AKE and NTE made me wonder if we already reached market saturation in open world gacha games
as in GI and Wuwa already captured most potential player market and too invested to move to other games considering how time consuming to main more than 1 open world gacha. the big launch crowd simply return to their game before and only handful stay/convert to the new game loyal player while not much "fresh player" (never play gacha open world before) remains to capture
Yeah, I think that's why Hoyo is diversifying with Nexus Anima going "Pokemon" style and Nodusfall going Souls/Monster Hunter style. The usual formula for open world gacha games just doesn't cut it anymore.
Yeah I can imagine A LOT of casual players downloading it because its ‘Hoyo Pokemon’ and deleting it in two hours when they realise its an auto-chess game.
people can hate hoyo as much as they want but we need to applaud hoyo for always two steps ahead of other company. they can see what others dont and end up leading market while every other company is just playing catchup
how is creating an adjacent to an existing game or genre being two steps ahead? for the chinese market sure but in general that's like saying CI Games is ahead of the curve because they made LotF which is just a mash of existing soulslikes and action rpgs
are we forgetting the botw clone for phone roots?
you can say I'm a hater, but there's a reason why the immediate gaming community response outside the gacha sphere to anything Hoyo puts out on a game show is lukewarm at best.
EDIT: and for those who downvoted me and moved on without commenting, I'm sure you have your reasons. But wake me up when hoyo or any modern gacha company rather creates something that isn't just XYZ but gacha/hoyo/kuro/whatever. Oh and keep in mind I never talked about the game quality itself, just market position and uniqueness.
Had to paimonially feed you that edit to make sure that was understood
ah i mean they are two steps ahead in gacha game industry to be specific. i cant comment on gaming as a whole yet. mihoyo made once an buy 2 play game genre into sucesfull live service game. live service game is the holy grail for all game devs and publisher. one time big investment, endless ammout of money.
mihoyo has twice cause competitors to join with same genre trying to compete for the market (PGR, Aether Gazer against HI3rd and all the current and upcoming open world gane against GI). when someone trying to "copy" you, that means you lead far enough to shape up market and what makes it two steps ahead is when they still busy trying to copy you, you already made new thing those company didnt think of yet.
Hoyo dare to take risk and be the first dip feet in the water, other company just follow and play it safe. iirc GI is hoyo do or die project, if GI flop back then they basically bankrupt. Not many comoany dare take risk like that and Hoyo become leader cause they take risk, get rich so much that their next big project carry less risk
I think what Hoyo does is synthesis. The difference with LoTF vs Souls is they didn't do anything different so it was just a jankier Souls game. Hoyo at least usually does something different enough to make it fresh on some level. Because they did make a BOTW clone, but adding the cute anime girls you could acquire in and of itself was, at that time, a fresh development that captured an audience, as well as taking a 60 dollar box price open world game and making it free to play. And Genshin attracted a huge audience that way. We forget because it's all old hat now how many of the things Genshin did at the time that WERE fresh, even while being an obvious BOTW reskin. China devs in general are really good at making something just different enough that it becomes an appealing new thing, such as Wukong being, by far, the most successful non-mainline Soulsborne game.
With respect to the ahead of the curve specifically, it's more that they're ahead of the curve within their own market, not the market as a whole. But I also don't think every dev needs to be doing something new. Especially not the biggest devs. Newness is something indie devs should be doing, and the bigger companies should be copying the cool gameplay and mechanics and aesthetics the indie companies come up with, and then making them at scale. I would LOVE if someone huge made a massive budget "Expedition 33like" with a full open world like old RPGs had but with modern graphics. That's what the big studios are for. They're like giant aircraft carriers, those are a lot harder to turn than a small speedboat, so they're not going to be taking risky swings on new stuff, but they CAN scale up the ambition of existing stuff other smaller studios found out people liked.
One of the real reasons is that their games are primarily free to play and look and feel just good enough to get people interested. They do nothing revolutionary, but they are accessible.
No one said they're inventing new genres. They're pushing the boundaries of what a "gacha game" can be. Prior to HI3, gacha games were all small 2D turn-based games because that's what's "proven" to work for a mobile audience. Then HI3 released and showed the industry that higher budget mobile 3D actions games are viable and everyone followed suit, you started seeing more 3D games with voice acting in the main story and whatnot.
Then the genre stagnated sticking to the same RPG formula, until Genshin came out proving that a game on a AAA budget and scale is viable in this niche pushing gacha games into the mainstream. Everyone is copying the open-world and monetization part of genshin thinking this is what made it popular (because they're creatively bankrupt trend-chasers) when the reality is that what made it popular was the fact that it was just a... dare I say, good game with non-intrusive gacha launching at the perfect time.
And they keep expanding what they can slap a gacha on- things you never thought could work as a gacha game: Cozy games? Souls-like? TFT? A rumored shooter in the works of some kind? Probably all gacha on AA-AAA budgets rivaling "traditional" games in scope.
Once Petit Planet releases and makes billions, you'll start seeing more "cozy gachas" releasing and so on. Hoyo is the risk takers in the industry. Everyone else is just watching them to copy what works *coughcoughkurocoughcough*.
first they make dmc/god of war with gacha, then botw clone with gacha, then soon animal crossing and tft with gacha
hoyo is the first to flag many genre with the gacha version, hence they they become industry leader in gacha. other company either just playing catcup or dont expand too much (HG with AK iirc pioneer of tower defense with gacha, SU with Nikke is gallery shooter with gacha.. but tbh that GI money is what made hoyo possible to expand so fast)
although nodusfall will be interesting since they will move to more common monetisation with cosmetic than character gachas
You say Kuro but Wuwa is as unique as Genshin was in terms of what they added and has diverged enough from Genshin as Genshin did from BotW. Again, are we trying to say Genshin did something really unique with its launch when it was just gambling added on top of an already acclaimed game?
