Genshin Impact's Developer May Start Cracking Down On Leakers
Chinese developer miHoYo has vowed to step up its efforts to deal with "illegal disclosures" after dataminers leaked a significant amount of information regarding Genshin Impact's upcoming 1.5 update. The statement, which was released via Twitter, also urges players to steer clear of the 1.5 Genshin Impact leaks in order to avoid any misconceptions about the forthcoming content.
The tweets came after a series of leaks found their way online over the last week or so. Not only do these data drops provide information about potential new Genshin Impact characters, but also tweaks and changes planned for some of the existing ones as well. On the surface, it may all seem pretty harmless, but the developer claims that it has the potential to impact development and could also disrupt the studio's plans to promote the new content; and it may well be right.
Leaks have been a near constant problem for the Chinese developer since Genshin Impact's hugely successful launch last September. They've covered everything from powerful new weapons to upcoming playable areas, although the most notable ones are perhaps those concerning the 5-star character, Zhongli.
On this occasion, dataminers were able to correctly predict that the character would be incredibly powerful, although failed to mention that to reach his full potential, players would need to summon him a total of six times. Given the low chances and high cost of doing so, this led to a huge backlash among the Genshin community, with miHoYo ultimately having to buff Zhongli multiple times to appease angry players.
Whether or not the complaints were truly justified is a matter for debate, but it does highlight some of the potential issues that can arise as a result of leaks. Balancing new characters and weapons prior to their release is, after all, an essential part of the development process. Should their stats be made public before they've been finalized, however, it can lead to unrealistic expectations and, ultimately, disappointment, in the event that they end up changing ahead of their official releases.
This is a problem faced not only by miHoYo, but the entire gaming industry. Leaks for popular games are a dime a dozen these days and seem to be becoming more prevalent with each passing month. While some developers have chosen to take legal action against leakers, others have instead learned to adapt the way they operate in order to cut down on the number of leaks, or, at the very least, minimize their impact. Which of these approaches miHoYo will choose to adopt moving forward remains to be seen.
Genshin Impact is out now for mobile, PC, and PS4, and is in development for PS5 and Switch.
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