Infinity Nikki captured a large number of players when it was first released, but its arrival on Steam hasn’t been met with the same level of success. A big part of this shift is due to changes that were made to the game around the same time, which left a lot of players unhappy. These changes included increasing the number of items that some sets have, which makes them more difficult and expensive to get, changing the cost of items in the shop, and—most atrociously—changing the story by swapping out the original opening sequence with Nikki starting in the Sea of Stars before being sent right to the Stylist’s Guild.
Even without these changes, it would’ve been a matter of time until player counts started to drop. The changes just accelerated the inherent problem that comes with both the live service and gacha genres. Freebies can only keep you returning for so long, and even then, I’m sure that there are players who just grab the freebies and log back off. You’ll see that big live service games like World of Warcraft have the same issue: constant drops in player counts between content updates, followed by large patches that then help bring them back up for a time. Therefore, the question turns to whether or not Infinity Nikki is able to release content that’s enough to bring players back.
An Already Lacking Story Has Grown Worse
One complaint that comes up often in Infinity Nikki is the lack of a story for Nikki. Instead of creating a patch that continues adding onto the mystery about Nikki that you used to see in the beginning, the developers removed the story portion of the beginning to just plop you at the Stylist’s Guild and tell you to go collect some miracle outfits. It’s actually insulting that this was the response to people wanting more story for Nikki.
The open sequence that new players will no longer see when they start the game was one of the best parts of Infinity Nikki. So far, the only apology issued for patch 1.5 has been for problems that left players unable to log in and play the game, not for removing a big story element for seemingly no reason. I have to assume that this means that the developers don’t have any intention of returning to the mysteries that we were shown, so we’ll never know why Nikki’s mom had a miracle outfit in the attic or how she’s connected to Ena.
Having a mysterious story take you into the game is a great way to keep players interested, especially players who don’t plan on spending money, since there’s still content for them beyond trying to get the gacha outfits. There’s already a decent amount of time between updates that add more story, which is going to inevitably lead to a drop in numbers for the active player rbase. Now, that drop has likely been accelerated by players who play for the story instead of collecting, and they’re unlikely to return with new updates if Infinite Nikki signals that the story won’t be a focus, as there’s no longer a reason for them to come back without the intention to get outfits, which now cost more.
When Gacha Becomes Greed(ier)
Gacha games are inherently designed to convince you to spend money through the fear of missing out on time-limited content, and it’s a tactic that’s profitable. They’re often fun at first, but even if you’re willing to spend real money on in-game items, you generally go into it with a spending limit that you set for yourself. If there’s a month where money is tight, you might avoid gacha games to keep yourself from overspending. Additionally, not every rotation of outfits will be a hit. If one rotation doesn’t resonate with the players, then it wouldn’t be strange for the active player base to drop in numbers until there’s a new rotation.
Now with patch 1.5, outfits have 11 items to be considered complete. This means that you have to pull more pieces from the gacha system to have the full outfit, and that means you need more pulls on average—not considering the random bursts of luck that let you pull what you want in just a few tries. Naturally, the end result is that outfits are more expensive.
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I’m not going to say that making money isn’t a primary goal for a gacha game, but I do think that there’s a point where a game makes changes that can only be seen as driven by greed. When green enters the picture, it’s not unusual to see many stop playing. Like the story changes, this greed accelerated the player count drop for Infinity Nikki. It probably would’ve been a longer process if outfits weren’t made more expensive, but it still seems nearly inevitable for live service games, especially gacha ones.
I loved Infinity Nikki when it first launched, and I ended up spending dozens of hours exploring the world, wondering what answers I would find to the questions that the story raises. As a result, I’m sad to see that the game has made changes that leave players upset and uncertain about the future of Nikki’s journey. It’s the kind of game that generally sees player counts dip over time, but recent changes have accelerated that drop, and those same changes are going to make it more difficult to get players to return whenever the next big update might be.
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