Genshin Impact and leaks: community response, and developing events

A few days ago, miHoYo had begun the process of suing Bilibili, a process understood to be for obtaining personal information to identify leakers on the platform. This occasion isn’t the first time the community has shared their opinions regarding leaks, but it can certainly be considered one of the highest profile incidents yet. It’s hardly a stretch to assume that the lawsuit is over Genshin Impact leaks, which as many of us would know, is staggeringly popular. Even if you wanted to be skeptical, just look at the numbers from Sensor Tower, for ONE WEEK’s spending:

COMMUNITY RESPONSE

First of all, what have the community been saying about the leaks and the lawsuit? The comments have been broadly summarized as follows:

A transparent roadmap, or developer blogs, will reduce leaks.

Destiny 2 has been brought up as an example where the development team communicate their plans moving forward. These come in posts like This Week At Bungie, that can also play host to fan works. That isn’t to say the game is completely free of leaks either. Just a simple search online would give you many results, should you desire to read up on them. However, it would seem that what the community wants in essence is transparency. To be fair to miHoYo, they have posted blogs about updates and events available in the next version, but this doesn’t appear frequent enough to appease the fan base.

Wish Event leaks are fine, just don’t spoil the story. It’s good for free-to-play or low spending players. VERSUS Just practice self-control and not Wish for everything new. Wait for content creators to decide if it’s worth it.

On one hand, the early warning does sound reasonable. After all, Genshin Impact is a simultaneous global release, so there’s no foresight possible. On the other, it is an equally valid point that you shouldn’t expect your limited resources to be stretched infinitely. Content creators would more than likely be rigorously testing new characters or weapons, so the virtue of patience is being implied here.

The official accounts have been giving teasers of characters too, and from the pattern so far, a newly introduced character can be expected in the following version update. Of course, others yet would say that the images mean nothing: no numbers, no practical applications, and thus no worth. There are many who wish to prepare materials ahead of time, so they want these leaks so that they can “farm efficiently”, so to speak.

Developers have the right to protect their intellectual property.

This should be a given. Genshin Impact‘s composer, Yu-peng Chen, had requested players to not listen to the leaked samples of Inazuma’s soundtrack, simply stating it would affect their experience. Whatever the content, effort has gone into making it, and releasing it to the world in an incomplete state without your express permission wouldn’t feel great. There are opinions that miHoYo should crack down on leaks even harder, saying the leaks are far too prevalent and people always bring them up even if there are parties who wish not to be spoiled. Additionally, the leaks break any non-disclosure agreement that may be in place, so legal action is the logical next step.

If they’re losing money because of leaks, it’s because the content is terrible.

This comment is highly inflammatory at best, yes. It’s included here in the interest of “presenting an argument”. Honestly though, what could you say to such views? “If you think it’s so bad, let’s see you do better”? You can express your views, but constructive criticism this is not.

THE CRACKDOWN

While the case against Bilibili waits to be heard, a blow has been struck against Honey, who claims miHoYo is “trying to take us down behind our backs“. Honey’s tweet states that the website will be taken down within 24 hours, and asks users to stay tuned for further notice.

The page in question appears to publicize letters sent to both the website provider identified as IONOS-AS, and Cloudflare, describing copyright infringement and demanding takedowns. Honey’s words are attached at the bottom, implying a counterclaim will be in the works.

Now, I’m no legal expert, so I’m not about to “take a side”, as it were. Much like the response to the leaks themselves, there are parties who believe Honey should not have hosted unreleased content, while others feel the database was an incredible resource in general. Honey’s words here certainly do not sound very kind towards miHoYo’s apparent actions.

When it came to the Bilibili lawsuit, there were those who believed that it wouldn’t do much to control the leaks outside of China. Going by this, that’s not exactly true now.

WHAT NOW?

Besides many, many comments dubbing this the “Leaker Hunt Decree”, playing off the “Vision Hunt Decree” storyline featured in Inazuma – itself Genshin Impact‘s newest region since launch – there really isn’t much room for debate, all things considered. There’s only so many times we can acknowledge that IP holders have the right to take action against those they feel have infringed copyright.

There were comments from those who wondered why miHoYo is taking more drastic measures when compared to Honkai Impact 3rd, which is also one of the company’s properties. People can claim that Honkai leakers have much more “free reign”, but who can really confirm? Circumstances are slightly different as well, considering Honkai does not have a global simultaneous release.

The general public are free to accuse miHoYo of being “greedy” for wanting to exert control over their work, claiming the secretive nature surrounding Genshin means it’s “easier” for them to get money out of people. As shown by Sensor Tower’s chart at the beginning, no one can deny that a lot of money is involved, whatever the case.

As someone who has been playing Genshin from the start and has no interest in spending money on it, you can place me in the camp of people who would “benefit” the most from leaks. Thing is, I’m also very used to not having foresight for releases in my gacha games – because lest we forget, Genshin nonetheless is one – so leaks or not, I learn to live with it. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as one might say, so leaks are unlikely to completely stop no matter what repercussions await.

Genshin‘s first anniversary is steadily approaching. There’s no leaker who can tell you what it would be like once the dust settles from these disputes.