a neglible effect on profits -- for instance, people have been instructed to boycott mcdonalds for their involvement in certain mass conflicts but the effects of that boycott on mcdonalds has been miniscule because mcdonalds is literally everywhere not just in america but across the world. i think that people should make educated consumer decisions when buying stuff, but boycotts are most effective when they're highly organized -- kind of like how going on strike works, but for consumers instead of workers (also kind of an aside here but it gets on my nerves when people say that the characters in genshin based off africa and latin america being pale is a cultural thing in china when dislyte and reverse 1999 are both chinese games with characters who have dark skintones and the fact that they made archer a lot paler than he actually is in the art for the honkai fgo collab makes me think that this is genuinely a problem specific to hoyoverse, even if china has a broader cultural issue with racism/colorism)

[@elemomnialpha]

Yes, but obviously only when done by the ACTUAL audience of the game and most of the time it's just not it's people who were never going to buy it in the first place Or done by slacktivist who just don't ever reach the point of boycotting

[@passiveaggresivesquirrel2052]

also the reason I think boycotts concerning culture rep dont work is correlation to the real world. Let me explain it this way. IF you were to pour water from a dirty lake to a glass you dont expect it to turn out clean. IT DOESNT MATTER, cause the real change that needs to happen is in the real world first not orbiting around favourite video game.

[@Zawaito]

I think the problem with boycott is that the average joe will come back to an exhausting day of work and he wont give two shits about whether or not the game is being boycotted (as he shouldnt). And having people playing a give you wish you could be playing is really demoralizing

[@sssspider]

Bro lol average joes are by definition *not* overly online losers who live on Twitter, the average Genshin player doesn’t *not care* about the “boycott”, they literally don’t even know it exists.

[@Zawaito]

@sssspider that's... Exactly what i said The average joe wont mind if people over on twitter are boycotting the game, they have more to do and when they come back home they'll play what they like regardless Which in turn is demotivating for those boycotting the game cause they'll see the numbers staying relatively the same, rendering their efforts useless

[@sssspider]

@@Zawaito it’s not that the average Joe *doesn’t mind*, he literally doesn’t even know a “boycott” is supposedly happening.

[@VoidEnigma]

Yeah, its sad to see that a boycott will never really work because people dont actually follow the true reason for the boycott. Its funny to think a company can simply drop a 30 second tease for a new update, and more than half of the "boycott energy" is gone. Most companies will be fine as long as they arent literally doing something evil. Sad to see, but hey, Ill still follow my own morals and decide for myself when its time to drop a game completely.

[@virginsaint]

It's difficult to boycott an asian game, when you're a westerner. Most of the fabricated issues in the west are practically non-issues there. Aside, that they are the ones who gives the most of these games revenue. It's practically as if the west are 2nd class players. I will not deny that i prefer this way. Better an asian game stay asian and care more about their native players over the opinions of outsiders.

[@acorns9162]

gay man talks about boycotting games les go

[@bullet3417]

you should have mentioned that tf2 had actually 2 movements and first one save tf2 made it so official valve tf2 account tweeted something like "we hear you, we are working on improving things" and then they made couple of fixes but that didn't end all bots. Bots actually came back and it was pretty much same situation, and then tf2 youtubers tried to create a second movement fixtf2 which might seem like valve actually fixed bots but it also was seen by some that the one dude who only works for tf2 was working on fixing them for quite awhile

[@InfinitySevens]

To be fair, I think the TF2 bot problem finally being properly addressed might have something to do with Deadlock. It'd be a pretty horrible look for that game to be swamped with cheater bots on Day 1.

[@qizeaqfile]

I'll give you the boycott of a game that works: (ALL BAD, BORING, UGLY, UNFUN GAME). People boycott a game by not buying it. It's as simple as that. Why do people still play Genshin? It's easy: It's still fun and addictive to many people. A boycott will never work if the game is still successful. It only works if the backlash happens before the game is released leading to dismal sales by not buying a bad game. There are so many examples this year. Another time a boycott has a chance to work is only when the game is in the decline of player base or is too broken to play. Sometimes the game can breathe again but usually, the game would just die.

[@uwaaahhhhhh]

I see you do mention Helldivers 2, even if only really briefly. Gonna add a little piece from myself, as someone who started playing since day 1 and then watched the community grow and uh... Meltdown? And then also reassemble itself time and time again. I personally wouldn't consider Sony backing down a victory, considering that now 130+ countries, or actually probably more than that can't legally purchase this game and have fun with their friends who probably can. Yeah the Helldivers won the fight, but basically not the war, and funnily enough with how the in-game system of the galactic war is based? Yeah, they're not winning or bringing back access to those 130+ blocked countries back. Not any time soon, nor ever, if i'm being honest. It genuinely felt as if we just managed to find a small breach, a weak point, only to have Sony immediately counter and reinforce their position one thousand times over. Literally the David and the Goliath fight, but when David manages to hit the goliath's eye, the Goliath just locks the fuck in and beats David down to a pulp until all that's left is red mist. Oh yeah and i guess good video Tsunul, definitely loving the shift into these more "Essay" type videos.

[@solaireofastora5999]

They work if it's a unified cause like Helldivers 2 and Sony. It doesn't work if A, said boycotters are still playing and B the reason gor said Boycott is a one sided issue. Helldivers 2 had the entire community from East to West united to get rid of Sony's forced Login. Here in Genshin, it's an issue like skin color in a fantasy world with countires that share similar cultures, something that no one in the East cares. a boycott works if the entire global and local community agree that it's a terrible thing and they should stop to make it change.

