Gacha Sensation Zenless Zone Zero Surpasses 50 Million Downloads Across All Platforms

@Mikey856 ...It is an almost entirely singleplayer game though...

@Mikey856 This year has seen tons of single player games.

No thanks, I will keep playing Honkai Star Rail.

Genuine question, and I'm not asking for people who haven't played it to tell me it's terrible or anything like that but; can I play it as a single player without having to spend loads on the gacha elements,? Because I'm interested in the premise

@Mikey856
Kinda agree though.
Without this crap there wouldn't have been a Suicide Squad or Gotham Knights game. There'd be another Arkham Knight and another Origins by that secondary studio.

But you can't prevent these kinda games obviously. Only flops can teach them, except for when it's Warner Bros tho lol

@Batesy125s Hoyo tend to make their money through fomo and waifu baiting. Premium characters flatten the skill gap needed but almost all content tends to be beatable with free characters. The gacha system is easily one of the most generous ones out there as well, premium currency is easy to come by and the pity system guarantees characters eventually. It's worth checking out, ignore all the hate from people who have never played any of their games.

You know what I think I'll bite with one of these games, which do people recommend though?

@get2sammyb thank you, I appreciate that. To be fair that's what I was hoping , that I could earn characters just by playing the game. I also dont mind spending every once in a while, say if there's a crossover character

@AgentMantis fair enough, thank you. As a weeb myself (although I've never though of any character as a waifu 🤣) I love a fun anime story and this always interested me because of that.but I was put off because of the thought that I'd hit a wall and wouldn't be able to continue unless I paid money

Ugh, ok, I’ll probably give this a shot, though I prefer the Genshin Impact setting to this but the gameplay itself seems better here. I was looking for something to replace Disney Speedstorm now that they keep locking mandatory characters behind a paywall that used to be unlockable for free.😩

@Mikey856 The biggest selling game of 2023 was a single player game with no MTX or MP whatsoever in it.

@Specky Gotham Knights wasn't a live service and was a pretty solid game.

@Malaise 50 million DOWNLOADS b/c it’s free to download and start playing, so I’m guessing free is the special sauce. 😂 Probably helps that after all the good word of mouth about Genshin Impact people know about Hoyoverse now so this isn’t completely new. I played Genshin for a couple of hours but stopped b/c the voice of the sidekick was too annoying, but from what I’ve read you can basically play the entire game for free.

Some day we’ll find out something nefarious about Hoyoverse b/c all of these games are starting to seem to good to be true.🤷🏻‍♂️

Pass from me don't like anime

@Malaise "Having said that, not everything is for everyone"

49 million of the 50 million downloads were probably in Japan on mobile.😉

Oh and anime appeal is most certainly a thing in the US. My wife publishes manga and their company basically exploded over covid, they couldn't keep up w/ demand. So I do think there is something to that as well, manga, anime & video games appealing to that group.

And again it doesn't hurt how well received Genshin Impact was, and still is. Genshin has 60 million monthly players, so this 50 million is basically just all of them. Think of it like a new FIFA (now FC or whatever) or COD.

https://www.charlieintel.com/games/how-many-people-play-genshin-impact-player-count-190314/

I played it for 2 days now on PC, to avoid trophies - and its kinda not mine... i hardly see the comparisson to Persona...
*characters are very crazy
*modern style that don't catch me
*i don't like the UI at all and the 3D elements looking odd especial on characters
*blury version sometimes even tho on all max/high so its more a style thing than an graphical issue
*to many elements and gamemodes from the very beginning, i feeled burden to do to much straight away while only wanted to go for the story first....

i love the comic pannels tho - really great and if the game would keep the 2D style more often i would have enjoyed it way more, the fighting is also nice and enjoyable, to bad ist just didn't catch me....

Back to HSR and Genshin i guess.... tbh i even tried wuthering waves and prefer that over ZZZ
but thats just personal opinion

for anyone - i hardly spend any money play genshin since release - you can clean all content and gather enough character, give it a try especial HSR is less time consuming and has great storys - alls Single Player

I know that I'd probably like this game if I tried it. But after getting lost in Genshin Impact when it first came out, I'm done with gacha games. The FOMO is too real. If we could just buy characters that would be different, but screw gambling.

