Game Theory: The Hero That BROKE Genshin Impact!

i don't need an umbrella but you can use one if you need to to be honest i i was freezing even before the snow started as long as you stick to your own path it doesn't matter what mother nature throws at you all the same i i wouldn't mind stopping to light a fire guess we can rest a bit hey to luke can you do your thing much better [Music] hello internet welcome to game theory the show that in terms of good jokes has no good jokes today's episode is sponsored by gentian impact which loki ended up being one of the biggest video game releases of 2020. it's a free open world action game available on pc playstation 4 and 5 and mobile basically everywhere you would want to play it and unlike a static by the numbers adventure genshin impact is set in a living breathing changing world with new content being added all the time in fact a new update just dropped not long ago which added characters like the fiery yen faye and the cold as ice ula but what was perhaps most exciting about this update wasn't the new things that it added but rather the old things that it brought back specifically the return of everyone's favorite god of contracts zhang li now i get it with a name like god of contracts you might think that this guy is some sort of glorified paper pusher but nothing could be further from the truth not only is he a sharp dresser an expert fighter and a total shipper's dream but as you'll come to see by the end of today's theory i also believe zhong li is bringing about an era of ruin to this game's world it's my belief that he's set in motion a series of events that'll send society into a technological dark age you heard that right this guy this supposed hero of the game i don't like seafood mr i don't like seafood himself is setting up a catastrophe that the characters in the game are gonna have to struggle against in the near future or heck maybe even in a later update it's at this point that the game's developers wanted me to make sure that i say that while this is indeed a sponsored video all the conclusions i'm about to share are mine and mine alone and that this is pure hypothesis game hypothesis based on in-game dialogue and real world evidence now in case you're new to the world of gentian impact let me quickly bring you up to speed the game is set in the world of tavot which is divided into seven regions each region is ruled by a local god or archon corresponding to one of the game's seven different elements geo hydro pyro electro cryo dendro and animo by the way those last two are greek to you well that's because they literally are greek animo means wind and dendro means tree zhang li our main focus for today is the human form of the geo god responsible for protecting the second region of the game leeway now leeway is super important it's the largest business and commerce hub in this entire world this place is more capitalist than elon musk shilling for dogecoin to the point where the closest thing that they have to a ruling government is a council of seven influential merchants and business leaders liwe is practically synonymous with prosperity and wealth it's also home to the golden house the only place where the world's currency of mora is minted and not just minted mind you it's brought into existence by a literal god and the man responsible is you guessed it zhong li himself you see when he's not walking around complaining about seafood in his human form zhang li takes the form of a dragon named morax the divine figure that oversees liue and is responsible for creating mora the world's currency yes the dragon god morax creates more raw he named the world's currency after himself talk about an egomaniac am i right again when you're an angry divine dragon i guess you do you anyway according to the in-game description mora is quote common currency the one language that everybody speaks and in the world of tavot that does seem to be the case all seven regions use mora as their money merchants everywhere around the world except mora in payment regardless of what region they're in okay so why is any of this important and why do i think that this all might be setting up an elaborate game of dominoes that ends in the inevitable collapse of the world of tavod well here's the twist friends when the player first arrives in leeway we're told that morax after 6 000 years has decided to retire not really he actually decides to fake his own death so he can run around yucking it up in his human form but whether real or not the implication of his quote-unquote death are huge not only does it send everyone in liwe into a panic over the fact that their guardian god is now supposedly dead but it also throws the world's currency into chaos cause remember morax is responsible for creating all of the maura without him there is no more period the supply has reached its upper limit and this isn't just a case of me overthinking the game's events gentian impact actually comments directly on it now that you don't have your gnosis what's going to happen to all the more into that since morax is dead are they all just gonna disappear also isn't the golden house the only mint in the entire continent will it even continue to work the mora present now will not vanish but the golden house will indeed have to cease operations for a lengthy period of time since creating mora requires the use of the geo archon's power this is terrible we're all about to run out the world is coming to an end mind you this doesn't seem to be a reversible decision when he retired zhong li decided to give up the source of his divinity an item known as a gnosis the gnosis is an item that allows arkhan gods to draw power from the heavenly realm essentially amplifying their powers now this entire scene is kind of played for laughs after all it's become a running joke at this point that zhong li is naive when it comes to business apparently despite spending a lifetime literally creating more he never got the memo that you actually need to carry it around to pay for stuff he said it was half price not that we could leave without paying oh right i'm sorry i must have forgotten to do that too and it's not until after retiring from life as the god morax that he realizes that you know might have been a good idea to take advantage of that money-making ability and put some aside for himself for a rainy day it's a shame that i didn't think of it at the time who knew that the god of contracts would have such bad money sense but in this scene jaimon your travel companion and emergency food source is absolutely right this is no laughing matter zhang li even acknowledges this yes this is indeed a major issue from a financial standpoint so what exactly are the financial implications for tavot now that its universal currency is no longer being minted well what this one little joking dialogue opens up is a catastrophic end to all the advanced civilizations of the world oh yeah this goes way further than just being an issue of dollars and cents in the real world if a government just stopped issuing new currency the most immediate result would be deflation you may be familiar with the word inflation that's what happens when there's too much money or not enough goods to buy with that money which results in rising prices deflation is as you would expect the opposite it's the result of either there being a rising number of goods and or a decrease in the amount of money available and it leads to prices falling as the limited amount of money out there in the market becomes more and more valuable lower costs are great right nothing bad about that not according to economists most economists agree that deflation is a bad thing because it discourages spending think about it if you know that there's a limited supply of money and there's never gonna be any more you're gonna hold on to every cent that you have and you're gonna be really picky about what you spend it on plus if you know that prices are gonna be lower in the future that actually discourages you from spending your money today that loaf of bread that costs two dollars today might cost one dollar next week so logically you could hold on to your money and wait to buy it that results in everyone hoarding their money and by everyone i do mean everyone not just regular consumers but also business owners who are discouraged from spending money to grow their businesses by hiring new employees and investors who just sit on their money instead