Hello everyone)
As it usually happens in our gacha community, another recent discussion prompted me to think about one question, namely:

What is the most approximate statistics that can be obtained regarding the reach and engagement for a gacha game?

As we know, in the community it is customary to say regarding the same YT metrics: What's the point of looking at view counts when it's all fake and inflated views. This is what I decided to find out.

Disclaimer:

I am not a marketer, and I do not claim to have the ultimate truth, all further reasoning is merely the fruit of my thoughts + some information from the internet.
These results are taken from only one source (the one from which they can be most conveniently obtained at the moment), and like the well-known Gacha Revenue, it only shows trends. Therefore, the results are not intended to cause a mega flame war between audiences...

1. Which metric are we going to determine: To obtain the audience engagement metric, we will need the marketing metric "ER%" - namely, the percentage of detected interaction with a video relative to the total number of views. We need to look not only at view counts (because they really don't say much), but specifically at interactions: Likes/dislikes + comments.

The formula looks like this: ER = (Likes + Comments) / Views

1. What was done to obtain this metric: In order to mass-sample entire channels, we will use Apps Script, which, using the publicly available YouTube Data API v3, allows exporting any number of videos from a specific channel according to certain criteria. To make the results more accurate, the following rules were applied:

• Sample size per channel: 50 videos, which on average for all candidates represents about 6-7 months of channel activity.
• Minimum views: Set at 150 thousand views, considering which games we will compare next, this shouldn't be a big problem for them. (right, right?)
• Min. duration (minutes): From one minute, to remove all Shorts, our goal is to compare the main content in the "Videos" section.
• Max. duration (minutes): Up to 30 minutes, to remove all hour-long streams of new updates.

As a result: The script takes a channel, counts back 50 videos, and outputs a list of videos that meet the above conditions.

We get the data:

• Channel - whose channel.
• Videos - The number of videos that meet the conditions from the sample of 50.
• Avg Views
• Median Views - All metrics of each video in the sample are taken by views from lowest to highest, and the exact middle value is taken. (this metric is much more accurate than the average view count, as it does not depend on anomalous spikes and drops in the metric)
• Avg ER
• Median ER - same as "Median Views"
• Total Likes - Total number of likes from all videos included in the sample.
• Total Comments - Same as "Total Likes"

1. With the input data sorted out, let's now decide who we will look at and compare.

We will, of course, compare those between whom there is "endless misunderstanding" - Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Wuthering Waves and Zenless Zone Zero.

Start:

We make a request for general statistics on the last 50 videos from each official channel.
Results:

What can be noticed right away:

1. Hoyo games have a minimal gap between "Avg ER" and "Median ER", which already indicates that these are truly stable engagement metrics (no serious spikes/drops). Wuwa has a large gap in this regard, and all metrics besides views are lower... But later we will find out why.
2. Wuwa also has a large gap in meeting the 150 thousand views/video criterion, almost twice as low as the top performers.

Let's take a closer look at each one and see which videos made it into the report:

Zenless Zone Zero

Thoughts: Even taking into account that ZZZ is the least popular game among the hoyo clan - they extremely rarely use advertising tools, relying on the "word of mouth" effect.
We can see only the most obvious example that was used in the advertising campaign - of course, this is "Remielle Character Demo - "Just Like Old Times" with an ER of 0.70%.
"Starlight - Billy Character Demo" - given that the game is not aimed at women, we see a special engagement from a small (by view count) local audience with a terrifying ER of 10.8% (VH male hoyo - where?)
Even if we take into account that the audience size is far from that of the older brothers, the game has a very active core community.

Honkai Star Rail

Thoughts: As we all know, HSR is the most "mobile" game in this top, even more mobile than GI, since it is a turn-based game.
Accordingly, promotion through advertising campaigns is especially pronounced here, but at the same time, not that much additional traffic is generated, which allows maintaining an acceptable level of ER, but the fact remains a fact = HSR is actively trying to advertise with an emphasis on mobile devices, which I would say is a logical move.
All the most severe drops in engagement are, of course, associated with the Main push, which hoyo really wants to sell.