And this isn't even a gacha unique thing. Look at Fortnite and PUBG lmao.
Think what you want about the games themselves but you have to be kidding me if you truly believe Zelda with gambling was a unique game and its popularity wasn't a result of a broke ass audience getting a free nintendo game on their phone during the most dead period of our lives.
trying to say Genshin did something really unique with its launch when it was just gambling added on top of an already acclaimed game?
Where did i say that?
Think what you want about the games themselves but you have to be kidding me if you truly believe Zelda with gambling was a unique game and its popularity wasn't a result of a broke ass audience getting a free nintendo game on their phone during the most dead period of our lives.
again, where did i say that?
Damn, you're really coming into this discussion with a massive chip on your shoulder.
You say Kuro but Wuwa is as unique as Genshin was in terms of what they added and has diverged enough from Genshin as Genshin did from BotW
That's not the claim i'm making. My claim is kuro consistently tries to emulate hoyoverse's successes. I'm not saying they copy 1 to 1. I'm saying, if you line up their game release timelines, kuro consistently comes out with a similar product a few years after hoyoverse proves success. It's so apparent that in CN kuro is memed on as "eating Mihoyo's exhaust fumes".
If it was a 1 or 2 year gap you could chalk it up to competitors competing but hoyo beats them to the punch, however, the real gap is so large it's clear that they speedrun development of a new game when they see the success hoyo is having that's why, If you were present at WuWa launch, you know how horribly broken it was, to the point that they had to rely on Tencent to bail them out.
Your second paragraph ended with "popular because dare I say its a good game with non intrusive gacha" which is what I countered with the "think what you want-" paragraph
"Coming in with a chip on your shoulder"
Is that what you tell everyone who disagrees with you
Is that what you tell everyone who disagrees with you
you just keep reaching to conclusions based on your biases. It's almost impressive.
Your second paragraph ended with "popular because dare I say its a good game with non intrusive gacha"
Yes, because that's an objective statement. I'm relaying public opinion at the time. Were you there at Genshin's launch? Pretty much everyone who played it got addicted and word of mouth spread like wildfire making Gacha Games, the low effort cash grab mobile slop trash, part of the mainstream culture. A soulless clone would not achieve that. Even people who've never heard of a gacha game in their lives were playing it. It was good enough to turn console/pc only purists and haters of everything mobile into "hmmmmm maybe i'll try this genshin game people keep saying is not like other mobile games". I have watched MMORPG-only streamers and CCs i followed try Genshin, unsponsored btw, just through sheer social pressure and fall in love with this single player mobile game.
Of course there were people like you screeching about Genshin violating the sanctity of your precious BoTW, but that's obviously criticism in bad faith that nobody listened to. And that's why Genshin is one of he most popular games in the world and is still printing money 6 years later. The end.
You lost my good faith as soon as you brought me as a person into my criticism. Then you doubled down. So I'll play it likewise.
Saying genshin release was all cakes and roses is revisionist history, and yes I was there at the time, and was one of the rare few who played BotW after Genshin.
But regardless, that last bit told me enough. There's a phrase for that called "Argumentum ad Populum" and entire theses exist on why sales and popularity are misleading metrics by themselves. But of course, I wouldn't expect someone who hasn't sold or managed a commercialised product in their life to understand.
Yes? That's how genres work? It's not a major revelation. You don't say Persona 5 is just a Final Fantasy with a stylish UI slapped on top because they're both JRPGs and have summons and elemental spells to exploit weaknesses and where you start as a nobody then defeat God at the end. It's a turn-based RPG in its own right.
Games draw inspiration from eachother all the time, that's how genres evolve. You can take literally any game you played in the past and I guarantee you that game borrowed some elements from an older game. You'd be hard-pressed to find something truly unique these days because almost everything has been done before.
Likewise with Genshin. The creators don't hide the fact that they drew heavy inspiration from BoTW. But that really only applies to Mondstad, doesn't it? Being the first area, a generic green-field RPG area in a cel-shaded art style accentuating the similarities to Hyrule. Once you reach Liyue, it starts departing from it's BoTW roots. I bet if, say, Inazuma was the first region instead of Mondstad, nobody would be calling it a BoTW clone.
I never denied that. But I would say that hoyo's comparative success is somewhat undeserved. I will give credit where it's due to the coders, artists, voice actors, and sometimes the writers; all that work is still work, but overall, these games are not that special, and it's hard to see why these out of all games are worth billions of dollars.
That's subjective, isn't it? Animal Crossing New Horizons sold over 50M copies worldwide and I genuinely still can't understand what's so engaging about cozy games at all.
Genshin offers things that a lot of people like, be it character designs, art direction, music, story, exploration, combat or even just the gacha. Any of these could be a reason it appeals to someone in particular but it's undeniable that its popularity was due to *something* it offers that no other game does or at the very least to the same degree.
I get what you mean, but I feel like you need to focus on their full statement. Sure, anyone could have made a BotW clone, a Pokemon clone etc., but the fact is Hoyo somehow manages to be either the first or the most prominent to do so, and also to do it with a certain base level of quality. No, they haven't created the genres their games are based off of, but they are undoubtedly pioneers in the market they actually cater to (gacha) if you look at the general landscape there.
By itself other company means gaming in general. Other gacha companies? Sure.
I think a lot of people fail to realise that Hoyo is on a different playing field now. A field where what they do isn't really considered waow unique pog.
In management we call it the Peter Principle where people (here, game devs) in a hierarchy tend to rise to a level of respective incompetence. That is basically what Genshin did for Hoyo. The position and timing was so perfect for that game they just took off from there but started to be counted amongst the players who were genuinely setting new trends.
