Sonic's mostly had bad games especially as time goes on, but Genshin Impact is a hypermonetization grift with waifu characteristics, so critical support for Sonic. :no-copyright:
Sonic's mostly had bad games especially as time goes on, but Genshin Impact is a hypermonetization grift with waifu characteristics, so critical support for Sonic. :no-copyright:
IMO one of the changes is that it isn't a whale baiting game as much as other gachas, if at all realy. The previous industry king was FGO and it was extremely greedy and dependent on whale baiting. The gacha model thrived on getting whales to massively over spend because of clout chasing or ingame rewards like PvP. FGO accounts resell for the price of house or more.
Genshin otoh doesn't have either of those. No social aspect, no clout chasing, no PvP, essentialy no reason to whale at all.
And that made it incredibly popular with normal people, you can use your waifu/husband and not have to worry about meta or PvP or whatever. It does mean normal people are more likely to spend because the barrier is lower. You could argue it is worse that way.
The second way is that it is focus on polished aesthetics, they spend a lot of money and time on animations and design. GI doesn't have as many characters as other similar games in the same time period e.g Arknights got like 300 over the same period even though it is also not as greedy.
And then there was other important things like massive open world, proper 3d graphics. I think Botw comparisons are mostly by people who don't know much about the game, but it is ok if that is your point of reference. It realy got nothing to do with Botw other than "open world" and "3d" though.