The recent release of miHoYo’s Zenless Zone Zero quickly surpassed 50 million downloads within 72 hours, achieving this milestone just days after launch, according to the company.
miHoYo has garnered both immense praise and notoriety with their successful gacha titles like Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact, and Honkai Star Rail. However, Zenless Zone Zero appears to be performing poorly in terms of microtransaction sales compared to these titles.
According to AppMagic, Zenless Zone Zero generated $24.6 million through the Apple App Store and Google Play Stores within five days, outperforming the combined revenues of Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail from last week, which were $10.6 million and $11.7 million, respectively.
Neither Genshin Impact nor Honkai Star Rail ranked among the top ten revenue generators for the week, whereas Zenless Zone Zero reached eighth place after just five days, trailing behind games like Honor of Kings and Monopoly Go! but ahead of Brawl Stars.
Of Zenless Zone Zero’s $24.6 million revenue, 50% came from HoYoverse’s home territory, China. Japan ranked second with 25%, while America and Korea accounted for 8% and 7%, respectively.
Although these figures might seem impressive, Zenless Zone Zero actually lags behind miHoYo’s other titles upon their release. In September 2020, Genshin Impact earned $35.3 million in its first five days, making miHoYo a household name. Their subsequent release of Honkai: Star Rail in April 2023 netted the company $55 million during its first five days.
Zenless Zone Zero’s $24.6 million is a significant step back, roughly half of Star Rail’s debut revenue. While this doesn’t make the new launch a failure, it does cast a dim light on miHoYo’s new F2P gacha title, especially given the record-breaking pre-registration counts and download figures, with revenue falling short in comparison to the number of downloads.
There are several reasons why Zenless Zone Zero might have struggled, one being the censorship implemented by miHoYo prior to its release. The Chinese developers toned down the feminine features of various female characters during the game’s second closed beta test last year.
For instance, they reduced the breast size of the staple character Nicole and modified her outfit to cover more of her chest.
Other prominent characters in Zenless Zone Zero, such as Grace Howard, were also extensively modified. Her outfit was changed to be less revealing of her cleavage, and her breast size was reduced as well whereas the chocolate loli character of Nekomiya Mana had her design modified to cover up her thighs.
Censorship can deter players from investing in or playing a game, but I doubt that given it has been a consistent practice for miHoYo for years. For example, Genshin Impact underwent various post-release censorship changes, including costume modifications for numerous characters and the reduction of breast sizes for characters like Rosaria.
Honkai Impact 3rd, miHoYo’s first major success, also faced post-release censorship. Various outfits were modified, skirts were made longer, bust sizes were reduced, and general outfit adjustments were made across different regions, including domestically.
Censorship has been a consistent practice for miHoYo for quite some time. Therefore, attributing Zenless Zone Zero’s faltering solely to censorship seems far-fetched, even for someone like me who absolutely despises censorship.
The reasons behind miHoYo’s decision to censor female characters are widely debated. Some argue that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pressures developers to reduce the femininity and attractiveness of female characters, but this seems unlikely.
Other Chinese-made games, like Snowbreak: Containment Zone, have actually boosted their success by removing male characters and focusing on male-centric fanservice content. A more plausible explanation is miHoYo’s partnership with Sony, which enables the release of their games on PlayStation consoles. Sony is known for enforcing censorship of heteronormative content on Asian developers.
This partnership led to the release of Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, and now Zenless Zone Zero on Sony PlayStation consoles. To further solidify the deal, miHoYo was compelled to introduce a commercial tie-in character, Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn, into Genshin Impact, resulting in the least unattractive version of Sony’s failed PlayStation mascot the world had seen, though still not particularly appealing.
Anyone claiming that China is the reason for miHoYo’s self-censorship is being disingenuous. It is highly probable that their partnership with Sony forced their hand, especially since miHoYo has been pandering to the Twitter crowd with Genshin Impact, causing the game to decline since 2023.
The issue I have with gacha titles like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero is the inclusion of male characters. Introducing bishounen (beautiful) men into a gacha game attracts a diverse audience, opening the floodgates to fujoshis and BL fanatics, men and women who enjoy male-male relationships alongside the “yuri” fanatic who push women-women relationships.