Tbh, I thought the fact they referred to gacha companies was understood from context.
Not sure what you mean by the rest, what is "incompetent" about the projects Hoyo creates? They are obviously savvy in creating and monetizing successful products, Covid alone definitely helped boosting initial player numbers but it doesn't explain why the game still tops the charts 6 years later. And while HSR and especially ZZZ don't quite reach the same numbers, they are arguably just as successful in terms of longterm player/interest retention.
I would like to reply to your last sentence, but I genuinely don't quite understand it. Are you saying their status as trend setters is technically false, because players are too stupid to understand the wider gaming landscape?
Respective incompetence is the literal definition restated. In effect it means people end up in places where they're sorta just a part of the pack.
As for the last statement it's not stupidity and more so lack of awareness. Genshin brought a lot of people into games, but that's more or less where their experience ends. Creating or rather recreating an existing game has been how the gaming sphere has operated for a very long time, so it's rather funny to see people take hoyo doing it as them being market setters.
And on that note, the comment I replied to didn't mention gacha market. Thus my reply was calibrated. It's also why I mentioned the chinese and gacha market myself in my original reply.
No one is creating anything new for the last two decades. Just at the best selling, most popular or goty of each years.
Elden Ring: Dark Souls but open world
E33: Turn based but with Sekiro mechanics
Baldur's Gate 3: CRPG but extra horny (lol)
COD, FIFA, any E-sports, hero shooter or fps: just the same thing over and over.
Then we also have lots of sequels to popular franchises or remakes.
Even the indie industry isn't doing much better in this front (although much better than the rest) as the biggest indie release we got this decade was also a sequel to another beloved game (Silksong).
The guy above never specified what 'being 2 steps ahead' means, so your interpretation is fine but also limited.
Fyi, if youve ever read mihoyos employee induction booklet or listened to one of da weis talks, they state in no uncertain terms that mihoyo doesnt consider themselves to be a game dev company, let alone specifically an anime game company. They first and foremost consider themselves to be a tech company; the tech moat is how they keep ahead of the competition.
They started developing and optimizing an open world game in 2017 on their customized version of unity.
Theyre one of the earliest game companies to focus on ai; being angel investors in minimax and with recent news of them putting 100 billion rmb up forward to in house ai tools. Apparently they already have their own data center(s) set up.
Most recently its been confirmed that nodusfall will be releasing on mobile and recent job descriptions state that theyre aiming to do away with/heavily modify ue5s lumen for lighter and more efficient global illumination solutions.
From a recent ai conference talk they plan to implement ai agents to create more authentic npc interactions for games new and old. For instance, the npc characters in petit planet and most notably their goal of creating an npc driven game in varsapura.
You also have to consider that GI offers many payment options, which causes the mobile figures to drop significantly, as these are not included in the calculation. There are also top-up bonuses if you use the site. For example Hoyo advertise the TopUp Store too.
In general, the mobile numbers without all the nerfs would be much bigger — it's insane.
They’ve been promoting the top up site for a while now but this is the hardest I’ve seen them go. Sponsored a bunch of CCs including smaller ones on both the global and JP sides and I think KR as well, I’ve only seen Sechi tho. As for ZZZ, I think they’re starting now, I saw canna promoting it
I believe Genshin has no more room to grow. WuWa has captured those who were dissatisfied with Genshin, and I don't see growth in that area either, and those who venture into other games... They simply quit or go back to the games they were already playing; I don't see any other game of this genre gaining as many players as Genshin did in 2020.
but it still has less players. higher fidelity and optimisation doesn't matter if most newbies are turned off by factory and don;t actually stick around and spend.
Ake optimized was good but the game just not for anyone or even mobile user. I could do factory in my pc but with how small and cramped mobile with button, I dont even know if that mechanic even enjoyable for mobile user.
Yeah, i hated factory even on PC, I cant imagine playing it on mobile... Thats so bad, in Factorio, even without using blueprints and hotkeys, you can create two times bigger factory in half time
AKE is tedious to play. No issue for me but the added factory doesn't sit well for some of us.
GI has skill issue friendly features like shielder units, lower world level (I completed AQ 7.1 on my alt account at WL2) and pull currency on the latest endgame Stygian locked at the bottom 3 difficulty tiers. Anything more is just a bonus.
And it's not a huge loss to miss primos from Spiral or Theater. Only f2ps who cannot control their gamblings are crying about it.
Exactly your speaking facts the barrier of entry is harder cause newer open gacha games demand more power in devices and their saturation of all the options available.
AKE and NTE may not be making the most money - but they are making a lot of money. If they keeping making around what they are now each month they will be fine. And AKE with the factory stuff makes it pretty niche. A lot of people aren't really interested in that aspect.
Especially as they are both extremely PC centric and that money is not represented.
Genshin is an anomaly with how many mobile players it retains given it's gameplay style. Most of the open world real time action games really suck on mobile.
I wonder how much of genshin's continued success with the mobile market has to do with them cornering a specific demographic that can afford a phone good enough to play genshin but can't afford pc's or laptops good enough to play it since those are more expensive than phones meeting the same criteria. Low/middle income people who can't or don't want to spend absurd amounts of money on a ps5 or something but can spare 5 bucks for a welkin every month or so. Genshin is really the only big name gacha that is optimised well for low end devices. I'd say AKE too but their gameplay is far better suited for PC anyway
Yeah this is why I just shake my head whenever people shit on Genshin model/animation and compare it to the newer gacha, Genshin can be played with older phone without turning it into a nuclear reactor.
Indeed as good as Endfield's mobile optimization is, the game isn't really that great on mobile. The PC experience is the definitive one. I spend quite a bit on the game but I exclusively do it via PC :)
AKE is in a weird spot too. They had 1 new banner in this whole month.