Really loving this so far. Combat especially is fantastic. And definitely seems like their other games where you can play without spending a dime. Well worth a try!

Predatory business model

@Batesy125s im about 12 hours in and haven’t paid a dollar. They give you enough to play through the game and then some. The gacha elements are more for if there’s a certain character you want to get. That being said by doing the missions you earn gacha currency. I’d say enough to do a 15 dollar pull weekly and not spend money!

@Malaise It also help that they’re easily accessible. Like it or not, not everyone has a PS5 or a decent PC, but everyone definitely has a mobile phone. Mix that in with the massive performance increase we’ve seen from mobile chip over the last couple years. These game have become the go to for anyone slightly interested in mobile gaming due to the high quality content and optimization it receives on mobile.

So do chinese not have their own animation style? Why are they using Japanese Anime? I say this respectfully, China has great culture and history which I would love to see instead of seeing their take on Japans.

Beginning to think you’re getting rewards for promoting it this much 😂

This absolute crap is what is killing the game industry. I agree with Mikey.

I hate greedy companies who administer predatory practices as much as Larian's boss does.

It is not surprising to see Sammy defend his digital crack, but buyer beware: He is most probably hooked on Gacha gaming both financially as an influencer and as a gamer (addictive mechanics).

In other news, GTA 5 got more ***** online stuff instead of SP-dlc which lends credibility to the point I'm trying to make. Bandwidth from SP games ARE taken and used for online stuff.

I don't really get the people who have spent so much money on GTA to dominate other players. I imagine them having a tough job, if any, and spending their time charging up playing the same game again and again. Your friends might be there online as well. It can be a tough loop to break, I imagine.

Crazy numbers, can't see myself playing it though.

Does it have any animated children that are actually 5000 year old shark?
Asking for a friend, hes on second strike on catch a predator.

@Bentleyma
Yeah okay, maybe not killing, but throttling? Like people lose their jobs in SP development because of supply and demand. Or games and DLC are scrapped. There could be many direct and indirect consequences. How does the rest of the argument go? That games as a service throttles the bandwidth of developers and ties up consumer investment and interest. People stick to a few games like EA FC, Call of Duty, Genshin, GTA Online and so on. I guess an anime game is on par with games like these.

@get2sammyb to be fair, I might give Honkai a go. That seemed like the most interesting world out of the 3 they've done

@Nf157
It really depends on what style of game you're looking for. Genshin has been out the longest so it has the most content, has a big open world with a lot of exploration but also might be missing some of the improvements that newer Hoyo games have implemented.

Honkai Star Rail is a turn based JRPG with smaller environments and what I would say is a more focused story. There's a bit of exploration to be had but the focus is definitely on building your teams properly to clear content.

Zenless Zone Zero is like an arena combat game, a very lite version of games like Devil May Cry. Every character has their own fighting style but nowhere near the same amount of moves. Some might find the combat a bit too easy, boring even because of this but a bigger emphasis on dodging and parry and chain attacks becomes necessary the further into the game you get.

Ultimately you can get through the game just fine with all the free currency you get from completing missions and objectives. Just don't fall into the trap of missing out and you won't wind up spending. The hard part is that Hoyo is really good at making you want characters...FOMO is the biggest drug.

@Batesy125s It's a single-player game and you can beat the main story with only the free characters.

All HYV games are designed/make their money not based on needs but wants.

@Mikey856 do you play video games? Are you even looking at new releases? More single-player games nowadays than ever before

@get2sammyb @ATaco thanks for the reply, I think I'll go give them a go, maybe starting with either ZZZ or Honkai judging by what you said.

So 1% of games released (on console) are live service yet people still have a problem with that 🤦, I hope these people are playing all 99% of the single player games to make them this entitled.

