Live service games like Genshin Impact are not just entertainment products. They are functioning micro-economies, and the way players fund those economies through in-game top ups is changing.
Regulatory shifts, blockchain experimentation, regional pricing dynamics, and changing player expectations are all pressing the industry toward a different model than the one that launched Genshin in 2020.
This piece covers both the practical mechanics of a Genshin top up today and the structural forces likely to reshape how players purchase, accumulate, and spend in-game currency over the next several years.
How the Genshin Top Up System Works Right Now?
Genshin Impact runs on a two-stage premium currency system. Players buy Genesis Crystals with real money, convert them to Primogems at a one-to-one rate, and then spend Primogems on Fates to pull on character and weapon banners.
The system is layered by design: the extra conversion step insulates spending decisions from their real-world cost and makes the currency feel like a game resource rather than money.
Top up tiers range from 60 Genesis Crystals at the low end to 6,480 at the high end. First-time purchases at each tier are doubled, giving new spenders substantially better value than returning buyers at the same price point.
Beyond the official storefront, a secondary market has emerged on platforms like Eldorado where players can complete a genshin top up through peer listings, sometimes at pricing that undercuts regional app store rates.
Five Trends Shaping the Future of In-Game Top Ups
Several converging forces are going to change how players fund and interact with game economies over the coming years.
- Regulatory pressure on gacha mechanics. The EU, UK, and several Asian markets are moving toward stricter disclosure requirements for loot box and gacha systems. Mandatory probability disclosure, spending caps for minors, and in some cases outright bans on certain gacha formats are already live in Belgium and the Netherlands. More jurisdictions are likely to follow with some version of these rules within the next three to five years. Games with well-documented pity systems like Genshin are better positioned to navigate these changes than titles with less transparent odds.
- AI-driven personalisation in monetisation. Machine learning tools are increasingly used to personalise the timing and content of in-game offers. Rather than presenting the same bundle to every player, platforms can target offers based on individual spending history, session patterns, and proximity to pity thresholds. This creates a more effective conversion funnel but also raises questions about whether it constitutes manipulation, particularly for vulnerable spenders. Regulatory scrutiny of personalised monetisation is likely to grow alongside the capability itself.
- Blockchain and true asset ownership. Several games have launched with blockchain-based economies where in-game assets are tokenised and tradeable outside the game’s own marketplace. Adoption in major titles has been slow due to player resistance and regulatory uncertainty, but the underlying question of who owns purchased digital goods is not going away. A future version of top up mechanics might involve premium currency that holds value outside a single game’s ecosystem.
- Regional pricing normalisation. Global games increasingly face pressure to price locally rather than converting a single USD price across markets. Genshin already applies regional pricing in some territories, but the gap between markets remains wide enough that a secondary market for top ups sourced from lower-cost regions is economically viable. As more players become aware of this gap and platforms develop to serve it, the traditional direct-to-app-store top up model faces ongoing competition.
- Subscription-layer expansion. Genshin’s Blessing of the Welkin Moon is essentially a subscription product that competes with large one-time top ups for a share of player spending. The trend across the live service market is toward tiered subscription models that offer daily or weekly premium currency delivery rather than lump-sum purchases. Players who spend regularly at a moderate level tend to get better value through subscriptions, and the predictable revenue suits platform economics. Expect more games to adopt or deepen subscription models over the next few years.
What This Means for Genshin Players Today?
The structural changes above are medium-term trends. For players planning a top up in the near term, the practical calculus has not changed much from the game’s early years. The Blessing of the Welkin Moon delivers the best per-dollar value for regular spenders who can log in daily.
The first-time bonus tiers are worth using on banners you actually care about rather than wasting on characters you are lukewarm about.
And understanding your pity count before you spend is still the single most important factor in whether a top up feels worthwhile or not.
The 90-pull hard pity guarantee means the maximum cost of any single five-star character is known in advance. At current pricing, a full hard pity cycle from zero costs roughly 14,400 Primogems in the worst case, equivalent to around 6,480 Genesis Crystals in the largest available pack.
Most players hit a five-star considerably before that ceiling, typically in the 70 to 80 pull range during soft pity, which means the realistic average cost is lower than the theoretical maximum.
The Secondary Market Question
Third-party top up platforms exist because a demand-supply gap exists in the official purchasing ecosystem. Regional price differences, gift card availability, and the presence of players willing to sell purchased crystals at a discount to recover cash all create a functional secondary market.
This market operates in a grey area relative to the game’s terms of service, and players using it accept some degree of account risk.
The long-term viability of these platforms depends on whether game publishers move to close the regional pricing gaps that make arbitrage possible. Some publishers have tightened regional pricing over time.
Others have found the secondary market serves players who would not otherwise spend at all, providing indirect revenue from segments that the official store would not capture.
The economic logic of tolerating a secondary market is not straightforward, and different publishers have landed on different positions.
Looking Ahead
Genshin Impact has run for over four years as of 2024, and its economy remains remarkably stable by the standards of live service games.
The combination of generous free-play Primogem delivery, clear pity mechanics, and periodic events that reward non-spenders has maintained a player base that includes both heavy spenders and players who have never paid a cent.
The question for the next phase is whether regulatory changes, competitor pressure from other open-world gacha titles, and the growing sophistication of players around monetisation mechanics will force a redesign of how top up systems work.
The most likely near-term shift is toward more transparent spending data for players, similar to what some platforms have introduced as real-time spending trackers.
Whether that transparency changes behaviour at scale is a question the data will answer over the next several years.
For now, the fundamentals of a Genshin top up remain constant: buy crystals, convert to Primogems, pull on banners.
The systems underneath that simple loop are considerably more complex, and they are changing in ways that will matter both for how games are designed and how players think about spending on them.
With many years of professional experience within transnational corporations in different industries, Richard Jaimes has had the opportunity to lead people and organizations, investigate future topics, create strategies and innovations, consult senior management and translate insights into business advantages. Richard is also a long time senior consultant with Quantumrun Foresight.