My guess is, they wanted to keep the game in the oven for a bit longer but checked they would miss the mark before market saturation and decided to release the game early.
If we're honest they're probably healthy but not making as much money as others managed to.
AKE is in a weird spot in general, and I'm saying this as someone who really enjoys the game (incl. the factory).
It very decidedly doesn't want to follow the usual 3D gacha conventions Genshin essentially created for their niche - we have no real leak community (or leaks, beyond a questionable scant few), pulling beyond a single copy isn't really worth it as there is no "real" endgame that incentivises you to spend and dupes are generally not really much of an upgrade, weapon banner is gated by character pulls and subsequently not something you can focus on, building characters is a one-and-done kinda task so people dont keep farming RNG equipment...
Mind you, I'm not saying all of this is bad, but I feel people who are used to Hoyo games, Wuwa and so on have a different set of expectations nowadays. If I wasn't so into the lore and visual design I'd probably lose interest too, tbh. However, some of the ideas it has are so amazing that I want to see where it goes eventually.
I'm really rooting for endfield, it is very different from the other big gachas and the art, visual and sound design is too peak in that game, also the story keeps getting better so think they will do good in the long run.
AKE is in a weird spot indeed. From my point, it looks like for the hoyo crowd or "general audience" the game isn't hoyo enough (can't climb and fly everywhere, gacha rules are unfamiliar etc), but for AK crowd the game strays too far towards hoyo formula and abandoned a lto fo things people like in AK (all characters are limited, weapon gacha, massive downgrade in character designs and story, no permanent replayable content, too many chores, no automation etc).
Latest couple of patches started improving story a bit and devs promised IS-like gamemode in the future, but IMO the game still stuck in the limbo where it's not overly appealing to either crowd and devs seem lost on what they want their game to be.
There's little powercreep, Laevatain is still a very strong unit, Gilberta is still goated, Pogranichnik is still goated...
Which is why I'm wondering if it's part of their plan. Are they satisfied with the revenue and think they don't need more? Revenue isn't a healthy metric in any case.
This, as a f2p i have almost every character in the game with signature weapon, i have all my 3 teams with maxed builds and maxed weapon essences, i can steam-roll the "endgame" without dupes or rng, so the game is basically waiting for a new update, quest+exploration and wait for a new update
AKE is a case of them making a game, filling it with live-service chores, and forgetting that live service means more than chores.
It has some good elements. However, everything good about that game is a one-and-done. Daily, repeatable experience is most dull out of anything on the market, aside from things like AFK or full auto HSR.
you dont even need to spend stamina in AKE to complete the daily and takes two day to max.
you dont even need to log everyday since the game let you save three days worth of daily
the only extra is the stock market, which can be done every three days, but every game has an extra that you have to do, like all the weekly boring mode AKE doesnt have
Spending stamina is still a daily upkeep. Larp is the thing people say when they have no argument. I quit yes but I played and did all the daily activities like deliveries, buying stuff from other players ships and what not.
every game has an extra that you have to do, like all the weekly boring mode AKE doesnt have
Well since this thread was about open worlds. Genshin has no weekly modes and EXACTLY ONE daily upkeep. Spending stamina, that's it. A genshin daily can take less than 30 secs.
Nah bro I play 4 other gachas and spend in all of them. I play NTE as well don’t act like a victim. The story sucked for 6 months. NTE blows AkE out of the park when it comes to story and its newer.
The only thing carrying AKE is the artstyle right now.
I mean gameplay wise you can beat it with 3* but like gacha wise? i don't think it's any better than any other games out there lmao. That and the powercreep.
I respect their decision to not bring hoyo multiple copy character and instead bring their 2d gacha counterpart for their system. I respect their way to different themself from any gacha game in industry but NGL the game just make misstep in their early launch.
mid story for launch game are expected but they make them boring with amnesiac trope and crazy glaze that I never saw in prologue and first chapter of any gacha game. they also make tedious factory tutorial that not blend well with story. I prefer they just drop all factory mechanic all at once than drip them slowly with game story. It just not fun and the I'm forget what the tutorial told me how to do because they throw me to story again. Just let me immediately build my factory.
they also make controversial gacha monetization with not bringing pity to their next banner. I mean you could getting unit as F2P with guarantee was good but waiting to reach 120 with gacha game that have limited roaster and that also not help with how they gatekeep them behind gacha was not fun. especially with fear to get nothing and cannot carry anything from their gacha. you have limited change to play more unit and try the game at fullest potential. this only apply to earrly games when you are not abble to get 120 pulls but people stop playing the game at that point too, having realization that your pity not carry over also make them could quit the game and I saw them not once or twice.
NGL im not even interested if arknight are not in their name. I'm okay with how they try to differ from well known formula but I will not say that what they do are good or revolutionary either. having damn dead patch just months after the lauch also not help and that also their own fault too. the competition are fierce in gacha space and they are trying to course correct to early in my opinion. I mean this game are in development longer than any gacha game and having dead patch was crazy. what the fuck did those beta tester give feedback to developer that make the problem just arrive when we get release game. really bizarre way to fumble hyped game of 2026 (at least in gacha space)
I just hope theese companies dont answer to stakeholder that demand certain revenue and/or growth.
live service game axed due to not making revenue is understandable but axed because game cant reach certain line/target revenue demanded by suits is the sad one.
HG is not a publicly traded company so you don't have to worry about that too much. They outlined their vision in Gamescom and they will most likely stick to it.
End Field is fine to be honest. The game is actually not doing that poorly for a 1 banner filler-patch month. Revenue has started to somewhat recover after 1.4. Typhoeus reached 20th or so in CN iOS.
