Wuthering Waves and Infinity Nikki Bring Premium Gacha to Steam
Genshin when?
Steam isn’t a stranger to Gacha games, but some of the heavy hitters like Genshin Impact are still absent from the platform in favor of their dedicated clients. The tide is turning, however, as both Infinity Nikki and Wuthering Waves made their debut on Steam on the same day.
Both Wuthering Waves and Infinity Nikki were released last year across multiple platforms, and while both games were available on the Epic Games Store, it was essentially an additional launcher, and not exactly what I’d count as a proper native release.
What Do the Numbers Say?
Both games came out on the same day, but Wuthering Waves is a few thousand players ahead of Infinity Nikki, which currently has a peak player count of around 4600 players. Wuthering Waves, on the other hand, is doing quite well with nearly 14K players online at the time of writing and many more positive reviews.
Infinity Nikki’s had a few stability issues with multiple players reporting crashes on Steam. It should be noted that these games already have dedicated launchers, and I don’t think most players will be migrating to another platform even with the added Steam benefits.
Still, both games are slowly rising in numbers, which should be a clear indication for their developers to launch their future titles on Steam simultaneously. There’s a loyal user base on Steam that doesn’t use any other clients to play their PC titles on, and I suspect a large portion of these users are first-time players.
Why isn’t miHoYo Releasing Its Gacha Games on Steam?
miHoYo, the studio behind Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, and Honkai Star Rail, has steered clear of Steam since the launch of Genshin Impact back in 2020. Honkai Impact 3rd is their only title available on the client, but it is published by COGNOSPHERE rather than miHoYo directly.
Each of their major releases has been a massive hit, with millions of players enjoying them through the centralized HoYoPlay launcher. If they were to release their games on Steam, Valve would take a 30% cut from microtransactions. Since miHoYo is already in a strong position, they likely see little reason to expand to Steam and lose revenue.
Other than the 30% cut, there doesn’t seem to be any major roadblock stopping them from releasing their games on the platform. Still, they have released their games on mobile devices and consoles, platforms that also take a large cut from revenue, but PC is arguably their biggest platform. We might see an eventual Steam release, but for now, it seems that the studio is sticking to its client.
That said, the release of Wuthering Waves and Infinity Nikki on the platform is an indication that more gacha titles are on the way as developers start seeing the value of the platform, its massive user base, and added features. Even now, there are games like Limbus Company, Another Eden, Tower of Fantasy, and Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis to check out.