Additionally, offering a choice between a male or female main character attracts yumejoshi, women who self-insert as a female to pair themselves with male characters.
Introducing male characters into these sorts of games also attracts the tolerant and mentally sane Tumblr / Twitter crowd of fanatic that naturally flock to games with pretty men in them as they’re predominately apart of the same groups.
This leads to a highly toxic “fandom” around games like Genshin Impact and, to a lesser extent, Honkai Star Rail. For example, the Genshin community often harshly criticizes those who enjoy the game in their own way or who are fans of female characters, frequently imposing their own lesbian headcanons onto these characters.
They seem to believe everyone in the game is gay and can’t stand others having fun, particularly those who self-insert as male characters to enjoy interactions with female characters. In contrast, I much prefer the Blue Archive fandom. This game centers on cute girls with the main character (Sensei) being a blank slate, making it easy for players to project themselves onto the character.
This is why the Idolmaster community tends to be less toxic compared to the Love Live community. Idolmaster features a clearly implied male producer, whereas Love Live focuses solely on girls, only a subtle difference and yet those amongst their communities can be drastically different.
Blue Archive functions as a harem-type game, whereas Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero are more ambiguous and inclusive. However, a vocal minority in their communities often goes out of their way to spoil the fun for others, unless of course you happen to think exactly like how they do project that the men are gay and the women are lesbian.
It’s equally likely that miHoYo imposes censorship because they are pandering to this particular demographic. I can’t fathom why, but I do know there’s a large number of fujoshis in China—women who prefer BL (boys’ love) content. This is reflected in the fact that the majority of Zenless Zone Zero’s first-week revenue has come from China.
The middling revenue of Zenless Zone Zero, compared to its predecessors, seems to have come from fans and online creators. Additionally, there is much more competition in the gacha sphere since the launch of miHoYo’s earlier games. In my opinion, Zenless Zone Zero isn’t a bad game in its own right, but if you were expecting a continuation or successor to Genshin Impact, you’re in for a rude awakening. ZZZ is extremely slow-paced by comparison.
Zoomers simply don’t have the patience for the “TV mechanic” in Zenless Zone Zero, which plays as a limited story-focused 3D game interspersed with mundane miHoYo button-mashing action.
The combat system in ZZZ is pretty straightforward and typical of their titles. It’s flashy, and the character combos work well enough, but it’s ridiculously easy. I would prefer if the action sequences included more enemies with less health, so you don’t spend too long dealing with one particular enemy.
Adding the ability to jump and perform aerial attacks would also add some “spice,” as jumping is not possible in Zenless Zone Zero, the action sequences take place on flat, point-to-point surfaces.
On the plus side, Zenless Zone Zero has an extensive lineup of attractive female characters and, for the first time in a miHoYo game, male furry characters, including an anthropomorphic wolf man and a large grizzly bear for now at least. Normally, I’m indifferent to such people unless provoked or confronted by those who sexualize fictional animals (and sometimes actual animals) while taking the moral high ground over fictional drawings by conflating lolicon with child porn.
The vast majority of the “furry fandom” are autistic, and also homosexual. You can imagine the sort of crowd miHoYo and pandering to by incorporating such characters into ZZZ.
The character models in Zenless Zone Zero are extremely detailed, and the game features many loli characters, much to the dismay of fujoshis who are apprehensive about lesbian shipping of “child-like” characters.
While it’s not a particularly bad game, there are many alternatives available at the moment, such as The Last Descendent and Wuthering Waves. Zenless Zone Zero is quite different from Genshin Impact, which may explain the significant drop-off and criticism it’s receiving. It’s a slow-paced, story-driven title with three chapters at release, providing countless hours of gameplay focused on the story alone.
The game seems to have failed to meet expectations, but those expectations were likely quite high to begin with. I strongly detest gacha games in general, as they prey on players’ vices by frequently delivering desired content with a FOMO allure. A new flashy character each month requires either daily grinding to acquire legitimately or spending money to play a virtual slot machine.
Despite this, I believe Zenless Zone Zero will gain more success over time, especially if they reduce the focus on the TV sequences. Eventually, the cancerous miHoYo fandom will likely embrace and take over Zenless Zone Zero just as they’ve done with Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact.