NTE, though, is clearly doing worse. Phase 1 banner debuting at 66th in CN iOS and 32th in JP iOS, with no clear reason other than people not being satisfied with the quality of the content. Effort was put into the latest patch (story-wise, at least), but it translated into nothing.
I played NTE for a month when it released and liked it well enough but eventually lost interest. I feel like this is the phenomenon we might be seeing now, the game slowly loses its "shiny new thing" luster and the core playerbase is what remains. It still does well overall, so I wouldn't be worried about its continued existence, but I don't think it will be a top 5 chart contender outside of possibly anniversary patches down the line.
AKE is weird, because the revenue has been comparatively low (compared to its release rev) for a while now. Again, more than enough to continue as is, and I also didn't expect Tyhp's patch to do amazing numbers, but similar to NTE we have reached a baseline that makes it obvious that it won't be a "Genshin killer" (which is fine, imo). With Si's patch in the near future we'll probably see a spike again as well.
NTE was doing basically the same in July and August in terms of mobile revenue and concurrent Steam players. Since then, there has been about a 25% drop-off in comparable Steam players (I imagine that's in large part because the events were not well received), but I don't think that's what's explaining the revenue drop here.
I think Blackbird isn't very profitable because she's right after Linko, and tons of people skipped Linko. Combine that with basically 20 free pulls this update, and it's extremely easy to get Blackbird for free. Then add on to the fact that Blackbird has Instant Cycle without any dupes, and I think I know why her banner didn't break the bank.
We also need to remember many whales of other games who also play AKE don't really feel motivated to spend much in AKE, because there are no impactful power spikes in any dupes for any character. And with just battlepass and monthly, you can literally get all characters if you 100% the game, unless your lucky is really rotten.
Most whales are more motivated to spend for power spikes instead of cosmetics or a nice profile decoration. So just because its revenue is not stellar compared to other games doesn't tell the whole story on the state of the game other than, its revenue.
Source: I'm a whale for a number of games and have a number of whale friends. And we all play AKE.
I'd say HG is banking on a good stable income from Endfield rather than income spikes. Pretty much converting players into monthly+premium battlepass light spenders rather than just have a small pop with high ARPU(whales).
A lot of us will stop buying the BP when we get all the characters to max level in like two patches, though. And the monthly is comparatively worse in Endfield in terms of pull currency (and the extra 40 Stamina a day will also be mostly worthless when all of the characters are maxed out).
Honestly, not really sure what HG was thinking with some of these systems, monetization wise.
You bring up a pretty good point, imo. The way Endfield is currently designed maxxing characters is rather easy and even now we are reaching a point where day 1 players (or dedicated spenders) can have most or even all of their roster maxxed out. Heck, I spend most of my stamina on money I don't need, because the cost of maxxing a character is rather low.
The only time/stamina sink are essences to max weapons, but even those have a rather clear end goal you can reach in a week. Even pulling every new character each patch doesn't put much of a dint into your resources if you have played for a while - in similar gachas it takes years to reach that point.
I won't say that RNG equipment farming would be better, because I know and understand why many people hate that part, but account progression feels rather quick and impersonal at the moment.
This is very much the expectations of whales from other genres coming into Endfield. This is exactly how Arknights gacha works and us whales in Arknights still whale for max pot. At the end of the day, HG picked balance over rubbish game design like other gachas probably because their long term vision exactly includes stuff like an IS equivalent that they will want whales to be able to have fun with as well.
If Arknights had huge damage increases on it's potential gains, the entire game would be a complete mess and pointless to whales because none of even the difficult end game modes would matter if you had units 100% or 200% stronger than they are now.
Genshin is its own thing and has huge following of casual players, meanwhile it feels that other games have same-ish audience that just moves from one thing to another.
And it makes sense they are going for more niche (base building or city activities), since it might attract some players who never tried those things before.
It the same old story where all these clones barely changing anything from the artstyle down to the gameplay, it just end up being inferior copy to the original.
Endfield is enjoyable to me and it's a great side game. Endfield does not demand constant attention and gameplay is fun. Combat is smooth. Factory is okay. I try myself and get stuff setup realize it's okay then eventually use someone's blueprints. It gave enough to enjoy it as a side game.
NTE just feels clunky. Going from Wuwa combat and AKE combat felt jarring and the whole GTA Gacha gimmick wasn't enough to keep it a side game.
I would say market saturation is also pretty a decent factor.
NTE is my side game. Its fun for me in small doses but there isn't a ton of content to make it an every day main game. AKE - I love the look and setting but the factory is just not my cup of tea. Both games are still making a lot of money even if they aren't at the top of these lists. Those lists are also mobile only - and I think NTE and AKE get most of their money from console and PC.
The factory was off-putting at first but became enjoyable doing the tutorials and giving it an honest try thinking it was good enough. Could make mats to gear up etc at an okay to me pace.
Then had fun looking up blueprints and laughing at how hilariously bad I am at factories and being amazed at what people thought and setup.
I certainly don't begrudge anyone that enjoys it - have at it!! I tried to get past it cause I liked most everything else but it just always felt like a chore.
Yeah same boat, NTE combat just doesn't feel smooth. I narrowed it down to there is no energy regen stat, esper cycle boost stat and every move seems to spread mobs apart. Making rotations akward.
Yes AK:E is good for me as well, I appreciate I don't have to baby sit it so much during the week, I can easily clear my dailies while I wait for my coffee before arriving at work (literally just crusing menus in diijang) and then I can spend a few hours through out the month on weekends to clear the event and story content, idk it's quite nice for full time workers who want to play other games.
Different strokes I suppose. When I go back to Genshin from NTE, Genshin feels clunky and slow af. NTE is fast and snappy and has lots of combos that you set up so a character finishes their attack while you’re already on another character.
