Since its 2020 release, HoYoverse's ARPG Genshin Impact has become one of the more expensive free-to-play games on the market for fans that choose to spend the money wherever possible. Some Genshin Impact players have decided to reveal what they do for a living to give others more insight into how they became what's known as a whale.
Free-to-play whales are players that spend absurd quantities of money in order to get an upper edge over others or look flashier than them, and they exist in Genshin Impact as they do in other titles like Diablo Immortal, FIFA, or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The whales of Genshin Impact are normally identified by having most or all of their characters at a five-star rank, with most of them wielding a refined weapon to make combat quicker. Although some Genshin Impact players know how to identify such whales in-game, one decided to ask on Reddit what whales do for a living to get to know their personal lives better.
One of the common responses to Reddit user ZeroKami_ about whales is that many Genshin Impact whales don't have kids, while most are regularly working and a handful still live at home with their parents. Among the careers mentioned in response to ZeroKami_ are IT, mechanical engineering, advertising, teaching, pharmaceuticals, software engineering, cooking, and trucking. A handful of whales pointed out that a cheaper cost of living in their area allows them to work a pretty standard job while investing in Genshin Impact, which is becoming the most expensive game ever made.
There are a handful of Genshin Impact players that have suggested things like notable inheritance, money laundering, and poor financial choices as other types of lifestyles that result in whales, while a couple hinted that the whales have a gambling problem. One joker compared their life as a whale to Walter White in Breaking Bad, while several others decided to talk about the underwater mammal as opposed to the Genshin Impact equivalent in a very literal take on the word. Perhaps an understated aspect of the whale community, one Genshin Impact player admitted to having little money that goes into the game so that they may live on the edge by surviving on minimal conditions.
Though Genshin Impact has a sizable whale community, there are still many dedicated players earning all the freebies that they can, including a ridiculous amount of Mora. Given that multiple Genshin Impact players pointed to kids with rich parents as whales, there may be some truth to the meme about mom's credit card.
Genshin Impact is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, and PS5. A Switch port is in development.