[@GrindyVine]

I think what matters on a boycott is WHAT they are boycotting. Boycott obviously could work if the REASON behind it were plausible. Bungie making another terrible decision in destiny 2? We send them a message. It works because it directly interfered with the player's enjoyment. And why Genshin impact's boycott doesn't worked? Putting gacha and gooning aside, Natlan hate doesn't really matter. Does it directly interferes or ruin someone's fun on the game?? Of course not. While there's good and bad there, natlan is okay. Because the boycott came from Salty wah wah group of people putting american influence, messages and rules onto a foreign company who couldn't care less to even respond. Like really, An English VA there who riled up and fueled the boycott, supporting it, get salty on people when she gets fired because of it. Let me repeat, A genshin/ZZZ VA who supported and fueling the boycott, get salty and having a rant because she was fired from her job.

[@darklightman8416]

i would like to say something asmongold said: "every boycott is 1 cinematic trailer away from falling apart"

[@Hie_Hyoumaki]

Boycotts in console games seems to work more than gacha games. I think console gamers have more unified mindset of "if ur game sucks, i wont buy", meanwhile gacha games CAN be played for FREE and u got some premium rewards for FREE everyday. Gacha game is a longtime investing product, console games are a 1 time transaction. This is what caused the "consumer activism", bc these ppl cant simply let go of the 4 years and ongoing investment they already put into genshin even as F2P. But honestly, as someone who has spent real money in some gacha games and left it, I can guarantee its easier than it feels. Sure you have to let go of ALL your investment there, but what's all that compared to rescuing your dwindling sanity? 😅

[@zerosyaoran]

On the case of Natlan, part of why I think the boycott failed isn't only because the "boycotters" really didn't give a darn, it's because they(and the whole Western playerbase) are a minority compared to the entire Eastern playerbase, which is Japan, China and a good chunk of Asia, and they don't care about the lack of melanin on the characters, sometimes even prefer it. I remember hearing a story of someone in the West try to raise awareness of it in a Chinese forum and they got laughed at by everyone.

[@CantusTropus]

It doesn't matter whether they "work" or not. If you genuinely despise the way your favourite series is going, it is morally good for you to not participate in it, because you should not participate in your own humiliation. Don't give money to people who hate you, regardless of whether or not it'll sink the company.

[@kaka09876543210]

Boycotting game is cringe. Just dont buy it.

[@moisesezequielgutierrez]

Here's my answer to the video: *_NO they won't work. As long as consoomers outpay the amount of people whining, Boycotting in Videogame industry is impossible_* Edit: *(Looking at Genshin Impact "Boycott" campaign, and modern AAA Industry)*

[@prototypemaster1]

Long story short: Boycotts don't work unless the d3vs care or everyone shares the same braincell to not buy into a game(which never works because not everyone agrees with you.) I played Genshin in its early days and left it it simply because it never intrigued me or kept me in long enough. I played FGO and Arknights and got severe burnout from them and I still play them along with a few other gachas. I gravitate towards games where the deck do care about their community or the game did enough to keep me in.

[@TeaCat0]

Helldiver kinda work with the boycott, but its more like because of sony have a risk on it with other projects basically failing. Other than that, yeah they probably won't give a damn..

[@jaruhcaz]

Totally missread the tittle assuming videogames were boycotting people's work

[@gafied_sozosei]

how does this affect ABA and the ever growing problem of 120-0 combos

[@lingerlights]

What do you mean, human chicken nuggets are delicious, you should try it

[@Archangels_righthandboi]

I’ve been boycotting Genshit Impact for years now…best decision of my life. Never logged back on to see what’s new bc, simply, I don’t give a fuck about it

[@Curseofculture]

Boycotts only work if EVERYONE in the player base actually cares otherwise the impact will be insignificant 😂

[@cob-codeofbrawl7668]

A good game is that one that doesn't need a boycot

[@AAAAnca]

my reason for boycotting certain games: my goddamn mental health because i (try to) keep up with 5 (soon to be 6) gacha games. also the game probably sucks in some ways pertaining to my enjoyment.

[@arcoten1]

Touch grass, My friend. With love from A nikke player

[@KopaczDziur]

6? For the love of god, don't, they are not worth the time, even 2 put a strain on yer life.

[@ovenb5549]

6? Damn now I only got enough passion to play 1 or 2 at most

[@mitacestalia7532]

bruh, i only play 2 gacha game and limit myself by not adding more gacha game. just drop some, it's not worth it to play gacha game that much 😭

[@AzureBlazes]

Unrelated but I know you must love how cute and pathetic Devyat Sinclair looks

[@idkdude6665]

Genshin boycott because of "representation" was the funniest joke of 2024 LMAO

[@miggymigz9242]

I stopped playing Genshin not because I saw many people were doing a boycott but because by the time I played Natlan, it wasn't as immersive as I expected it to be. I had high expectations for it after Fontaine. But the story was boring af, a lot of things that they crammed in the nation made it more unbelievable as you explore it, and the gameplay of the new characters were too wacky that I just couldn't take it seriously. I'll probably return in a few months when Snezhnaya is close to release and just speedrun the Natlan archon quests.

[@TheLionFireGod]

Let's play the free game for free, that will show them

[@suspiciouslurker3826]

Nice. Boycotts only work when the game itself sucks.

[@110montauk8]

If boycotts doesnt work then youre not boycotting hard enough. Look at how gacha publishers bend over backwards to kiss west taiwan's asses. Dont want anyone to charge with a knife at their CEO again, do we? That would be bad for business. (For the record, im not saying you *should* try that as a form of boycott, i know this is obvious but cant be sure anymore these days. But maybe you can start by... Actually not using their products. It's pathetic seeing people be all about boycotting game A and then drool over their newest trailers 23 minutes after.)

[@ihatecabbage7270]

I don't play live service garbage, boycott or not.

[@firud468]

wait what about Concord