I also really enjoy the story and I think all of their characters are very well written. They don’t feel one-dimensional. They all have multiple aspects to their personalities which I enjoy. Which we get to see because the bond system is awesome and you can run into them in the open world. Genshin does a lot of one personality trait per character and they lean into that one thing too much.
NTE took over as my main game but Genshin’s greed was pushing me out already.
same, at least compared to og arknights it's not as demanding, might be bad for "retention" but it's honestly a great side game that i can comfortably not play for a few weeks and still get most of the rewards
It doesnt help that they all reheat the big games' nachos over and over. The market is dying for a game with an honest 50/50 ratio that doesnt diverge into a waifu sim. Nope, here comes Silver Palace with the exact same thing everyone else is doing.
To me that just seems like a sign that these companies have access to a lot more in depth data than just this chart and make their decisions based on those data instead. Like Silver Paalace is looking to be a very action heavy game like Wuwa or ZZZ is. The playerbase is likely to be 80-20 male to female and heavily PC based. Makes sense why most of their characters are female.Â
endfield is in a position where they clearly tried to grab Genshin and wuwa's fanbase with the heavy frontloaded fanservice and story presentation, while trying to reel in og arknights by serving them alternate versions of some popular characters and try to add a touch of originality with a factory system that ended too simple because it's a gaca game in the end. in the end, they turned off a lot of people on all fronts while arknights stayed gained in popularity
now, personally I don't think it's doing bad even in terms of vision, but there definiely is a rift between the different parts of the playerbase for the perceived "trend-chasing over staying true to Arknights"
I also think something many forget is that early in gacha tribalism in China, Honkai fans and Arknights players were beefing in NGA all the time. now toxicity is the norm globally and Endfield has a pretty rough start for a game that had years to observe and learn from their first game's own early months fuckups, which doesn't help its case lol
reminded me of mmorpg rush too, everyone want to follow wow and dreaming can made wow level of success only to dies one by one because the market saturated too much
I think for NTE, a large part of it is it's just too easy to get chars and weapons without spending, so the fons gacha boxes are what makes them a good chunk of money from the whales too. Issue is the fons gacha boxes recently are a bit meh with a kinda useless water vehicle and then this recent one which is just 2 more porsches which doesn't have any extra skins like the first one did. I'm not really complaining ofc because I can keep getting chars and sigs every patch easily without much worry, but I wonder if they will add more methods of monetization in the future
Yeah I’m with you in that I’m not complaining about it haha. I actually do spend every now and then on their character dice and a little on the arc keys. I’d never do that in any other game ever (only ever done Welkin and some BP before) but the discount compared to buying Annilith is so good. And with no 50/50 it’s even higher value in terms of pulls to getting the character ratio. Plus I VPN to Japan for yen so it’s cheaper.
If they want me to spend on outfits, I need Chaos to get one where he isn’t covered head to toe :/ and if they want me to pull on mystery boxes then I’m going to need less filler items and better stuff than a Porsche. I don’t care about the vehicles.
it takes the worst aspects of zzz and wuwa and smushes them into one so i'm not surprised, there's some cute qol in there but if you don't have either a good story or fun combat at least personally you've already lost me
To be fair AKE is in a niche in itself considering its major gameplay point is the factory building and optimization which a lot of people dont want to bother doing. NTE had the potential with its no 50/50 and a truly open world urban setting. What turned NTE away from a lot of people though was the AI stuff as well as what seems to be just bad storytelling in general.
I feel like the main reason people keep going back to games like HSR, Genshin, and Wuwa for open world is because these new games are shiny little toys with a story or lore that doesnt call to us like HSR and Genshin, or truly captivating gameplay yet simple like WuWa.
I am holding out for Silver Palace though as they seem to be genuinely cooking with what they have.
Can you explain to me the non-gacha model? The last few stuff i saw of anata i see gacha farming or i was wrong? Is a classic single player game or not?
characters is free and obtainable via story and gameplay
their monetisastion is direct purchase skin and gacha skin, and it will be expensive one. from the leaks it will follow where winds meet.
the direct ourchase skin will be priced $1-25$ usd but the gacha.... iirc it can cost up to $400 usd.
Not to mention IF Ananta will have "look at me i am leviathan" vanity items like where winds meet, for example in WWM there is a boat you can craft and turn it into your OWN social hub and announced to entire server but it cost up to $40k usd , yes 40,000 i am not joking
Not just that. It's gonna peak at launch from casuals checking it out because "anime GTA", then drop like a brick when those casuals find out how Chinese censorship works. Their main audience is gonna be people that dropped NTE or the niche of anime fans that don't like GTA's adult content.
The issue with the pivot away from gacha is the game become more grind (time consuming) or/and force pvp, which drive away the huge gacha audience since its mostly casuals and introverts. So Ananta will end up competing directly with every other live service game from GTA, Fortnite to Call all of Duty instead of attracting the gacha audience since it want to be a main game instead of side game like gachas.
The advantage of being a gacha is they can survive as side games, so people always come back as it is not fighting for ur time, like u can manage a live service game and a gacha but u cant manage 2 live service games
nte simply is unpolished, clunky and boring to play. The combat is unpolished and the game is riddles with low effort slop minigames where you can only use your mc and not the char you pull for. the story is mid at best too.
Gachas que abraçam todos os públicos estão no topo, vou dá um exemplo com NTE e ZZz eu adorei no inÃcio só que aos poucos eu senti que o jogo começou a ir para um lado de agradar só um tipo de público e esse público e extremamente tóxico com quem não tem os mesmos gostos que eles. Muita gente acaba saindo do jogo porque a empresa só que agradar um tipo de gente.
true. I craved for more open world games years ago but since last year i am basically done, as Genshin/Wuwa (And WWM which i dropped) already delivered fully. Any next open world gacha need to have something vastly different for me to commit.