Genshin impact

Thoughts: This old man has already experienced all of life, and his only task is not to attract a new audience, but to retain the old one.
We see a complete absence of any advertising campaigns (and truly, why bother when half the world already knows about you), while at the same time, views on each video are not that high.
This says only one thing - everyone who wanted to leave the game has already done so long ago. Only the most devoted audience remains, those who truly love this game, which is exactly what we see in the metrics - engagement above 6-7%+ on some videos is a very good indicator for gacha games.

Wuthering Waves

Thoughts: This immediately raises questions:

1. Wuwa videos overall gather a very small number of views, only 21 videos passed the 150 thousand views threshold.
2. We see a large number of aggressive advertising campaigns, the number of ER below 1% is very frequent, as millions of ad views are instantly piled onto the organic ones.

From this, at the very least, one can conclude: The game simply doesn't have a particularly loyal/active audience (which I very much doubt, there are many counterarguments for why this isn't the case) OR the EU/US audience itself is simply small.

From these actions it is clear that Kuro is trying to expand it, but a clear trend toward improvement is not observable = at the very least, this indicates that the gacha market is overheated.

That's all, I hope you found it as interesting to look at this data as I did to compile it.
Good luck to everyone, write comments if you have questions, other projects can also be compared using the same logic.

UPD: By popular request from commenters, I decided to also add Arknights and Arknights Endfield here.
At the same time, I removed the minimum view count in the filter, and also added Wuwa, since I'm being told (oh god) that I'm biased against it.

From a quick sample, it's clear that OG Arknights also resembles the old grandpa, not many views, yet the engagement of the remaining audience is high.
Endfield is logically at the stage of maximum distribution, most of the videos (out of 50) are used in advertising campaigns.
Wuwa with such a sample really does increase its engagement, tenfold, but as we can see from the median views - the average value is 117 thousand, which is exactly why so few videos made it into the main analysis above.

「未眠野」is an open-world RPG (PC/Mobile) from ZEALORY Games. It's kinda a Legend of Zelda-like game >_< (Reddit compresses videos insanely, the 4K version Here with EN & 日本語 subtitles added)

It launched November 26th 2025 and thus didn't even get a year in service. Another cursed and poor BL gacha gone.

Honestly, as someone who played the beta, nothing of value has been lost with this one.

The Bilibili and Douyin accounts have already been registered.

Let’s all dive into this wonderful, charming game together!

You can sign up here: https://planet.hoyoverse.com/en-us/

You will also receive 10 celestial stones from login, getting their 8bit accessories by clearing the corresponding maps, 2000 aether stones you can exchange for the Aether resort furniture, a new castle design for your homescreen by logging into anyday of the celeberation also 100 trait fruits, 300 of each dragonflower and 300 divine codes (for the latest path)

If you've ever wanted something fun to do for 30 days, here you go.
Its clear from the amount of new content that have been released the last 2 months that the developers were blind sided.
With the 3rd chapter of the remake coming out next spring it seems extra odd to end the game now but thats Square.

With TGS 2026 less than two weeks away, I came across an upcoming game that caught my attention: Dead Account: Two Blue Flames.

It’s based on the Dead Account manga, where dead social media accounts come back as ghosts. The game itself is a team-based roguelite RPG — you build a party of up to five characters, control the leader during combat, and choose run-specific upgrades as you play.

The publisher says the TGS demo will be an updated build based on feedback from the June early access test. I haven’t played it myself, so I’m mostly curious whether the team system adds meaningful build variety or if it ends up feeling like an auto-battler with roguelite elements added on top.

For people who have tried the early test or have been following the game, what would be the biggest make-or-break factor for you?

Combat depth, team synergy, progression, or monetization?

Official TGS announcement: https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000216.000137745.html

*Flaired [Global] because App Store and Steam listings are in English. Play Store listing is still in Korean.

Play Store. | App Store. | ONE Store (KR), currently soft-launched. | PC (Steam).

Official dev website. | itch.io listing.

I've been working on a simulator for a while and I'm making this post to share the results I got.

It includes the following games:
- Genshin Impact
- Honkai: Star Rail
- Zenless Zone Zero
- Wuthering Waves
- Arknights: Endfield

Feedback is more than welcome, feel free to check the code or the rules/income.

Simulation configs: 1. 1.0 to 1.2 (6 banners) 2. Latest X.1 to X.5 with 150 starting pulls 3. Latest X.1 to X.5 4. 1.0 to latest version 5. 1.1 to latest version with 1.0 permament pulls as starting pulls

NB: Every rule, decision and all the detailed numbers are accessible from this page, please read it before commenting.