of lending it out or investing it in new business as the money supply dries up employers are forced to either reduce wages or lay people off or a combination of both which ultimately leads to the economy growing weaker resulting in a self-perpetuating cycle that results in more deflation which leads to more unemployment and even lower wages one of the most famous examples of a deflationary economy is the great depression during the 1930s which suffered the most extreme forms of all the things we just talked about reduced trade falling profits lower wages higher unemployment it was not a pretty picture so is that the fate that awaits the world of tavot now that there's no new maura being printed no my friends it is actually much worse because the truth is that mora isn't actually like the real world currencies that we're used to and the differences make the situation that much more catastrophic see the things that come to mind when we usually think about money us dollars british pounds japanese yen etc are examples of what's known in economic terms as fiat currency when you think about it a dollar doesn't really have any intrinsic value it's useful because you can use it to buy stuff but say you were trapped in the middle of a desert with nobody to buy from all the money in the world wouldn't mean a thing to you fiat money only usually comes about through government regulation after all i could just start making matte bucks coins with my little face on them and go to stores trying to buy things with my map bucks but nobody would want to take those coins no matter how much i insisted that they actually should be worth what i'm trying to buy historically the only way to get people to accept fiat money is by forcing them hence the need for a central government to issue the coin and collect taxes in that same currency suddenly the government has said these things have a certain value but the truth about maura is that it's not a fiat currency like dollars or euros it's an actual commodity like crude oil or steel or salt going back to the game's flavor text descriptions a loading screen tip tells us that quote maura is a catalyst of sorts in that it's a medium for physical transformation that is why so many things can only be accomplished through the use of mora in other words maura can actually be used to do things for example any time you sit down at the alchemy crafting table you want to combine your three firm arrowheads to create one sharp arrowhead well that'll require 25 more that's not a rental fee that you're paying for the use of the crafting table you can use the crafting table at albedo's research post in dragon spine long after he's abandoned it but you'll still need to spend your mora because the maura is actually being consumed during the alchemical process and when i say that more is used for all sorts of things in the world of gentian impact i really mean it want to absorb the experience from a material like the wanderer's advice to raise your level that's gonna require more wanna take a weapon and refine it mora wanna grind up your adventurer's pocket watch tail feather and bandana to enhance a crummy artifact can't be done without the use of mora there's something special about maura that allows it to function as a catalyst and apparently the only way to make it is with some sort of divine spark in that sense mora isn't actually a fiat currency it has inherent value that makes it become a unit of exchange this is also something that we've seen happen in the real world throughout most of human history people didn't have a big centralized government that could create their own money systems so they instead relied on commodities back in ancient times egypt along with many other civilizations around the mediterranean would use salt as the medium of exchange in fact the word salary literally comes from the fact that soldiers in the roman army sometimes received their payment insult a soldier's monthly allowance of salt was called a solarium anyway this system was able to take off because in the desert you lose a lot of salt through sweating and thus everyone needed salt and because everyone could make use of it salt naturally became a universal medium of exchange even after government sprang up and started printing currencies commodities were still sometimes used as a standard of value for instance in the 16th and 17th century european fur traders came to north america and started using beaver pelts as a standard of value one new pair of shoes is going to cost you 12 pelts this became essential for trading between europeans and indigenous americans because let's face it why would the north americans care about some flimsy paper with a king's face on it it meant nothing to them beaver pelts now that is what i'm talking about maura is the tavat equivalent of salter beaver pelt lots of people require it for their profession that's good news for the people of leo because it means that everyone in the world wants the mora that comes out of the golden house but it also means that when morax stops producing more and the golden house shuts down all that maura is slowly being used up bit by bit with every potion that's made every weapon that gets enhanced maura is a finite resource eventually all of those activities that require mora are going to grind to a halt and that's the real problem with morax deciding to retire and stop making new mora it's not just sending the world into a financial disaster it's also sending the world into a technological disaster no alchemy means no new scientific advancements or inventions no ways to refine or enhance weaponry means the people of tavot are increasingly imperil in the face of the numerous monsters that litter the overworld the questline in leeway makes a big deal about how morax decided it was time for him to retire because the people no longer needed a god to protect them there's this big dramatic team up where the player and all the leaders of leeway band together to defend the city against a big giant ancient sea monster that morax sealed away long ago and they managed to win which supposedly proves that they no longer need morax but the truth is that the biggest service morax provided to leeway heck the entire world wasn't all the times that he turned into a big powerful dragon and beat up the other powerful monsters his real greatest service was something much more mundane his namesake of moro look sitting in the golden house all day cranking out new coins might not be the most glorious part of being a god but it was the most vital service that zhang li provided the small hope we have is that morax's retirement might not be permanent maybe he could be persuaded to get back his gnosis and start minting mora again but morax tells us that the golden house quote will indeed have to cease operations for a lengthy period of time and given that he's 6 000 years old a lengthy period of time to him might mean multiple generations or even multiple centuries until then the world is stuck with a rapidly dwindling supply of its most important resource not only does that mean scientific progress slows but eventually the world will run out of maura until even the items that people have come to accept as basic necessity can't be crafted anymore and that is how the world of tavot dies not with a bang but with a whimper and empty wallets but hey that's just a theory a game theory thanks for watching and one final thank you to gentian impact for sponsoring this episode since i know the gentian team is gonna be watching this one feel free to use this plotline in a future update then we can do a follow-up theory on how the whole thing played out what do you mean and if you'd like to learn more about genji impact or you know just play the game for yourself again it is a free game that you can download right now link is just below this video seriously there is no reason to not try out this free awesome aaa quality game and now is the perfect time to hop in because they're about to drop a new character yula one that i'm personally very excited about because she uses ice style cryo skills and solid defenses which is totally my gameplay mix in these sorts of titles oh and she also wields a giant claymore making her that much cooler so try out genshin for the new character and stay with genshin for the thrilling conclusion of the financial drama that i just brought to their attention again link is right below this video and i'll see you all next week

