How to Destroy Your Extremely Successful Game in 1 Day - Infinity Nikki's Cataclysmic Downfall

0:00 While studying business, one thing that you're taught is the blue ocean strategy. The seemingly endless blue ocean represents a market that's never been taken advantage of. Its counterpart is the red ocean, a market that has way too many competitors and is a headache to penetrate. One of the best examples of the blue ocean strategy is what Tesla did with EVs. They seemingly created the market from thin air and then other competitors came in to try and get a piece of that pie. So now, of course, the EV market is a red ocean market, no longer a blue ocean one. For a while, people assumed that gota games were a red ocean market. I mean, why wouldn't it be? The narrative was established. Gotacha games targeted a very specific demographic, and that demographic wanted to spend an insane amount of money on very hot women. But recently, we've come

0:46 to find out that not only was this incorrect, it actually couldn't have been further from the truth. Infold came in and made us truly understand that the gotacha game industry wasn't really a red ocean market just yet. There was still potential to create a blue ocean market. And that's exactly what they did with their games. Instead of targeting the well-known male demographic that wanted to collect wives and spend way too much money on them, they targeted the female market who really liked the idea of having hot male husbands and spending way too much money on them. But targeting the female demographic didn't just end there. Infold saw very lucrative opportunities that other studios were not taking advantage of and proceeded to release their newest title, Infinity Nikki, which was a gotacha game, but at its core was a dressup game. It was an openw world game with

1:32 the goal of dressing up your character in different outfits that you loved. And they were on to something. When the game released, it received immediate success, reaching 10 million downloads on all platforms, PC, mobile, and even PS5. This is extremely impressive, even for a free-to-play game. It's ridiculous. It truly showed that there was a demographic in gotcha games that was ignored for years, and Infold was finally able to give them what they wanted. So, how the hell did they manage to go from a rating of 4.2 stars out of five on release when it came to the Google Play Store to now finding themselves at 1.8 eight with their other games like Love and Deep Space also being affected by The Crossfire, sitting at 3.3 stars out of five on the Google

2:17 Play Store as opposed to 4.2 just a couple of months prior. And let's not forget the fact that Infinity Nikki released on Steam and is now sitting at a mostly negative review. How could such a successful game that truly created a new segment in gotcha, a genre that's existed for over a decade, fall from grace so quickly and so violently? Well, there are actually many reasons and we're going to go over them together. So, uh, yeah, hope you're ready. Let's do this. Do you know what's more rare than a double rainbow? Finding a gotacha game that doesn't have a 50/50 system. You just get the character you want. Isn't that crazy? After player feedback, this is exactly what Avaria Restart did during their beta. Look, this game didn't reinvent the wheel. They took

3:03 something that already works, which is turn-based combat, and added their own twists to it. You have some really cool sci-fi looking characters and a lot of interesting synergies, not to mention a lot of cool animations, too. But the twists don't end in the combat. No, they stretch all the way over to the summoning system. One summon costs 100 gems, not 160, which is the gotacha standard. It's already way cheaper. Not to mention that when you start the game, you get a targeted summon banner, which lets you get any of the SSR characters on release in just 40 pulls. You then proceed to build these characters, giving them different gear and upgrading their stats, all in preparation to either join a guild, which there are many of. You can even create your own guild, or joining the global invitational tournament. You see, this game has PvP, but not the kind of PvP you're used to in gotacha games. This isn't pay to win. It really all comes

3:50 down to player skill. And you know what the best part about this is? This game is already out. It came out on June 5th, 2025. So, if you're interested, make sure to click the link in the description or the pinned comment and download the game today. Thank you so much, Aori Restart, for sponsoring this video. All right, so Infold has actually been around for over a decade now. The first game they've ever released was in 2012, and it was called Nikki Up to You. It was the first entry in the series of Nikki, and it was also a dressup game, although still not very wellknown at the time. Now, to be clear, the main developer for these games has always been Paper Games, a Chinese game developer. But in 2022, they launched Infold, their new international brand. 2024 was a very big year for Infold because they released two titles that truly revolutionized gotcha. One of