@Mikey856
I don't get why we're still using live service as this catch all Boogeyman term, as if its as bad a concept as NFTs are. Suicide Squad wasn't a bad game because it was a live service, it was a bad game because the publishers were only focused on milking a popular franchise in the same way we used to get terrible movie tie-ins. When care isn't put into a game it can be felt by everyone that plays it.

@Nf157 id start with this one the amount of characters is low enough that’s you could possibly pull every character and not have to pay money. It’s really fun reminds me of a beat em up like final fight or a turtles game. The fighting has a great rhythm and flow.

@EfYI @Mikey856 I'm sorry to say this but both of you should stop drinking negative nancy. SP games isn't finished just because this F2P game got 50 millions download.

Heck. Fortnite got more than 350 millions downloads since released back in 2017 and generate $6 billions revenue for Epic. But many publishers / devs doesn't stop making SP games.

So I downloaded what feels like a demo and played for about an hour. Seems like a fun little playable anime, reminds me a lot of “Astral Chain” which I’m assuming no one here has played, but I’m afraid once I need to start spending all of those currencies on whatever it will be too much for me. But so far it’s fun.

@rjejr
While you don't need to ever touch the Gacha if you don't want to, it would definitely be wrong not to point out how convoluting upgrading the characters you do own can get. Each character needs a currency to level up, a currency to upgrade individual skills, different types of currency to unlock passives and even more currencies to upgrade engines and drives. Not to mention that when you increase the level the grade of the currency required also increases. If you get lost, just press R3 on the upgrade screen of whatever you are trying to upgrade and it will tell you where you can obtain it and, most usually, warp you to where you can get it.

Unfortunately that's where the one drawback to Hoyo games becomes apparent. You will need recharging stamina to grind out those various currencies. I wouldn't say it's ever bad enough to stonewall progress but it will definitely take a couple days to level up every character you want to use to endgame stats.

@Jmerbaugh thanks. Ye I actually ended up going with ZZZ, hopefully I'll get around to it today

@Mikey856 important thing to note, not sure if others have said, is that was 50 million across multiple consoles, PC AND, most importantly, mobile.

The game is a lot of fun by itself, lots of mini games and the combat is snappy and fun, if button-mashy. But if you don’t like anime it’ll probably lose a lot of its appeal, in art style and cutscenes.

But its also free, so a lot of people will be downloading it just to try it out.

@Mikey856 Like A Dragon Infinit Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, Final Fantasy Reload, Stellar Blade, Baldurs Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom etc

Yep, single player games are definitely dead

@PuppetMaster

Well, that's your opinion. Mine is different.

Take the last state of play. Nothing but ***** anime - gacha gaming, or at least that's my most base of reactions. Taking a step back I can appreciate a dress-up game for the girls and so on. But nothing for me. That is the facts of the matter. SONY funding Haven took funding away from others. Concord is not for me. The list goes on. We have a right to our opinion and the argument of throttling is sound.

@Mikey856 Yes because they are free vs fully priced games, if Spiderman, Uncharted or God of War were free to play im sure they would also hit 50 million.

Also these free to play games rely on the player spending money, not all of those 50 million players are spending on microtransactions, most will either download it to see what it's like and not touch it again, plus there's people like me who will play but not spend any money, I've put thousands of hours into Apex Legends and Overwatch 2 but haven't spent a penny.

Nintendo and Playstation probably make more money off their single player games than some of these live service games make. Only the big popular ones are raking in the money like this game, fortnite, cod, overwatch etc, that's why so many live service games flop and close after a year or two.

@Mikey856 I usually don't like to compare likes but are you really ignoring the fact that the people who disagreed with you and said that there are tons of single player games have way more likes than you?

@EfYI "Take the last state of play. Nothing but ***** anime - gacha gaming, or at least that's my most base of reactions"

The last SoP has SP games like DW Origins, Astro Bot, SH 2 remake, Until Dawn remake, Skydance Behemoth, Alien Rogue Incursion, and MH Wilds. But somehow you think they F2P anime gatcha games too? Lol you need to lay off the vodka bro.

