Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges

Abstract:

Early gacha games like Granblue Fantasy (2014) centered on fanservice and gambling mechanics, yet HoYoverse (formerly miHoYo) radically reshaped the genre by combining transmedia storytelling, affective labor, and cultural hybridity. With titles like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Honkai Impact 3rd, the company built a multi-game narrative ecosystem that fosters emotional capital and player loyalty across global markets. This shift marks a new paradigm in digital economies, where cultural inspiration and fan participation play a central role in monetization.

This study takes Genshin Impact as a case study to investigate how cultural hybridity and emotional capital intersect to generate affective labor and drive sustained global engagement. While prior literature has examined monetization mechanics and character attachment, it often under-theorizes the role of cultural aesthetics and player co-creation in emotional spending. Additionally, dominant interpretations, whether state-driven soft power narratives or critiques of predatory monetization often fail to account for the agency of global players and their role in shaping game worlds. The research hypothesizes that culturally hybrid region design fosters deeper emotional investment and fan labor compared to culturally specific or generic designs, contributing to sustained engagement and monetization. To test this, a mixed-methods approach was used: a global survey of 509 players and qualitative coding of Reddit discourse. Findings show that players form stronger parasocial bonds and participate in more fan labor in regions that balance real-world cultural cues with mythic abstraction (e.g., Fontaine, Sumeru). Conversely, regions perceived as overly nationalistic or culturally incoherent (e.g., Liyue, Natlan) often provoke fatigue, critique, or disengagement.

This paper argues that Genshin Impact exemplifies a new emotional-political economy in gaming, where transnational cultural hybridity, affective immersion, and participatory fan practices converge to reshape how digital games monetize identity and emotion across borders.

Keywords:

Gacha games, cultural hybridity, emotional capital, transnational fandom, affective labor, HoYoverse, GenshinImpact, digital economies, game monetization, localization