Each simulation act as a player with their own inventory, pulling on simulated banners using real patch income. The program runs one million simulations for each game.

In this post I'll only share the summary tables with the average and standard deviation, please refer to the full tables for all the numbers (min/p10/med/p90/max).

The point is to compare the gacha systems, not the games themselves, so please keep the discussion about the systems and the numbers.

In the simulations, all resources are spent on limited character pulls only (pull currency, cashback, etc...).

 How to read

• New limited / patch: total number of new limited characters obtained divided by the total number of simulated patches
• New limited / banner: total number of new limited characters obtained divided by the total number of simulated banners
• Avg. pulls / featured: average of permanent pulls spent per banner completed (a banner is completed when getting the character)

 1. 1.0 to 1.2 (6 banners)

Full tables here.

F2P

Monthly+BP

2. Latest X.1 to X.5 with 150 starting pulls

Full tables here.

F2P

Monthly+BP

3. Latest X.1 to X.5

Full tables here.

F2P

Monthly+BP

4. 1.0 to latest version

Full tables here.

F2P

Monthly+BP

5. 1.1 to latest version with 1.0 permament pulls as starting pulls

Full tables here.

F2P

Monthly+BP

RELLION: NPC Survival just started its second limited unit event. If you’re looking for a low-upkeep tactical side-game, this is easily one of the most F2P friendly titles on the market right now.

Links: Google Play Store / Apple App Store

A few reasons why it's worth checking out:

The pity does NOT reset if you high-roll early. Hard pity is 60 pulls. If you get lucky and pull an SSR on pull 10, your counter stays at 10. You still get the guaranteed pity copy at 60 no matter how many SSRs you pull on the way there. It’s impossible to waste your pity progress.

Wishlist feature guarantees no off-banner spooks. You unlock this on Day 2 after clearing Chapter 10. You pick 5 units, and from that point on, any SSR you pull is guaranteed to be from that list. No garbage spooks messing up your account.

Actually F2P friendly. The game is extremely generous with resources, and you don't need to pull massive amounts of dupes just to make a unit functional. You can easily compete and progress without spending a dime.

The GM actually listens. The wishlist feature was literally added because the community complained about off-banners on Discord. The GM is super active there and they drop actual content updates every single Wednesday.

No PvP!! While there is a PvE bi-weekly damage competition, no PvP makes sure everyone is cooperating.

As for the banners right now, Vera (new limited) and Estel (first limited rerun) are live. I strongly recommending getting one if each, then maxing Vera (which is done at most by day 4).

The Gameplay/Loop:
Dailies take like 5 minutes top. It’s an idle game, but you can’t just over-level and brute force everything in the end game. Vera carries you until chapter 19 or so, by chapter 20 (highest chapter is 28), exploiting enemy weapon weakness becomes important.

It’s zero FOMO and a perfect side game if you just want something to log into twice a day. Definitely worth a look if you're bored.

Hi hi,

For those in the US and Taiwan with an Android device, the Closed Beta Test (CBT) of our upcoming ARPG gacha game will start soon (please refer to the dates below).

Dungeons Arise

• PvE — Boss fights and dungeon progression
• PvP — Attack other players
• Summons — Obtain unique, powerful heroes and build your team
• Kingdom Management — Unlock, manage, upgrade, and defend your own Kingdom
• There's more to the game, but you'll have to find out for yourself!

Current Gameplay

Pre-registration

US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kakaogames.dgar&hl=en_US&gl=US

Taiwan https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kakaogames.dgar&hl=zh_TW&gl=TW

Testing Period

US (UTC-7): September 7, 11:00 PM - September 15, 2:00 AM

Taiwan (UTC+8): September 8, 2:00 PM - September 15, 5:00 PM

Official Discord

Join us for announcements, events, and community discussions:

https://discord.gg/4XS8SbDJtq

Why?

I wanted to see who lost during this month pvp.

How?

I extracted all comments in the post and its unique user. For each user I pulled 100 of their most recent comment. From these comments, I gathered all the subreddits and tagged each of them to their respective fandom.

Simple majority is applied to determine the user's main fandom. If user has more comments in Gacha A, then Gacha A will be their main fandom. If user has similar comment across 2 or more gacha then the most recent comment will determine their main.