4:36 those games is, of course, Love in Deep Space. This game truly showed us once and for all that females are not only as horny as men when it comes to their gotacha games, but they make men look like rookies in comparison. Listen, bro. I'm not making this up, okay? Once upon a time, I streamed this game and uh let me tell you, dude, you literally get pounded. Like, literally, like, I'm not even joking. You get there are cutscenes where you're getting pounded by these male characters. All right? Like, this is this is next level. And guess what? It made more money than we could have ever imagined. Ever since its release, it has been consistently in the top three biggest revenue generators in the entire gotacha space. Look at this. It's making over $50 million a month, sometimes making 90 million, making games like Ginchin Impact, Hawkeye Star,

5:23 whatever else look like amateurs. You understand? Things were clear as day. There was a market for these games, and they wanted more. Now, look, when it comes to success in life, it's a combination of hard work and luck. In 2024, the Roblox game Dressed to Impress was absolutely blowing up. And people, whether it be male or female, were having a lot of fun dressing up their character in this goofy ass game. All of a sudden, dressup games became very mainstream. So, of course, when Infinity Nikki launched in December 2024, the idea of a dressup game went from niche to mainstream, and people were very excited about it, resulting in its massive success. Yes, even though their website got hacked with this wonderful, wholesome message telling people to uh evaporate their soul out of their body, it still managed to do great. I mean,

6:10 this was it. A cute, wholesome game in which you can just sit there and make up these awesome outfits in an openw world setting. And hey, it's free. What else is there to ask for? And the gotacha aspect of this game wasn't related to characters. It was related to outfits, or at least outfit pieces. And these were some of the outfits that you could earn through gacha pulls. The community absolutely fell in love with them. And speaking of community, they quickly took on the reputation of being wholesome and generous. Their positivity was seen as a beacon of hope in the midst of all the gotacha drama that goes on 24/7 with people comparing their favorite game versus someone else's favorite game. At this point, it was hard to think that anything could go wrong. Infold was on a roll until they weren't. While the game did enjoy a lot of players, the revenue wasn't really reflecting its success.

6:56 From December 2024 to January 2025, it made 50% of its revenue both in the Chinese markets and in the Western markets combined. This downwards trend would continue from January to February and wouldn't really recover by March. It certainly wasn't making as much revenue as a game like Love in Deep Space, and Red Flags started popping up until a nuclear eruption took place. Steam is easily one of the best reasons to ever become a PC gamer. Valve has proven time and time again that they are the only people to be trusted running a platform like this. There's a reason why it has so many people using it every single day. So, of course, getting your game on this platform is a big deal because not everyone is willing to download your custom launcher. There are many PC gamers who prefer to have everything in their Steam library, and if it's not the case, it's a dealbreaker. Seeing that

7:42 revenue was on the downwards trend, Infinity Nikki was on the hunt for new players. So, launching on Steam was an easy way to do that. Now, look, usually paid games before releasing have pre-orders. That helps a company understand how much demand there is for the game if the marketing is effective and brings in some muchneeded cash before the game's release date. With Gotacha games, though, seeing that they're free to play, they have something called pre-registration. If you make an account on their website, you pre-register, and if they meet pre-registration goals, as you can see here, you get rewards for each tier. Every single gotacha game does this because it helps drive hype in anticipation of its release date. But there's no such thing as pre-registering on Steam. What there is, though, is the ability to wishlist a game you want to have, and you can do that for games that haven't released yet. So, Infinity Nikki went ahead and set goals like they would

8:28 in a pre-registration, but this time they'd be tied to the Steam wish lists. And as you can see, there was four different tiers here. The first one being 10,000 wish lists, and it gives you a live wallpaper. The second one being 50,000 wish lists and it gives you concept art. The third goal is 100,000 wish lists and gives you a bunch of resonance crystals. Now, what are resonance crystals? Well, this is the gotcha currency you need to wish or gamble and get new outfit pieces. There are two types of banners that you can wish on in the game. The first one being a limited banner. This only comes in for like 2 to 3 weeks and you need revelation crystals for it. The other banner is a permanent banner. It never leaves. And for this you need resonance crystals. So 100,000 wish list was showing resonance crystals. Awesome. But the fourth and final goal being at

