Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
Video game companies are always looking for that lightning-in-a-bottle idea that will get players interested, especially ongoing games-as-a-service games like Genshin Impact. Elon Musk could be considered lightning as the polarizing figure he is in both tech industries and his social media presence, so getting his attention could be seen as a boon. However, a recent effort by Genshin Impact seemingly tried to tap Elon Musk’s popularity and backfired pretty hard, forcing social posts related to it to be deleted.
It was late on October 13 that Genshin Impact launched an initiative relating to Elon Musk. The Paimon Twitter (known as the partner and guide to the player in Genshin) renamed its account name to @Paimon2theMoon and its display name to Ella Musk, a character in the game that has been there a while. With this, it offered a number of goals were presented in a post.
Fans were not pleased. It wasn’t long before the post was swamped in quote retweets and replies lashing out at the stunt, so much so that the tweet was eventually deleted. However, of course, nothing really dies on the internet. The original graphic and post relating to it can be seen above. It could very well be that fans are also a little peeved at the stunt because the anniversary of Genshin Impact passed and there was arguably little of value that went back to players as a reward in the celebration. This, too, does very little for players outside of trying to ride on the popularity of Elon Musk and his fanbase, who in all likelihood care very little for Genshin Impact. Nonetheless, Musk seemed to have seen the ill-fated stunt and took it in good humor.
Genshin Impact has continued to be an interesting endeavor since it burst onto the scene in 2020. Given that it’s a gacha game beyond its wide world and open adventure, it’s always going to be looking for the next big thing to pull players in. For instance, it's done rather cool stuff recently such as adding Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn to the game. That said, capitalizing on the popularity of Elon Musk, cryptocurrency, and the sort is one idea it’s going to have to throw on the scrap heap.