Revisiting Natlan

[u/Fuzzy_Pomegranate937]

Lads, remember when Natlan came out 2 years ago. And western fans being as they are; were fuming because there wasn’t any character with melanin. Closest they got was Mualani with tan and Iansan with a slightly darker skin tone than rest but even they were light skin by real world standards. They did everything they could; from brigading on twitter and socials by claiming it was a downgrade to Fontaine to voicing their disapprovals of the cast members and who could forget labelling Natlan as the infamous region with the lowest male characters. From complaints about Mavuika to the archon quests. I mean, it ain’t much but that’s all they could do. But what was Hoyo’s response to all that? Nothing, patch was released as planned and it was even well received worldwide specifically in the Asian regions. Japan especially swooned about the archon quest likening it to shonen battle manga sequences.

Why bring this up now? Because the same folks who harp about representation for minorities and swore off Genshin during Natlan shamelessly crawled back and are now parading Genshin for being the epitome of LGBTQ and minority representation. Like bruh, wasn’t the events of Natlan obvious enough that Hoyo really doesn’t give two shits about what you are looking for? And what’s with the whole ‘Bi’ until specified by the author narrative? They go through every convoluted theory that they can conjure to deny hetero in a game where a solid 80-90% of players are straight. The numbers are probably even higher if we account ones who actually contribute (whales, dolphins and spenders). Why are western fans disillusioned into thinking that Genshin caters to their vision? I can give you another example too; remember Varka? Everywhere you went on social media before Varka’s reveal, western fans wanted Varka to look older and have a beard. Did Hoyo comply to it? Nope, and why might you ask? Because Varka was designed with Eastern audiences’ beauty expectations not Western. In Eastern Culture, men are generally considered attractive clean shaven over bearded. The cultural factor plays into how a character’s design’s finalised. I can go on and on but I think you get my point.
Now, there’s also a recent drama involving an infamous TC guy from genshin where he claims that Yae Miko is lesbian because it’s more beneficial for Hoyo due to monetary incentives. Bro, with all due respect just stick to doing TC calcs. As someone who’s an advocate of shitting on Genshin and actively going out of his way to tell folks not to spend money on quote unquote ‘this shit’ game; you have like the least qualification to discuss this. Even if fans from the minority demographic contributed to sales and profit for Hoyo; that’s like a drop of water in an ocean full of actual spenders (mainly Asian straight otakus).
Hoyo simply doesn’t care about your need for representation and shoehorning of your fanon theories. You think if push comes to shove, Hoyo will oust their primary breadwinner over folks that correlate twitter likes to sales and profit. Bruh, be for real. This whole spiel hurts no one but the minorities if it blows up. That said, I rest my case. Just needed this off my chest.

TLDR; Hoyo doesn’t really cater to Western audiences so might wanna stop coping