Channel: The Game Theorists

Views: 1,524,902

Rating: 4.9230847 out of 5

Keywords: genshin impact, genshin impact ost, genshin impact characters, Zhongli, Zhongli genshin impact, venti genshin impact, genshin impact childe, genshin impact xiao, genshin impact venti, genshin impact mora, genshin impact music, genshin impact comic, genshin impact meme, genshin impact gameplay, genshin impact trailer, game theory, game theorists, matpat, game theory genshin impact, genshin impact theory, genshin impact guide, genshin, genshin impact 1.5, genshin impact game

Id: QIjASllDEu0

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Sat May 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/QuackMatters]

Aside from the currency issue that is going to be created and an alternative currency going to replace Mora in the future:

Assuming Mora is used as a catalyst for weapon upgrades/alchemy and that's canon, then all people have to do, is to use labor force to sharpen their arrows, instead of throwing Mora at everything. I don't really see the problem. If anything, this will result in an economic boom, since much much much more labor force will be required for all kinds of things. Additionally the lack of the catalyst will force people to innovate. So I don't really see the problem for the world.

[u/nakamikii]

it's all fun and games until zhongli has the same face that monika had in his ddlc theory

[u/ThatGuyOnyx]

The reason I flaired this as "official media" is the video was sponsored by Genshin themselves, thought that was the appropriate one.

[u/Gogeta_Fusion_Blue]

Always been a big fan of Game Theory ever since the beginning. It's really nice to see MatPat come this far👌

[u/crnr00]

basically another economics class though

I wish they tackled a different theory though

free code though XD

for u lazy guys and gals out there code: GS6ACJ775KNV

redeem as soon as u can dont know when this will expire

[u/Gergar12]

The Cryo Archon could still print Mora...

[u/unname11]

I feel that Theory doesn't make sense but I don't know why .

[u/Chev4r]

This doesn't make any sense, a currency can be everything, mora doesn't need to be the only form of currency(sigils etc), and the gnosis still exist, another person can create mora.

[u/CumLovingSlut69]

This is the 3rd or 4th time ive seen this today. How good is this theory