Post by mprosebrook in The Arcana Game comments

Viewing post in The Arcana Game comments

i only found out about this game recently by browsing the google play store and seeing the plethora of positive reviews. i played through the prologue and was really intrigued by the story, characters, and beautiful visuals, but also disheartened by all the premium scenes that require in-game currency to access. in the "free" prologue there are many scenes that are offered as premium without giving you enough starter coins to watch them. it seemed odd to me that even in their initial way to hook you into the game they would include these. i imagine this trend continues throughout the rest of the game in even more brazen fashion.

following the prologue, i wound up checking out some of the game merch through a link in the app, and noticed a note mentioning their kickstarter campaign. i went to find the kickstarter page just to read about the game development and saw that there was also a desktop version that was mentioned. seeing this, i was thrilled to play on a larger screen and got on itch.io looking to purchase the game for around $30-35 for mac/pc, as this would be my preferred method of playing. even if the mobile version content is completely free (sans premium scenes), i would rather pay a reasonable one-time amount to unlock all scenes. unfortunately, i found that nix hydra wasn't able to deliver on a pc version as promised in the kickstarter campaign, despite being more than fully funded.

reading through this thread, it appears that in order to enjoy all the content the game has to offer would cost in the hundreds of dollars. i know it's becoming increasingly popular (thanks, FarmVille) for companies to do a "freemium" model, or micro-transactions, primarily in the mobile game world (but not always.. EA, looking at you). i know games cost money to make, and companies need steady revenue to support their existing games and create new ones, however, this is an extremely unfortunate trend that, as a lifelong gamer, really breaks my heart.

in my life i've owned around 10 consoles - some handheld, some not, in addition to mac/pc. mobile gaming is really sort of a last resort for me, but i understand it is likely the most accessible to everyone. taken directly from the kickstarter page "Nix Hydra is a female-founded mobile game company making magical, colorful, bold products for young women and anyone else traditionally ignored by the gaming industry." i really feel like nix hydra has good intentions and i can tell this game is created with care. however, it doesn't sit right with me that this smaller, female-founded company is taking cues from detested, greedy media-conglomerates like EA. the "freemium" mobile model may be more accessible in some respects, however, it feels kind of.. classist. it's basically saying "yes everyone can enjoy this, but if you have more to spend you'll be able to enjoy it more". and therein lies the rub.

i'm not trying to call out nix hydra because they're doing something unusual (sadly, they are not) but i feel like they can be better than this. again, this game seems to be a labor of love, but after EA and others have left such a bad taste in my mouth from micro-transactions, i can not bring myself to play this game any further. i have family and friends who are genderqueer and would love to play a game like this. however i don't feel comfortable recommending it to them. if there were a one-time payment, full purchase option, i would happily change my mind and be likely share it with others.

Samantha Laine2 years ago (3 edits) (+12)

Thank you for this. After hearing/seeing all the flack about the freemium/premium associated costs, this has sealed the deal for me. It's not at all worth even playing through the free/prologue pieces at this point, in my opinion. I'd rather not get to know a story/lore/characters if it's just going to nickel/dime me later.

I could bring myself to agree about the intentions, perhaps, being good at one point. But at a certain point, I think that went away, and the greed kicked in. I know more than a handful of small/single (or even three-person) indie devs who haven't had such successful kickstarters, haven't had such a high number of downloads and/or sales, and/or haven't even had as much merch (if any at all) - and yet those devs haven't adopted the freemium model, and are doing just fine making their game/s and are even keeping the promises they've made (even if they take time).

I'm 100% in agreement about it being much better to pay $30-$35 for a full game than the microtransaction/freemium (greed) model. Honestly, I'm even okay with paying that for a mobile game/version, if it was all of it/complete (and didn't still have microtransactions). I'd even be okay with pay more than that for a PC version (also complete, no microtransactions). But there's neither of those options available with this game/company.

Any one of these factors are a red flag, or at least rub me the wrong way. Widely successful kickstarter (more than just funded), tons of downloads, tons of purchases made, tons of moderately-fairly-over -priced merch, unkept promises from the kickstarter, some fulfilled kickstarter promises that were given to non-kickstarter supporters first (or simultaneously), costs/premium costs already in the prologue, advertising/stating/promoting all day/everywhere as "free" despite only some of the prologue being free, premium costs for the rest of the game/storyline. Not just this, but the "nsfw" content that's locked behind a paywall is PG-13, amounting to a booty shot/teasing at most. And if you calculate how much it would be to unlock all the content - it's $500+.

Then there's the operations/actions of the company that have nothing to do with the game - absolute rudeness to fans and customers, earning strikes against (long-time/hard-earned) youtubers who were doing letsplay videos & (legit) promoting the game (not just passive playing, but were legitimately telling people to go buy/play), some of which resulted in their entire channel getting deleted (a consolation offered to one of them was a keychain from their merch). They also begged/asked for more money while dangling/threatening a lack of development for stories/characters that were assured per their campaign and unrelated/outside promises.

Further still, they currently keep pushing the "we're a mobile company, now" or "many of the people on the team weren't around then" or whatever other agenda/excuse they have for why they're not held to the original promises, subsequent promises, and/or even just reasonable price-structure, etc. This is absolutely abhorrent, and only solidifies the current team's unprofessionalism, unappreciation/disrespect, and greed. Just because the current team is not the one that assured $2/route instead of per chapter doesn't mean that they're incapable of making good on that price-structure. It's essentially the most expensive game to exist at this point, let alone the fact that it's a mobile game? AYKM? And now they're (again) further pushing their mobile game on a PC game platform? It's insulting and almost laughable, since they'll never make a PC game. Even more - they're literally just advertising their in-game stories for their Fictif app on their page - so no game from those will ever be for sale, here, never be on PC, and all are purchased within their app.

So, any one of these factors is a strike, in my book. Let alone all of these factors together? Many of these tactics are greedy, predatory, and absolutely and incredibly hypocritical for an dev company, let alone an 'indie' one. And this combination of factors just compounds upon itself. It legit does the opposite of intention and makes it so I not only don't want to play any game from this company, but I also don't want to support anything that comes from this company. Which is really unfortunate, as an avid gamer and avid indie gamer/supporter/enthusiast.