There’s Only ONE WAY to Find a Winner...

Gacha games are a dime a dozen: from Reverse: 1999 to Azur Lane to Genshin Impact. The list, literally, could go on until the battery on my iPhone dies from combing through the games that I could potentially download. I only say this because I’ve been playing a lot of emulators on my iPhone recently due to the new updates to iOS. But sometimes, it’s nice to play a more modern RPG on my phone instead of just retro games. But, just like the Nintendo eShop, there’s a situation we all face when there’s too many choices: doom-scrolling.

Yes, the dreaded doom-scrolling dilemma in which we, faced with the impossible task of scrolling through hundreds of gacha games, become utterly paralyzed with the sheer amount of options directed to us. I mean seriously, all of these gacha games magically have a 4.5 star ratings and we’re supposed to download them and decide off-rip which one we’re going to sink our time, and potentially our money, into? Nope. Not for me. There’s only one way that a company could win against all this competition in the gacha market: grab people’s attention. And there’s one company, in particular, that caught my attention on multiple platforms and their financial numbers will absolutely shock you.

So let’s check it out!

Honkai: Star Rail is, easily, one of the best turn-based RPGs I’ve ever played. That’s not hyperbole, that’s just a fact. With its over-the-top stylized combat, beautiful art style, and an actual story that is worth sinking time unfolding, it’s no wonder that this game made me want to actually download it to my iPhone. And I’m not the only one. In April alone, as reported by a man by the name of Stix on YouTube (you can check out his video here), Honkai: Star Rail netted a whopping $143 million dollars...on mobile devices alone.

I don’t know what to tell you, when I saw that number my jaw actually hit the floor in disbelief. That would mean that, adding game consoles like PS5 into the equation, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had hit over $300 million dollars for just the month of April. But, let me be clear, a good game can make these numbers happen. But you need an absurdly strong marketing team to bring in this kind of money, especially with the kind of hurdles these teams go through on a routine basis sorting through tons of data from multiple platforms.

They need to deal with fragmented data from various channels, understand the quality of the data coming in, budget constraints (though I’m sure they’re not hemorrhaging money or anything, let’s be honest), planning and coordinating marketing efforts (especially since it was just the anniversary of their game just recently), social media damage control, and so many more issues that could arise throughout their omnichannel marketing efforts. Just thinking about it is making my hair as gray as Trailblazers, but these are problems that all these companies must face when they’re competing against each other for market share in a congested market.

So how has Honkai: Star Rail been so successful throughout their year of online service? Two things: strong social media presence and cohesion.

That’s it.

Honkai: Star Rail’s social media presence, on pretty much every single platform that they’re on, has surpassed 1 million followers and they’re ACTUALLY providing value to their follower base. I know, it’s shocking to think that a company could care enough when they’re making such an insurmountable amount of money to actually care about engaging with their audience on social media, but when you think about it, half of their revenue stems from mobile devices. IT IS IN THEIR INTEREST to do everything they can on social media to meet users where they’re at and provide them an exciting and unique experience that they can’t get from any other community.

Once these gamers have been effectively hooked into the game through engaging marketing strategies, especially since it is a free-to-play game, there is a level of cohesiveness between all of their products and what they’re putting out on their social media, whether it be challenges, merch, free content, programs, you name it, that it stops feeling like they’re selling something to

you and starts feeling like they’re actively trying to enhance your experience so that you have a good time playing their game. That’s what makes them so successful. The content sells itself because they’re trying to provide for us, the gamers, a whole experience and it shows in the level of care and thoughtfulness not only in the base game, but all the services they’re willing to provide thereafter.

I’m not one for gacha games, but Honkai: Star Rail has done everything right and their marketing team has, effectively, sucked me in. I guess that’s a good thing? I guess we’ll find out depending on how much money I spend playing it...let’s hope not too much.

But that’s it from me! Thank you all so much for reading and, if you want another article to read, you can check out last week’s article here where I talked about Rocksteady’s horrible decision...just thinking about it makes me upset, you don’t want to miss it! And, as always, if you’re interested in more of our content, you can always check us out on YouTube or anywhere you listen to podcasts at Not for Normies where, every week, we talk about all the news you need to know in the gaming industry.

Thank you all so much for reading, have a great rest of your week, play some video games and, as always, don’t be a normie!