It's not saturated, those games just brought nothing new to the table.
The driving physics in NTE is embarassing.
The factory in endfield is just a daily currency generator with extra steps.
There is basically Genshin, and then there is a market for Genshin clones, and wuwa being more established, is saturating the genshin clones space.
The open world space is absolutely not saturated, Chinese developers however don't understand how to make open world games and only slap it in as a selling point. Even Genshin open world is pretty lame compared to the greats like MGSV, GTA, Dragon's Dogma, Skyrim etc. where there is lots of stuff to actually do out there beyond treasure hunting.
The only actually good open world game from Chinese developers beyond Snezhnaya right now I'd say is WWM.
It pretty much is in the eyes of the consumer. Or at least it seems to fill the same niche.
Open world, four character squad, run around collecting treasure and resources, grandiose sights etc.
It's not different enough.
What AKE needs are two things:
The factory needs a long term flagship project released every year for you to build. Ie. A bike, a car, a jeep, a helicopter, a train, a mech etc. that you can ride, drive, or pilot, along with interactables in the environment such as generating gravel and ashphalt to build roads and tracks. You are supposed to be able to terraform a planet.
Actual space gameplay. I don't want to watch a cutscene when my ship moves around, I want to pilot it and go through a 200 step process to get the ship moving.
Actual strategy elements. The penguin is literally the ceo running moot errands, what the game needs is for the endmin to be sitting in her ship and delegating player squads to different tasks on the surface to collect materials and clearing camps instead, and they should only come down for major tasks as a cumulation of that. You should see your deployed characters in the open world performing tasks too.
Those things would actually set Endfield apart but as things stand, even if AKE is not that much like Genshin, it is still 100% a Genshin clone category game in the eyes of the majority of consumers.
The open world space is absolutely not saturated, Chinese developers however don't understand how to make open world games and only slap it in as a selling point. Even Genshin open world is pretty lame compared to the greats like MGSV, GTA, Dragon's Dogma, Skyrim etc. where there is lots of stuff to actually do out there beyond treasure hunting.
This is why I keep telling people they're going to keep being disappointed if they keep expecting something new from Chinese open world games, western devs already mastered those a decade ago, these gacha open world games are only a surprise to the most casual of gamers.Â
Surprisingly, NTE and AKE , as of right now, seem pretty unoptimized compared to their release,on mobile
Especially AKE , shit was looking like wuwa and playing like genshin in mobile, but now in the new snow region , it kinda lags a bit and struggles to get constant 60 fps ,whereas genhsin is constantlu smooth af.
It's still works great in my PC tho, but mobile optimizations have definitely gone down for both of them.
Ake is a pc game more than a phone one with the factory and all so you won't see that money here but as a new player (started in late July) I've been spending the last week in agonising wait over the next content patch/character. And it's still two weeks before it drops! Last patch (talking about whole September) had a couple good events but they took so little time to finish and the endgame loop is very boring imho and not that rewarding. I'm a spender on this game, because I really like it and I love there's no rng grind for equip and stuff but boy, once I'm done exploring the world, collecting chests and mats, what am I supposed to do? Good thing they release surveys very often. Yesterday we got another one, let's hope for the best...
I think the developers need to change the open-world format because if you've played Genshin, you've played all of these games since they follow the same rules.
I honestly really like NTE, characters are interesting, the vibe is right but I just can’t commit that much to a new open world gacha. It’s like you say. Also, these games are so big, it’s hard to know what to keep for mobile users with limited space on there devices.
NTE is mostly PC/console, as stated many times by the devs. They never do super well on these charts. They announced they made $300 million total a month ago. They're doing fine... making shit tons of money compared to how much they spent. Lots of AAA games dream of making $300 million in a few months.
That being said, spending is going down a bit probably because everyone's realizing the endgame mode is still stupid easy 4 patches in. There's not much incentive for anyone to spend some $ on awakenings when you can faceroll the one permanent endgame mode and beat the timer by several minutes, with full A0 teams that's easy for everyone to build f2p since no 50/50s.
That and the outfits/blind boxes we're kinda meh lately, last month was a stupid jetski you'll like never use day to day. I don't think many splurged for that. And outfits haven't been as spicy as I was hoping for, especially Blackbird's are surprisingly covered up and mid.
tldr; open world gacha bad, not gonna get much better
If your game is similar to the ones that already exist on the market, doesn't do much (or at all) better than the already existing competition, doesn't fix the problems of the already existing competition while bringing some new ones, why bother?
One would think that the exact story that has happened with FPS games, and then with RTS games, and then with MMORPGs, and then with FPS games again, and then with card games, and then with MOBAs, and then with open-world survival games with crafting, and then with battle royales would have taught SOMEBODY something about shitting out the same thing over and over into a market that already has plenty of choice in the category, but I guess we haven't quite learned enough yet.
And they aren't gonna be successfully capturing a more 'main-line' gaming audience that isn't already into gachas because let's be honest here, most of these games don't have anywhere enough stuff to do on a day-to-day basis to really sustain this kind of gaming.
Not for long term, anyway. You aren't gonna capture hardcore nerds when your entire product is designed around 10 minutes per day of meaningful (citation needed) gameplay.
How many of the bigger streamers that were jerking off to WuWa around Rinascita/Septimont still play on a regular? I'd be shocked if it was more than 20%, MAYBE 30%. Cause what do you even do there? Outside of raging at gacha, soy-facing to how pretty and 'cinema' everything is and cooming to the next set of pretty tits/ass/feet/armpits/whatever else? God knows you don't have to play a gacha if all you want is hot characters, that isn't exactly hard to find in games.