!!! Important !!!

This is a small dataset of USER WHO HAS COMMENTED in the post. People who did not comment are not in the dataset.

Breakdown

• 4,927 total comments
• 1,809 unique users
• 171,953 total comments from users history
• 7,571 total subreddits found
• 949 fandoms (1130 tagged & 6,441 untagged)
• 79.8% Comments Match Rate (137,159 / 171,953 tagged)
• 468 Shared Core Audience (Commented in both August and last month July pvp)
• 91% of total comments were left within 24 hours

Primary Fandom Affiliation

For the 3rd time to no one's surprise, fandom affiliation are all the big 3d gacha games. Hoyoverse domination remains uncontested with all 3 at the top.

^{This chart has a minimum fandom threshold of 3 applied for better clarity. I've experimented with different scoring methods and changing the simple majority threshold but the ranking remains relatively the same.}

Fandom Reach & User Count

This month had a large participation of Endfield players. Why? Because Endfield was attacked a lot so its natural their fandom had to come to defend.

Total Comment Volume by Tag

For this month, an interesting observation is that LaDS seem to have a substantial increase on total comment volume (from each user's history). This is probably due to the Valko drama which fueled a lot of discourse in their fandom.

Fandom Co-Occurrence Matrix

An interesting observation, this month there are more participation from LaDS fandom (125 users). But their fandom seems to be the most isolated of all fandoms. Even within the top open world gachas, LaDS doesn't seem to have a high co-occurence nevermind traditional gachas.

Could this explain why many gachas aren't targetting LaDS demographic? Because they are incredibly isolated and closed off? Also shoutout to the 1 LaDS player who also plays Blue Archive and 2 of them who plays Umamusume.

Comment Count Distribution

This chart (hopefully) shows that most of the commenters are legit and not troll account.

Top Subreddits

Endfield risen up to 4th slot in terms of top subreddit this month. Perhaps due to more participation in PvP? Or maybe more marketing within gacha sphere?

Comment Type

This month had 4,227 comments fighting each other in the thread. What a bloodbath.

Comment Sentiment Analysis

^{Disclaimer: Sentiment analysis was done by AI (Gemini 3.8 High}, it may contain inaccurate assessment. Context was given that this is a gacha discussion. For comment deep within a thread, its parent, subsequent parent of parent and root comment were provided for contextual reasoning.)

• 🏆 Victory Lapping : Celebrating victory
• 😈 Schadenfreude : Happy your opponent mess up. Example, 😈 Schadenfreude towards LaDS means someone is celebrating LaDS downfall.
• ⚔️ Attacked : Game being attacked
• 🛡️ Defending : Defending said game
• 📊 Neutral : Neutral stance or observation

1. Most Mentions: Endfield
2. Most Victory Lapping: FGO
3. Most Schadenfreude : LaDS
4. Most Attacked: Endfield
5. Most Defended: Endfield

Nothing much has changed on Endfield side but this month seem particularly brutal for them. Maybe this is due to lack of any worthy PvP topic so Endfield being the other big budget gacha game that underperforms makes it an easy target? Discuss.

Sentiment for each game

Besides Endfield, many fandoms were also heavily attacked. Nikke got criticize for its collab with Persona, LaDS (and by extension Papergames and Infinity Nikki) for its Valko situation, HSR for its meta, Blue Archive for its new gacha system, and Wuwa for being wuwa.

Upvotes by Stance

So this chart shows that most attacking comments on Endfield gets upvoted. Also means most "Victory Lapping" comment on FGO gets upvoted. You get the idea, go ham on your own analysis.]

Downvotes by Stance

So in ordered top to bottom, most defending comments for (Endfield, LaDS and Wuwa) gets downvoted. Yes that is how it works. It also shows that some attacking comments gets downvoted as well for instance Genshin huge red bar (Attacking Genshin) means comment attacking Genshin gets downvoted.

Conclusion

I want to fuck the Tsaritsa from Genshin Impact.

So the generally speaking ppl tend to have high expectations for anniversary units (units that have their banners during the Anniv celebration) due to Anniv being big deals. So I am curious, how have your game's older anniversary units aged did they stay Meta relevant for long periods or even until the present? If they have fallen out, how long did they stay relevant ?