Comment by Daiz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Daiz | Hacker News Reader

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> offered completely for free, no strings attached

I would say that isn't really true. To play Genshin Impact on PC, you are required to install kernel-level always-online DRM on your computer. And the kernel anti-cheat (which exists solely to protect the integrity of their lootbox gambling monetization and has zero benefit to players) isn't even one of the usual ones like EAC or BattlEye (which I personally don't have much trust in either, for the record), but rather one developed in-house by the game's Chinese developers. And considering how involved the Chinese government is in the local game industry, that means you could effectively be giving the Chinese government kernel access to your computer in exchange for being able to play Genshin Impact. That's a pretty heavy price to pay in my books.

And of course, because the integrity of the gambling machine is the ultimate priority, things like modding and other popular single player pastimes are completely out of the picture as well. And because it's a live service game, every single penny you put into it will eventually be lost to the void as servers are shut down and nobody will ever be able to play the game again.

I'd be happy to pay for Genshin Impact as a regular single player game with no lootbox gambling mechanics that I could play offline without DRM and do whatever the hell I want with it after purchase without having to worry about a built-in killswitch disabling the game one day. But as that is not the reality we live in, I'm fairly certain I will never be installing the game on my computer, as the price is simply too high.

You don't have to - you can use an Android Emulator. But it will suck.

If you don't like it, it's not very hard to make Genshin single-player only. Most of the game is client-side, except for the spawning of enemies and resources. If you can figure out how to replicate it, you can get a 100% server-less Genshin Impact. I can definitely help with that if you want.

People have tried in the past to get the game running in single-player mode, and managed to get everything working except for mob spawns.

You'd also need to figure out some progression system to unlock characters, but that's not too hard.

If we could find some people to maintain the patch I'd be very willing to contribute to this too.

Being online and unnecessarily punishing makes the game feel more real to people

You may as well not bother.. people with self control and awareness will play non-toxic games, and people without it will avoid your patch since it’s not the real game to them

The majority of Genshin players have enough self control to not spend any money.

Certainly, if you make such patch you can't have it be too easy, it should be a challenge to get 5* characters and there should still be some RNG.

Really the biggest obstacle is that updates may happen and prevent new content from being available.

Windows 11 comes with one by default now so you don’t need to download one even.

> To play Genshin Impact on PC, you are required to install kernel-level always-online DRM on your computer.

True of a lot of things, such as World of Warcraft and Steam.

Absolutely untrue for Steam. A game on Steam might require kernel anti-cheat, but you're obviously not obligated to buy or play those games just by installing Steam.

And as mentioned, I don't put much trust in kernel anti-cheats in general, which is a big reason why I primarily play single player games. Which is why I'm extremely annoyed that a single player game that I might otherwise play comes with a kernel-level always-online DRM, all to protect the sanctity of predatory lootbox gambling monetization.

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