SGF + Xbox Showcase + Nintendo Direct also has tons of SP games like Phantom Blade Zero, Black Myth Wukong, Lego Horizon, Doom: The Dark Ages, Slitterhead, Metroid Prime 4, Mario & Luigi Brothership, DQ 3 HD remake, MGS 3 remake, Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, DKC Returns HD, etc.

So far you didn't give me a good argument nor proof that SP game is finished and this gatcha game killing the game industry. Again. You need to stop drinking negative nancy.

The problem with these games is that they are designed to suck up all of your time, gate content behind Microtransactions to various degrees if you don’t want to spend a huge amount of time in the game, and engage in timed activities that make demands on when you play. All to keep you “engaged” over playing everything else. For me, no matter how good the game is, the opportunity cost is just too high.

@Mikey856 Well change is normal, if you like it or not
Would be weird if gaming wouldn't have changed since the 80s

@get2sammyb thank you for saying this!

I've looked at every picture and video for this game on the PS Store and read the description and still have no idea what kind of game it is. Lol

@Mikey856 They showed Concord because the game almost finished and schedule to release for next month. Meanwhile there's no "Concrete Genie 2" because the 1st game is a commercial flop which is unfortunate.

But that's the reality where not every SP games, no matter how good they are, can sold well and make profits. The same can be said for live service games. Not every live service games can achieve 50 million downloads or became as big as Fortnite / Genshin Impact / Apex / Valorant etc. Many ended as a failure and closed down the server in less than a year.

But again, this doesn't mean "SP games are finished". If you believe R* gonna stop working on GTA 6, Nintendo stop working on Metroid Prime 4 / Mario & Luigi Brotherships / Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, SE stop working on FF VII Remake part 3 / KH 4 / DQ XII / DQ 1-3 HD remake, Sony stop working on Wolverine / Spidey 3 / Death Stranding 2 / new GOW etc and decided "let's forget SP games and just make live service games from now on because F2P Zeneless Zone Zero has 50 million downloads" then you clearly doesn't know how gaming industry works.

Not every publishers / devs is a trend chaser especially if they don't have experience to make certain type of game. Look at Polyphony Digital for example. They've been making GT series for decades but not one bit you hear from Kazunori Yamauchi mouth that they gonna stop making GT games and start working on F2P gatcha anime games.

So, you should relax and sleep well because SP games are definitely not finished. Period.

@ATaco Thanks for all of that, it certainly seems daunting. My guess is I never see the end but the story has me hooked enough - Belle is waiting to go bed the first Saturday morning after a long night - that I'll probably keep going until I can't. Playing on easy/story mode should help me get decently far. I have no desire to get every character or every character I want or desire, just what I need. Really I could probably play a 30 hour game w/ just Nicole, Anby and Billy, I don't feel the need to get anyone else. We'll see how it goes but I'm on board for now, even if I have no idea how some of the gatcha stuff works, they haven't really seemed to explain anything yet, my guess is they think everyone playing this already played something similar, which I haven't. I did manage to get my 3 mains up to level 10, 5 and 5, and I have 8 W-engine cores from doing a thing. And I do plan on redeeming all of the codes found here, so that should help a teeny bit.

https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/zenless-zone-zero-all-codes-and-how-to-use-them

ZZZFREE100 - 300 Polychromes, 30,000 Dennies, 2 Senior Investigator Logs, 3 W-Engine Modules (Expires 12th July)

ZENLESSLAUNCH - 50 Polychromes, 2 Official Investigator Logs, 1 Bangboo Algorithm Module, 3 W-Engine Power Supplies, 12,666 Dennies

ZZZ2024 - 50 Polychromes, 6,000 Dennies

ZENLESSGIFT - 60 Polychromes, 6,666 Dennies.

This comment section is how you know the developers made a good guy. People only get this butt hurt when others are having fun and enjoying something they dislike

@Mikey856 You don't bother to read short 4 paragraphs and a sentence tells me a lot about you. But hey, i'm not the one who's losing sleep about big bad F2P taking over SP games lol.

@AfroMario Well put, I feel the same. It’s telling that China is developing games like this for the west while banning them at home.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-issues-draft-rules-online-game-management-2023-12-22/