The rise of games like Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, and now Arknights: Endfield has seen gacha game developers venture into more conventional "core" platforms – current-gen consoles and gaming PCs – with larger and more complex games better suited to those audiences.
In particular, many developers from countries like Japan and China have said – and some have told me in previous interviews – that they see PC gaming as an increasingly important platform. This also goes for companies like Capcom. Arknights: Endfield lead Ryan of developer Hypergryph is of a similar opinion, as he tells me at GDC.
"I think the player base of high-end PC gaming is increasing," he begins, "and we also find that when we are going to make an open-world RPG, it's better played on high-end PCs, even better than on consoles, because the graphics can be very good. So as a developer, we want to make more fascinating games, so PC is always a must-do for the high-end 3D games."
Ongoing hardware shortages and price hikes have obviously made PC gaming more costly to get into, but frankly consoles ain't getting any cheaper either. Shelling out for a PC at least gets you more than a pure gaming and streaming device – and, critically, access to Steam and emulators – though you'd have to spend more than you would on a console to get comparable performance out of cutting-edge games. But as a PC gamer who owns all three major consoles, I'm not here to debate the best platform.
Ryan suggests Japan is a standout even among other PC gaming growth markets, and it's not lost on me that Japan has reportedly surpassed China in gacha revenue for Arknights: Endfield, as Automaton reports.
"Usually people think there are not many PC players in areas like Japan or China, but it's actually very, very large nowadays," Ryan says. I'm reminded of enormous PC releases like Black Myth: Wukong, or the huge turnout for the Steam launch of Stellar Blade from developer Shift Up, who branched out of the mobile reputation it established with Nikke. (I hope to see more companies use their gacha gold for non-gacha games, as well.)
Ryan adds, "the mobile part is not growing as it was before, and it's even decreasing in some regions. PC players are very important for games like Endfield."
Meanwhile, PlayStation is reportedly backing away from PC to prioritize its console brand and reduce investment in ports that seemingly weren't cutting the mustard.
