I really think this type of model could work. They're more likely to buy those other games, buy FF7 merch, go see a FF7 movie, etc. The accounting then would have to acknowledge that maybe the mobile game by itself doesn't make money, but it's getting more players dedicated to this universe and funneling a lot more buyers to your other products. And they can remove some of that friction of getting from free mobile to other paid experiences. Let's imagine for a second that Ever Crisis didn't have gacha: "Oh, you liked FF7? We have a remake trilogy on consoles for $$$ a piece, a Crisis Core remake for $$, the original game for $, or a new mobile game for free and if you like one, you should check out the rest." What Square Enix is doing with Final Fantasy 7 is somewhat similar to this. My hypothesis is that we could see more of a "yes and" business model with some IP's that want to be all-encompassing entertainment companies which would include f2p mobile games that get you more attached to that world and easy access to buy more of their products. Gacha and the fortnite models will be giving diminishing returns soon if they aren't already. I feel like we're due for the next revolution in mobile gaming. Maybe they'll surprise us, but I'm already wondering how Square adjusts if these go the way of The First Soldier. There's a lot riding on Ever Crisis and Kingdom Hearts: Missing Link being hits. Even many of Square's Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest releases are ported from mobile, and players have thrown around the idea that Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis (live soon) might eventually hit the eShop in some form.Īnd while most forum discussion of Square's financials focus on XVI, phones are where they're undeniably in trouble: -18% year-over-year on mobile revenue, versus +142% on console. We see a number of "rehabilitated" mobile games on Switch: Puzzle & Dragons, Labyrinth of the Witch, a still-forthcoming port of Another Eden, etc. Mobile isn't a "sexy" topic in enthusiast circles, but I feel this question is particularly relevant now. So what are the next five years about? What is the next Special Offer, the next gacha, the next Battle Pass? If a game launches without a Battle Pass today, it's probably not long for this world. When the App Store first went live, $9.99 for Tetris was a no-brainer eight years later, everyone lost their minds over $9.99 for Super Mario Run. In 2008, in 2013, in 2018, in every era we make the mistake of assuming the future will look like the present. Opera Omnia added both a $5 Moogle Pass and a $37 Premium Pass that no one buys, Hearthstone introduced a free Rewards Track and a $20 Tavern Pass, and Shadowverse implemented free, $20 Premium, and $40 Boosted Premium Passes. Just as the premium apps of old went freemium to catch up in the early 2010s, the established F2P games adopted Battle Passes to stay competitive. Epic Seven debuted with a seasonal "Epic Pass" that could be upgraded, Mario Kart Tour launched with a $5 monthly Gold Pass, Genshin Impact arrived with the $10 Gnostic Hymn Battle Pass, $20 Gnostic Chorus BP-level-skip, and the $5 Welkin as a paid log-in bonus subscription. Opt-in subscriptions became the new focal point. It also kept a high volume of players persistently engaged. While gacha continued to coexist with it, the Battle Pass took center stage for casting a wide net instead of selecting for whales. This introduced a subscription model by making the model opt-in: do activities to level up the Pass, get rewards for leveling, pay $10 to get more rewards per level. Even Nintendo got in with Fire Emblem Heroes and Dragalia Lost.įortnite seized the world with its Battle Pass. The 95-and-5 model provided fertile ground for both browser-mobile games like Granblue Fantasy and Touken Ranbu, and dedicated apps: Brave Frontier, Shironeko Project, Fate/Grand Order, Pokémon Duel, Hearthstone, Azure Lane, Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, Shadowverse, and innumerable others. This created a world where 95% of revenue comes from In-App Purchases made by just 5% of players. Gacha selected for a handful of players with addictive personalities, that could spend a hundred thousand dollars each and carry the game for millions of freeloaders. (It bombed overseas for the same reason it succeeded at home: local co-op.) The culmination of this was the 4-player local co-op Monster Strike (pictured) which briefly became the most profitable app of all time. The first wave of gacha "social games" rewarded players for referring their friends, spreading virally over text: Rage of Bahamut, Puzzle & Dragons, Million Arthur, and Digimon Crusader. Konami's Dragon Collection popularized the "gacha" or lootbox model of selling characters as randomized rolls.
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