Genshin Impact and the Currency Game: When 90 Pulls Become a Player's Lifeline

The moment the 89th pull ends with nothing remarkable, most Genshin Impact players experience a sensation so familiar it's almost mechanical: heart racing faster, finger hovering over the pull button, then the screen igniting with golden light — or not. This is not the moment of a sporting match, yet it carries all the emotions of a fan watching a penalty at minute 90. And that is precisely why Genshin Impact, though not a traditional esports title, possesses an operational system that any sports analyst should study. This article is neither an indictment nor a defense of the gacha model. It is a pure architectural dissection — inspired by how I have analyzed football tactics over the past ten years, but applied to a field that Vietnamese sports fans are increasingly exposed to: the mobile gaming industry's real-money monetization. As version 7.0 enters phase two and the community begins counting down to version 7.1, a fundamental question has been silently raised: what rules does Genshin Impact play by — and who truly controls the game? From the outset, I must clarify something many analyses have overlooked: Genshin Impact has no professional tournament circuit, no teams, no player-transfer market in the esports sense. It is an open-world action RPG built on a gacha monetization model — essentially selling lottery tickets in-game for real money in exchange for random rewards. But precisely because of this, how it operates its revenue system contains tactical lessons that anyone interested in the sports entertainment industry should master. Within Genshin Impact's version 7.0 phase two transition context, with a cadence of two phases per version, each phase lasting approximately 21 days, the player community faces a familiar dilemma: allocating financial resources — here, premium in-game currency — between new character banners and rerun banners. This is no different from a football club deciding between buying new players or renewing contracts with existing stars: both are resource-constraint problems before an uncertain future. The banner system is designed with near-mechanical rhythm: each version splits into two phases, each phase bringing at least one new character debut. Version 7.1 phase one is predicted to introduce two entirely new characters, while phase two returns with rerun banners — a structure that creates the strongest financial pressure in phase one, where players feel compelled to spend immediately if they want the new character. This is "scarcity by design" — a tactic any sports manager would recognize: when supply is limited and time is compressed, decisions become more emotional than rational. But the truly noteworthy element lies in the "pity" mechanism. In Genshin Impact's gacha system, players never pull forever without winning. Every player is guaranteed a five-star character — the highest rarity — within a maximum of 90 pulls. This is the first "soft floor." Furthermore, if the first five-star pull is not the featured character, the next five-star is guaranteed to be the featured one. This is the "50/50" mechanism — fifty percent chance of the featured character, fifty percent of a standard character, then guaranteed on the next attempt. I have reviewed numerous business models in sports — from V-League ticket pricing to Premier League broadcasting revenue distribution — and the most striking similarity is that both use the same psychological formula: giving people a sense of control while control rests entirely with the other party. In football, it is the feeling of "our team is controlling the match" while statistics actually show the opponent holding more possession. In gacha, it is the feeling of "just one more pull" while the probability remains unchanged whether you have pulled 89 times or just once. A commonly overlooked gacha element is the pity sharing mechanism between same-type banners. If a player pulls on a weapon banner and switches to a character banner of the same category, the pity counter is preserved. This may seem like a player perk, but it is actually a sophisticated revenue-smoothing mechanism: it reduces switching costs between same-type banners, making it easier for players to spend on both new character banners and rerun banners. In sports terms, this resembles a club reducing transfer fees for young players to encourage spending on both the current squad and future prospects — a "revenue smoothing" strategy over time. Genshin Impact's rerun policy is where I see the clearest parallel with football's transfer market. There is no fixed rerun schedule. Some characters have been absent for over a year, while others return within just a few versions. This is a deliberate scarcity mechanism — "FOMO" (fear of missing out) with full intent. In football, we are accustomed to seeing "wonderkids" signed by big clubs only to sit on the bench for two seasons. In Genshin Impact, old characters are "forgotten" only to suddenly return with renewed appeal — the "product reintroduction" cycle that any marketer knows by heart. Another notable tool is "Chronicled Wish" — a separate banner type for legacy characters with its own rules. This is how publisher HoYoverse opens an additional revenue stream for characters that have "expired" on primary banners without conflicting with new character debut cycles. Consider a retired V-League veteran brought back as a brand ambassador — also a way to extract remaining value, but for gamers, it means real money flowing into the publisher's pocket. I want to pause here to address something the analytical community often avoids: Vietnamese sports fans are increasingly caught in the spending spiral of games, and not a few of them are school and university students — the age group that traditional sports always tries to protect from the negative effects of gambling. This does not mean gacha is gambling under current legal definitions in most countries — but it occupies a gray zone that any sports administrator should recognize: random probability with reward, the psychology of "just one more time," and escalating costs as the threshold approaches. I am not on air to comfort anyone, so I will say it plainly: the non-fixed rerun schedule is not because the publisher forgot — the uncertainty is part of the revenue design. When players do not know when their favorite character will return, they are forced to constantly maintain reserve funds — and those reserve funds often become actual spending when another attractive banner appears. This is "variable reward scheduling," a concept psychologist B.F. Skinner described in the 1930s and which modern game designers have transformed into the most effective monetization tool of the past decade. Returning to Genshin Impact's current phase: version 7.0 phase two is in transition while the community is actively accumulating resources for version 7.1. With two new characters expected in phase one and rerun banners in phase two, financial pressure concentrates primarily in phase one — exactly as designed. The specific banner schedule still awaits official confirmation from the publisher, and this is when I want to remind of a principle I always adhere to in sports analysis: never build plans on unverified foundations. Whether you are a football fan or a gamer, that principle does not change. The fundamental difference between Genshin Impact and true esports lies in the power structure. In a legitimate esports tournament, multiple parties participate: tournament organizers, clubs, players, sponsors, and audiences — each with their own power and interests, creating a system of checks and balances. In Genshin Impact, publisher HoYoverse simultaneously designs the rules, operates the system, announces changes, and is the sole financial beneficiary. There is no independent arbiter, no appeal mechanism, no third-party oversight — a concentration of power that no sports organization would dare consolidate in one party, yet in the gacha gaming industry, it is the standard. So what is the lesson here for those interested in the sports entertainment industry broadly? First, the gacha business model is a detailed map of how to generate revenue from customer emotions — something every sports league is pursuing. Second, the "pity" mechanism is a form of "safety net" that makes players feel they are not completely cheated — a tactic that sports leagues could learn from to build guarantee or refund programs for audiences. Third, and most importantly: the absence of transparent information is the enemy of every healthy market — whether it is the player transfer market or the gacha pull market. I was wrong on air predicting Germany would win the 2026 World Cup, and I learned that being wrong publicly is better than being right in silence. With Genshin Impact, perhaps the most important thing the player community — and analysts like myself — need to remember is: no match is truly fair when one party defines both the rules and the scoring. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is not tactics — that is power alone.