Hell, look at the content creators. Pretty much all gacha channels I've seen do one of these, sometimes more than one at once :
1) Shit on whatever other game(s) they dislike
2) Jerk off whatever they're playing
3) Farm drama by reacting to other channels
4) Farm drama by creating content for other channels to react to
5) Reviews of new units/quests, reminiscing about why old units are dogshit, and MAYBE a guide here and there, but realistically how often can you do that if your content schedule is regular?
You sure as hell aren't gonna get many challenge runs or 'Can you beat X while Y' when most of the non-endgame content in these games is balanced around advanced traumatic brain damage. So it's neither a challenge nor would it be particularily interesting, unless the CC is unbelieveably charismatic.
If all I have to look forward to in my game, once I catch up with all the content (which will happen very quickly if you really are enjoying the game that much, unless said game is like 10 years old and you're not skipping anything) is burning off my energy on resources I don't need, and once-a-month endgame that gets progressively more obnoxious they longer I dare to not cought up cash for a new unit, why the fuck would I bother?
And if I dare to quit or take a break, in a couple months I risk being unable to complete the content I am interested in, through absolutely no fault of my own. Even more so if my best teams were already getting rough around the edges. 20 free pulls and a free 5* that got powercrept before I started playing ain't gonna move the needle much unless I happen to single-pull all characters for a meta team, but good luck with that.
I unironically may have to return to the first GFL or F/GO if I want to play a gacha worth my time. Or, idk, give LADS a go or something.
At least when you get pounded in LADS it's meant for your pleasure.
For me, NTE biggest problem is that they're repeating the same mistakes they were doing in ToF.
It's another game where there's barely any male characters, which once again makes me wonder why even have them...it has like only 3 5* males compared to....15 or so 5* females...
Not to mention they're selling AI skins for 30-50$...
Just because something is open world doesn't mean that they compete for the same market. AKE is more towards factory building and semi-action combat. So it's already not in the same market as Genshin and WuWa that are more to true open world exploration (can climb) and true action combat.
Also, despite what their fans say, AKE's gacha system sucks and it pushes away players especially new ones.
NTE while having the same action combat, their genre is urban fantasy. So for those that don't want this and want fantasy...you get the idea. You also have to factor that it having no 50/50 means that spending on it would be much lesser. F2P truly is eating good in that game.
If we want to see whether the open world market is truly closed off, we have to wait till January where Silver Palace and Ananta comes out.
Although my prediction would be that these two would still not be able to dethrone Genshin due to not being in the same genre and their different gacha system (SP supposedly the same as AKE and Ananta is just cosmetic gacha).
SP and Ananta would most likely compete with NTE and WuWa than Genshin.
Ananta sadly wont be covered here since its not gacha by the subreddit standard. I do wonder if it will NTE playerbase though considering overalaping game theme
Silver Palace might suffer from gacha pushback too, there is some drama surrounding the gacha on last beta test though idk if its genuine criticism or viral doomposting
Nah, I waited for NTE for a long time. I thought it was going to be an open world game that catered to all kinds of players, but it really doesn’t feel like that. They push the dating aspect down your throat, and the sexualisation of the female characters is so blatant, even with some of the younger characters ðŸ˜. They even made an app where people can post images, and it’s constantly full of the female characters half naked because of peoples mods ðŸ˜. Then their minigames will randomly have the camera shoot up an Npcs ass like… what?
The difference in how they treat the male and female characters is also crazy. You can’t do certain interactions with the male characters, like holding hands or inviting them to your apartment to level up your tycoon level, while the female characters get those kinds of interactions. You can also see it in the way they dress and present the characters. It just makes it really obvious that the game is catering much more heavily to a male audience.
And honestly, even though I have zero interest in that kind of fanservice myself, it still feels weird as a woman to see the female audience treated like an afterthought. I’m not asking for the male characters to be sexualised either ðŸ˜. I don’t want gooner content for either side. I just want to enjoy the open world, have cute characters, collect pretty skins and actually feel like the game is made for people beyond that specific audience.
That’s why NTE feels kinda icky to me. It’s just not very mainstream friendly when so much of the game seems built around that kind of appeal. I don’t think it’ll have the same broad appeal as Genshin, which plays things a lot safer and feels more accessible to people who might not even know much about anime games or gachas.
Even ZZZ leans pretty heavily into fanservice for the male audience, and I think that naturally limits its appeal compared to Genshin or HSR, even though they’re from the same company.
And honestly....I think they’re also underestimating female players. If they want to make games that cater heavily to a specific audience, fair enough, but female players clearly spend a lot when a game actually gives them something they’re interested in. Just look at Love and Deepspace ðŸ˜. Those women were spending MONEY(until the devs decided to kill their own game 💀)
I just wish NTE would let me enjoy my cute characters and open world in peace without making everything about making the male audience horny ðŸ˜. Also, the NTE story is kinda mid
Crazy that we're calling the open world gacha genre as saturated already when there's only Genshin and WuWa. That's like saying MMOs is a saturated genre because WoW and FF14 exists. Some genre isn't even as big as Genshin peak playerbase. Is there even other gaming genre that have as big as a market as open world gacha that is controlled by a duopoly?
What I'm saying is, both AKE and NtE are just unappealing game. No way two games comes out and all of a sudden, it's already saturated.
For me at least i'm just giving AKE a year to cook. HSR and Zenless were a bit wobbly after 1.0 but sorted themselves out by their 2.0s. Figure AKE will do the same.
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u/alxanta NIKKE 6h ago edited 6h ago
AKE and NTE made me wonder if we already reached market saturation in open world gacha games
as in GI and Wuwa already captured most potential player market and too invested to move to other games considering how time consuming to main more than 1 open world gacha. the big launch crowd simply return to their game before and only handful stay/convert to the new game loyal player while not much "fresh player" (never play gacha open world before) remains to capture