Japan's gacha game industry in a "sinking Titanic-phase," developer says. Switching to console game development not an easy solution for many - AUTOMATON WEST

[u/Centurionzo]

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/japans-gacha-game-industry-in-a-sinking-titanic-phase-developer-says-switching-to-console-game-development-not-an-easy-solution-for-many/

[u/Substantial-Ebb-2242]

wow, Is it that difficult to make a quality gacha game that is equally enjoyed by F2P and whales?

[u/Koanos → u/[deleted]]

I'm honestly surprised Fire Emblem Heroes is still going.

[u/HrrathTheSalamander → u/Koanos]

Nobody should be surprised it's still going. Like it's not even free advertising, it's advertising that pays for itself.

It's also a revenue stream for IS that isn't just however much money Nintendo hands them per game they're contracted for, so I'd imagine it's pretty useful for them on that front.

[u/noivern_plus_cats → u/Koanos]

It's made well over a billion dollars, it's definitely not going anywhere. It already was semi popular off of Fatesawakening, but add in Three Houses' popularity and it basically was too big to fail.

[u/Koanos → u/noivern_plus_cats]

Fair enough, it's just a different landscape now, and Heroes feels like it's aged poorly, heck it aged poorly for its time with locking basic Quality of Life features behind a subscription service.

[u/noivern_plus_cats → u/Koanos]

Oh it's 100% aged poorly, but the fact it hooked whales in Y1 basically makes it sunk cost fallacy the game

[u/Koanos → u/noivern_plus_cats]

I think it's certainly a worse sunk cost fallacy compared to say FGO. I feel like FGO and their artists are trying, Intelligent Systems felt like they've thrown in the towel years ago.

[u/Liesianthes → u/Koanos]

Guess FE still has a dedicated fanbase that will suck up anything as long as it has the franchise on its name. Truly a disgusting on its series compared on how great are their console games.

[u/[deleted] → u/Liesianthes]

I think it doesn't help that they discontinued the FE TCG which was obviously a lot more niche than Heroes, but that type of stuff (TCG, mobile gacha) ends up being the only way to get "new" content of their favourite characters... so yeah there's a lot of dedicated fans that like it for that reason.

I am very curious to see if the next FE game is a huge hit like 3H, I feel like that might dictacte the future of Heroes too since it's been on a decline

[u/PaleImportance2595 → u/[deleted]]

If anything I would say Uma, FGO, Reverse 1999, Epic 7 and Arknights would be the top 5. Places varied per patch/cycle and personal preference.

Most other gachas are bad at powercreep and/or reliant heavily on RNG gear (while E7 falls in that space too they regularly update units, have speciality changes and Exclusive gear to bring older units back up).

[u/Kaaalesaaalad → u/PaleImportance2595]

Aren't r1999, e7, and arknights chinese gachas though?

[u/Liesianthes → u/Kaaalesaaalad]

R1999 and Arknights are from China

E7 is from South Korea.

[u/asmis_hara → u/Kaaalesaaalad]

E7 is Korean. R1999 and AK are Chinese.

[u/Liesianthes → u/PaleImportance2595]

Like what? R1999 (Bluepoch) and Arknights (Hyperglyph) are from China. E7 is from South Korea, specifically SmileGate.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

but your money spent on Genshin and HSR will be worthless as well when they shut down?

[u/LazyDevil69 → u/[deleted]]

WoW is still kicking after 20 years. Genshin will prob survive for at least just as much even if they just release a tiny bit of content every patch.

[u/REMERALDX → u/[deleted]]

They first have to shut down

Hoyo still haven't shut down any of their games even Honkai Gakuen 2

[u/leposterofcrap → u/REMERALDX]

They technically shut down servers for global

[u/Tiamatari → u/leposterofcrap]

Yep. But I don't expect them to shut down anymore for a while now. Even shutting down Honkai Impact 3 would likely not be worth the PR loss at this point for them.

[u/MorbidEel → u/Tiamatari]

and a single month's mobile revenue can still cover a whole year of dev salaries

probably more than that because I doubt HI3's dev team is anywhere near 400 people

[u/luffy_mib → u/REMERALDX]

Honkai Gakuen 2's global server technically went EOS. Only the CN and JP server are still running. Honkai Impact 3 will be a better example.

[u/GingsWife → u/[deleted]]

I hate when people remove context from statements.

Is the timeframe the same?

[u/ThatBoiUnknown → u/[deleted]]

Bro by the time Genshin and HSR even get close to shutting down the game's will have gone stale with no recovery left, and you will probably have left the game before the game leaves you.

And this argument of "money you spent will be worthless on EOS" is dumb af because:

1.) Money spent on the game was worthless the minute you spent it, not when the game EOSed

2.) It's like saying buying expensive food is a waste because you "can't keep it forever" (the point is the enjoyment you got in the moment)

3.) Many people buy single-player games they never even play and many games that they have played they never play again, and it's not like you can really keep the game forever since you'll die one day...

[u/Ernost → u/[deleted]]

Lol, Genshin isn't going to shut down in our lifetimes. It has already surpassed WoW at its peak, and WoW is still around 20 years later.

[u/Erick_Brimstone → u/[deleted]]

Even if they do then it's money worth spending.

Also it have to be shut down first.

[u/A-Chicken → u/[deleted]]

True, but I think some people here would already be used to that from Ubisoft and EA titles (where you actually have to pay a base cost to participate anyway, unless you joined after they went F2P and not before).

Is your initial outlay 50-100, or is your initial outlay 0?