Want to know how big turnbased PS5 RPG Honkai: Star Rail is? It’s sponsoring NBC’s coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympics. We first saw images from the American television channel earlier today featuring the game’s logo, but now an X (or Twitter) account which specialises in gacha gaming has posted the full commercial.
You can watch it below:
It remains to be seen how closely the release will be aligned with NBC’s coverage, but even this small example of product placement demonstrates just how big the gacha game has become. The free-to-play title is regularly at the top of mobile revenue reports, and we know it’s been a big earner for PlayStation as well.
HoYoverse clearly has no shortage of marketing money to spend.
[source x.com]
Comments 17
I’d say Paris has good taste.
Oh these comments should be hysterical. 😂
Not much of a big Olympics guy myself so I probably wouldn't have even noticed.🤷♂️
I do think it's weird MiHoYo is going all in on HSR when Genshin is so well known and ZZZ is just getting off the ground. Though I suppose no weirder than the US Olympics being sponsored by a Chinese company. I wonder what horrors the world will inflict upon us while we're distracted by the Olympics the next two weeks?😩
Trying to get Waifu Bait into the Olympics. Bold strategy cotton, let's see if there's any audience crossover....nope, nope, you've just confused the middle aged white women
@rjejr In terms of revenue reports, Star Rail has actually been bigger than Genshin recently.
@rjejr star rail more popular then genshin right now
They've got 2 juggernauts, likely 3 with ZZZ so they're probably swimming in cash.
Awesome for the superior gacha.
@get2sammyb Fellow Firefly main, I see.
C25CLOUD wrote:
Is that true? Activeplayer.io has Genshin at 62 million monthly players and HSR at 20 million monthly across devices, both of these figures have been pretty stable for 6+ months. While it's only an estimate that's quite a gap that is echoed in most places i've looked. e.g. Google trends (based on google searches) suggests a similar 3+ to 1 ratio worldwide.
@get2sammyb I saw that was the case for mobile, but is that true across all platforms? If so I haven't seen the data yet, do you have a link? But I believe HSR is more popular on mobile by merit of being a turn based game (and with auto-battles), it plays much more easily with touch controls than Genshin.
Surprised by this because of what @Haruki_NLI mentions about there would seem to be very little crossover between the two audiences. But I guess the gacha games are quite casual, er… I mean ‘’mainstream” with its large mobile fanbase (no offense intended… nothing wrong with mobile or mainstream gamers). It’s possible middle aged white women play this, or could be sold on playing this…?
But one thing’s for sure — nothing unifies the world’s nations like sports and video games. A Chinese developer on a Japanese console advertising to an American audience at a French venue. World peace is imminent. 😄
Well deserved HSR is an absolut great game!
@themightyant
There are no revenue reports for anything other than mobile but yeah, HSR has been bringing more cash
@Th3solution I think you are underestimating the broad appeal of the Olympics... and gacha games. Their majority certainly isn't "middle aged white women" not least as their in-game surveys max out at "born in 1980 or before"
@Zeroo I knew HSR had made more on mobile some of the last few months, especially with big releases like Acheron, Firefly etc. Though Genshin retook top step with Arlecchino. But if my theory based on all the other evidence is correct Genshin is far more popular on other platforms and considerably more dominant overall.
@themightyant As an individual who falls outside of the “middle aged white woman” demographic, I do agree with that assessment, because I love the Olympics. But I do find that their appeal the last couple times feels like is waning, at least amongst the Gen Z and Gen Alpha constituents. It’s not a scientific evaluation on my part, but just my gut instinct that people care less and less.
Personally, I’ll be watching things like women’s gymnastics with great interest. But I can’t imagine that my 18 year old nephew or any of his buddies will, but they’ll certainly be playing Honkai.
Also… I’m not even sure how much interest in the Olympics there is outside of the U.S. The interest (although waning, like I said) is pretty high here but in the last couple Olympic Games whenever I would try to engage discussion about the Olympic events over in the forums here, I didn’t detect much interest from the Push Square frequenters. I wasn’t sure if that was just a gamer population apathy, or a British and European apathy toward the games.
@C25CLOUD " star rail more popular then genshin right now "
What @themightyant said. I had those thoughts but the numbers agree w/ what I thought. Genshin just feels like it's own thing, a life of it's own, and the others are just "more Genshin" or "not Genshin" or "Genshin wannabees". Genshin is the Metroid and Castlevania and Souls of gatcha games, until it isn't.
@TH3solution US still cares about the Olympics, mostly women's soccer it seems like, but I think after the men's big hockey team win in 1980 then the Wall coming down in Berlin and the USSR disintegrating I don't think older people care as much, the "us vs them" draw isn't there. Of course this year 1/3 of America may be rooting on the Russians. 😜
@get2sammyb "In terms of revenue reports, Star Rail has actually been bigger than Genshin recently."
Just replied to a bunch of these, missed yours somehow, and I'm not sure I can equate revenue w/ popularity. I mean it makes sense, CoD, FIFA, the biggest games make the most money, but I still feel like Genshin is the answer to the question "Name 1 game by MiHoYo?". When HSR becomes the defacto answer to that question, then I'll reconsider my stance. Wonder what affect ZZZ and all the seemingly endless others will have? Not Concord though, no affect there. 😝
@Th3solution perhaps though it is estimated around 3 billion people worldwide will watch some of the Olympics. Personally I had me niece and nephew round for the opening ceremony and they bought some friends, but they are all sporty and into gymnastics and stuff.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...