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.
It's the same with Endfield really, dailies take seconds. I think people who quit the game really have mistakenly internalized that the side-activities are things that you need to do daily... No they're not, it's just extra stuff that you can do if you want to.
I have not touched deliveries, photos, heck my inefficient factory even produces enough for me to buy most of the stuff you need from the weekly shop to max out the characters, You don't need to do them.
To put an analogy it would be like collecting every 1* artifact on the map daily on Genshin because it's more efficient for exp farming, no one really does that unless they want to waste time for no reason.
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.
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u/Shinnyo 6h ago
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.