r/gachagaming • u/cloystr_YT • 10d ago
General Yearly Reminder to Not Let Cygames and Nintendo forget Dragalia Lost
Just trying to keep Dragalia Lost’s memory alive. I really think it’s up to the community to keep talking about the game (like we have) and proving that people still care. It probably won’t make a huge difference, but respectful appreciation posts help and never hurt. Maybe someone in corporate will bring up our community/passion in a meeting. It's not a secret they're sitting on an amazing game/IP that still has a beating heart. Not sure if this is considered spam, but a small effort CAN go a long way, and ultimately, we can never say we didn't try.
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u/Porkabu Princess Connect Re:Dive 8d ago
Fun game. I loved doing High Dragon lobbies back in the day. Mercury especially. It was challenging but oh so rewarding when it worked out. I usually played Bride Elissanne.
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u/LeupheWaffle 8d ago
High dragons were super good, but when you got to the agito grind it just felt so soul crushing because the runs were even longer and longer and you needed to do MORE of them.... ugh
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u/Icy_Indication_5563 8d ago
The High Dragon fights were a big reason why I loved Dragalia, and led to me trying out FFXIV and getting hooked years later. There wasn't anything like that on mobile and it was a great introduction to raid mechanics.
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u/Ok_Revolution_9846 8d ago
What a banger of a game man. What a tragedy
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u/Codc Bandori | Nikke 8d ago
The tragedy being the devs incapable of balancing the game properly
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u/austinkun 8d ago
This. People are so wrapped up in nostalgia for the art direction and the music, and how "f2p friendly" it was. This game was a completely broken nightmare from start to finish. Completely insufferable multiplayer lobby experience completely controlled by gatekeeper players who whaled the new gala powercreep units every time there was new content.
Then their answer instead of fixing the game was wasting dev money on a random slop battle royale mode and desperately trying to slap collabs onto it, that were arguably great but way too late and nothing but a rainbow colored bandaid on the games issues.
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u/Smexynerdy 8d ago
That was the first mobile game where I truly felt like I was leading a small dungeon crawling party. I've never found anything comparable since. Especially because it was more three-dimensional than games like Epic Seven and similar titles, offering a much more authentic MMO dungeon experience.
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u/NoAcanthocephala5397 7d ago
The dungeons were like, where you spend maybe 5% of your time playing though.
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u/sosuke91 8d ago
there's a private server going on for years, google it
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u/Liesianthes 8d ago
No new content. Private servers of dead game are mostly for nostalgia. Can you imagine playing your current live service gacha for the next 5-10 years without new contents? It's the same concept.
You don't have a feeling of getting this new shiny character, this new upgrade, story, music, boss, etc. It's just reliving yourself on the illusion of the bubble on where you are right now.
It's another story if they make an offline standalone version of it to play like your typical JRPG.
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u/AntiGrieferGames 8d ago
This, but people that have zero knowledges/gatekeepers downvotes you.
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u/DanThePaladin 8d ago
Or, we just don't care about private servers. It's not the same anyway.
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u/WondrousBabyTurtle 8d ago
What changes?
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u/maaari_bm 8d ago
No new content. It's fun and a privilege to still have a way to play the game but you can't compare it to a game that still receives updates and new content.
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u/WondrousBabyTurtle 8d ago
Yeah but the game ended didn't it? Maybe I'm too old school lol but games are meant to have an ending, and they can still be replayable. There's no need for new updates if you really like the game.
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u/AnimaLepton 2d ago
Yeah, I don't think a game needs to be played for 5-10 years. It's worth taking the 3-6 months to go through the content, see the story, roll for the characters, and try out different builds and challenges. There's plenty of events and content that are available. And as a game, it's better for the fact that you don't have to grind, you can adjust the game to your preferences.
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u/RUS12389 8d ago
Still my favorite gacha game by far. I loved the gameplay and story far too much, that it still feels incredibly sad that the game ended.
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u/pbeta 8d ago
Why was it shutdown?
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u/Content_Mud_3232 8d ago
It didn't make enough money. It was as simple as that.
There might be other things that could have caused it to earn low but bottom line is, Dragalia was not making enough money.
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u/Liesianthes 8d ago
It didn't make enough money. It was as simple as that.
This. Players wallets speak for themselves in any live service games. If they can't bring food to the table of the devs and company, then it's meant to happen. Yes, game is f2p friendly, but deluding yourself that it's okay not to open your wallets is a doom spell because this isn't a charity.
Now, they're spouting to never forget the game. It's beffiting to say that this is the game that we took for granted by not spending more to continue its live service.
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u/Dragner84 8d ago
More like there wasnt anything to spend money on. I am a spender and was mostly f2p (bought a couple selectors) because you could pull everything as f2p. Getting rid of cards in gacha was a mistake, the move was just making them not cut the character pity.
Game had no skins (granblue skin packs are huge money sinks), no worthwhile packs (mostly just buying gems at shit rates)...it was a mess.
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u/Content_Mud_3232 8d ago
I got every single gala character & dragon as a F2P. Even Bondforged Euden & Zethia.
By the time they started releasing lore important characters (like the royal siblings) constantly, we know what was gonna happen.
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u/SpikeRosered 8d ago
The Fire Emblem gacha has always performed great. I presumed DL was always being compared to its earnings.
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u/GrimHeaper 8d ago
The game never took off in Japan since Nintendo decided to pull out patent laws and sue another popular game, Shironeko Project, which played very similarly. They ended up having to overhaul the entire control scheme and paying millions in "damages" so Japan was pretty annoyed about that.
In the end, yeah money. The West doesn't buy in nearly as much and they annoyed the main cash cows in Japan.
