Fans of miHoYo Genshin Impact caused two hashtags, #boycottgenshimpact and #DoBetterMihoyoto start a trend on Twitter on Tuesday that amounted to mass criticism of the free gacha game. So far, the #boycottgenshinimpact tag has been tweeted over 12,000 times.
It all started as a unconfirmed leak about the game claimed that new content supposedly containing new places to explore would be delayed. MiHoYo did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Genshin Impact hasn’t received a floor space expansion since December 2020 and although there have been updates and events, these additions have been made are viewed as pathetic by fandom. Fans are hungry for new content, so the idea of holding something back hit a nerve. Despite the lack of an official review, the “leak” opened the floodgates to a wave of criticism from fans on social media that went well beyond the angry feelings about the alleged delay.
The hashtags have become home to years of pent-up complaints about the game. While some topics are not constantly discussed with the fandom in general, it is worth repeating them here to get a sense of the amount that is included in #boycottgenshinimpact. Some players produced dullness Account security in the game that has suffered violations in the past. Other players are too Debate about the representation one of the few dark skinned characters in the game. Another set of Complaints made an NPC aware of them who expresses his romantic love for a character who appears to be a kid and leads fans to say there is pedophilia in the game.
Among all of these, one claim was brought to the center of attention and generated a large number of retweets and responses. A user on Twitter pointed out that hilichurls – the goblin-like common enemies in the game – were based on indigenous peoples. Soon, many players shared a clip showing a miHoYo developer using footage of indigenous people dancing as a reference for Hilichurl animations. The brief highlight was part of a larger video linked to the officer Genshin ImpactBilibili account posted on September 29, 2020.
Despite the call to action on the hashtag #boycottgenshinimpact, many people who used the hashtag said they had no real intention of dropping the game. Instead, these disgruntled fans – who played a lot of sports Genshin Impact Avatars or references to the game on their Twitter profiles – they just wanted the developers to fix what some players see as more problematic.
One tweet said, “#DoBetterMihoyo is better suited if you don’t intend to delete the game and miHoYo is only called as a company.” So the fans optimized the language of the hashtag and used “#dobettermihoyo” instead.
A person who wanted to remain anonymous due to the heated online discourse shared with Polygon via Twitter messages that many are considering Genshin Impact a “comfort” game so the initial hashtag wasn’t entirely serious at first.
Both hashtags are still going strong on Wednesday, and naysayers and supporters of the game continue to debate its merits.
