This Malaysian news station's Lunar New Year broadcast featured a Genshin Impact tune
Now here's a background tune we can "roll" with.
Image: miHoYo
For most people, the Lunar New Year weekend is a time of seasonal snacks, angbaos, well-wishes, and of course, a touch (read: lots) of gambling. From traditional games like mahjong to Western options like Blackjack, it's probably one of, if not the only time of the year where my folks won't frown at me for throwing in a wager.
But this isn't about me. It's about a CNY broadcast from Malaysian news station Berita RTM, which apparently used Genshin Impact's "Rapid as Wildfire" track as background music during one of their segments. Commonly heard as a battle soundtrack when characters are fighting in the Chinese-inspired nation of Liyue, many sharp-eared gamers were quickly able to pick up on and recognise the tune, leading to widespread speculation that someone on the broadcast editing team was a huge Genshin Impact fan.
Actually, why not have a go yourself and see if you can spot it in the broadcast? We've also linked the full tune from the game so you have an idea of what it sounds like.
So, what does gambling have to do with Genshin Impact? Everything, actually. If you've been living under a rock for the past year or so, developer miHoYo's explosively popular open-world RPG features Japanese "gacha"-style mechanics, meaning players have to "roll" the gacha lottery in order to try for the characters they want.
TL; DR: it's essentially gambling in video games if you want the bluntest term for it.
Getting back on topic, from a fellow gacha gamer's point of view, that member of Berita RTM's editing team might have been using the track as a "catalyst" for his desired character, as we in the "whaling industry" call it. Of course, there's no logical or statistical proof that any of these elaborate rituals have any effect on your rolls, but there's no harm in letting people believe that they do. I mean, do whatever makes you happy, right?
The takeaway here is that most people found the stunt extremely amusing, and the million-dollar question for today is: did that staff member get what he or she wanted from their rolls? Or is "rate up" once again a big fat lie?
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