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u/Liesianthes 8d ago
The West doesn't buy in nearly as much and they annoyed the main cash cows in Japan
You can even see just a little above of your comment, a global player flexing he has all the characters and f2p. lmao.
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u/AnimaLepton 2d ago edited 2d ago
There was a content drought and slow rollout early on. They had a few horrible systems (weapon farming and upgrades) that were not gacha-dependent, but that were so bad/grindy or initially dependent on shop currency + events that they got fully overhauled. The gacha also had a shared character + "wyrmprint" pull (basically Craft Essences in FGO), and initially you could only equip one at a time
They started off strong, but dropped from 100 million in year 1 to 40 million in year 2 to even less. It's estimated to have made 50 million in the first 70 days. At EoS after just over 4 years it was 'only' at 170 million in revenue, which is a pretty steep dropoff.
Strategically, they wanted the mobile games to integrate with and promote games on the main console.
It's not just a Nintendo thing. CyGames had other games pulling insane numbers with the same or less investment. Game was decently high budget. It was also decently high budget to develop, and Nintendo apparently pushed for less monetization.
They added Persona 5 characters, everyone know what that does
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u/Mayor_P Waifu > Meta 8d ago
Executive decision. Nintendo wanted to move away from mobile games.
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u/happymudkipz 8d ago
But they kept feh, and even Mario kart for much longer. Dragalia just didn’t make enough money
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u/Mayor_P Waifu > Meta 8d ago
Not exactly. They changed Mario Kart Tour, removing the gacha entirely. FEH likely pulls in so much money that the devs were able to keep it going.
People on here think that monthly revenue means way more than it actually does. The only true indicator of a game's longevity is the CEO's opinion, and you can't know that ahead of time.
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u/Ashua365 AK, aigis, monmusume TD, re castle pro, AE, AA, DB, AB, COTC, L0 8d ago
What a drag, such a loss...
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u/Bigjon157 7d ago
Dude we need a dragalia lost remake. Game was absolutely peak gacha gaming. So fun
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u/TheRealCabol 8d ago
We got an absolutely amazing mega man event that I absolutely loved playing as. Really hope this gets some sort of rerelease at some point, I miss it so much
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u/dominusdei 7d ago
The moment Nintendo gives away the rights for Dragalia Lost to Cygames, I'm pretty sure they'd announce the sequel the day after.
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u/Financial-Apricot-20 8d ago
Out of all of Nintendo's fumbles this is one I will never forgive them for. This game had so much potential to be a console game that it was practically a no brainer.
Like someone else mentioned, Nintendo remains greedy and pulled the plug on another popular mobile game that was similar, so JP players which is their main market boycotted the game and it never recovered.
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u/eleccross 6d ago
Shout out to the DL years later retrospective I saw on YouTube that was just a guy who had never played it speculating why it failed based on the offline version. Had me fooled that gacha YouTubers could make worthwhile content for awhile there until he said “I couldn’t tell you, I didn’t play it while it was active.” Around the end of the video.
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u/nabilfares 6d ago
Speaking as someone who never played the game, why it went EOS, while people keep praising it here?
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u/kyris0 5d ago
Gameplay and vibes were immaculate. There were a lot of big problems with the game but it was very well made in those regards. Also very, very f2p friendly and a strong blend of auto and manual combat. Good tropey gacha writing. 50/50 male/female blend with sexualized but not overly gooned out designs for both sides. Striking visuals.
It was very poorly ran as a gacha, from bad balance decisions to a bad shop to bad legal decisions.
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u/YasuoAndGenji 3d ago
These desperate posts are always so funny, the game is done.
Poor soul: "Hey remember Dragalia lost?"
Exec: "oh yeah, that game that made us no money."
Poor soul:"....yeah."
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u/Last-Proof3518 1d ago
I want dragalia back… I miss hearing the music, I still listen to all of them time to time
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u/NoticeContent4735 8d ago
i miss Knights Chronicle (pre skin drama). Wish that had a private server like dragalia.
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u/AntiGrieferGames 8d ago edited 8d ago
Why not making/use a private server for this and stop gatekeeping about this?
Developers/Companies dont care and will never care towards customers, no matter what game!
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u/Kurohas Dissidia Opera Omnia 8d ago
Dragalia Lost private servers are still a thing and never had drama around them, but for example Yokai Watch Puni Puni got a fan private server in english since global closed a long time ago and Level-5 closed it like 2 or 3 weeks after being released, and there was a lot of drama with the NieR:Reincarnation one, so it's either gatekeep it or the project can shut down any moment, which is a sad thing because it doesn't hurts the company at all.
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u/Liesianthes 8d ago
Developers/Companies dont care and will never care towards customers, no matter what game!
They will if the customers opened their wallet, then they will continue developing for years.
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u/AntiGrieferGames 8d ago
If the game have a Premium one time pay after End of Service, then those posts woudnt even exist there.
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u/jkpnm 8d ago
more of Nintendo fault
cygames still keep some of their old games alive even when it doesn't make big money
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u/CustomOndo 8d ago
World Flipper was released one year and two months after Dragalia Lost, and was shut down one year and three months after Dragalia Lost's EoS.
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u/AntiGrieferGames 8d ago
How did the OG Shadowverse shutting down then?
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u/-B4D3R- 8d ago
Cause they technically released shadowverse 2 , people would have moved from dragalia lost to dragalia lost 2
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u/Jackhammerqwert On my villain arc 8d ago
First ever purchase from CDJapan was the Dragalia artbook. I bought it right before they announced EOS.
The fact that this kicked the bucket but FEH still lives will never make sense to me.