9:14 200,000 wish lists was the final surprise. Showing a shape of a gotacha currency. People assumed that this one would be the revelation crystal. what you need to pull on the limited banner, which is probably the most important currency in the game. This only made sense because 200,000 was double the last goal, and the last goal was going to give you Resonite Crystals anyway. So, of course, seeing that this community is very wholesome and tight-knit, they went ahead and wishlisted the hell out of this game on Steam, even though many of them already had the launcher. They reached 100,000, and then they managed to reach 200,000. But then they noticed something weird. The official Infinity Nikki account completely changed the image. It went from this with the fourth and final image potentially looking like a revelation crystal to it just being a

10:01 chest of resonite crystals like the third one. So in the first image, the 100,000 wishless skull had 11 resonite crystals in the chest. And people were assuming they were either going to get more resonite crystals on the fourth wishlist goal or revelation crystals. The image completely changed that and instead of having 11 resonite crystals in the third goal, they switched it to two, which is exactly what they ended up getting. And then the final surprise, the 200,000 wish list goal contained a chest of eight crystals. So in total, they got 10 resonite crystals when in reality they should have gotten 11 just for the third goal. People were obviously outraged here. Like, what? Why are you being so stingy over something so stupid? Like over 10 pulls? Really? It's as if they were giving away real crystals. Like what the hell was going on? The post celebrating 200,000 wish lists on Steam from Infinity Nikki with

10:47 this changed image had a hundred replies and none of them were really happy. And after sufficient community backlash, they finally quote tweeted that tweet and said, "You know what, guys? We're going to give you 10 Revelation crystals. Thank you so much for being such amazing fans." This led many people to believe that they were hoping that the community wouldn't notice, but when they did, they ended up giving them the rewards they were meant to have in the first place. Anyway, so look, this might seem like a small incident to you, but so far this game has been nothing but perfect. You have to understand that this was the first instance in which they did something so weird, so scummy, and in which they played with their community's trust. But hey, listen, the community, as I said, is wholesome. They were willing to get past this and get back to the game they loved. Unfortunately though, this was only the beginning for Infold's absolute roller

11:32 coaster ride down to hell. So, look, one thing you have to understand is that the release on Steam was going to coincide with a massive update, which was the 1.5 update. This had features the community was very excited about, like a co-op mode. Before this, you weren't really able to play with other players. Your world only had you. But in 1.5, you were going to be able to play with a friend, exploring the world together, and showing off your outfits. Additionally, there was going to be a full-fledged dye system. Before this, each outfit had like two or three colors that you could pull using the gotacha mechanic. But here, you had a seemingly endless amount of colors with their different palettes, capable of drastically changing any outfit you own. I can't really overstate just how excited the community was about dying. In fact, Infinity Nikki had hyped the hell out of it by releasing an event

12:19 in 1.4 called Caring for the Bulket or Bulquit or whatever. You can make fun of me in the comments for my spelling. This event had you collect different plants, fruits, and shellfish in the open world so that you can combine them in order to create different dyes. You then tested all those different dyes on the bulket. Players loved this event, trying to figure out all the different combinations and collected a gazillion of these materials in anticipation for the 1.5 update so that they can dye their outfits. April 28th was going to be the game's release date on Steam, and 1.5 would follow. This was going to be a new chapter in this game's history that would change everything. And it did indeed change everything except everything for the worst. And players were completely blindsided by this. You see, prior to the 1.5 update, when you

13:06 would launch the game and play through the tutorial, it would show you the backstory. Nikki is preparing for her prom. So, she goes to her attic, opens the closet, and finds one of her mother's old dresses. That dress turns out to be breathtaking. And for whatever reason, it starts dancing with Nikki all of a sudden. After some short dance moves, the dress puts itself on Nikki and transports her to another world. In this world, she meets a goddess that looks really cool, by the way, who tells her that she used to know her mother a long time ago and that now she has to save this world by collecting all the different miracle outfits. So, even if you weren't a story player or someone who necessarily cares about lore, this intro still managed to somehow captivate you to reel you into this new world that you just found yourself in. Not to mention, this isn't generic in any way. It's not the typical gotacha story. It's original and beautiful and leaves you

13:52 with just enough questions to keep going. However, when old players launched the game after the 1.5 update, they were met with this cutscene. It was also sudden. There was no prior warning and they were like, "What the hell's going on?" They were met with this new strange character that they had never met before talking to them about how they're a goddess or whatever. And then they found themselves doing another tutorial even though they've been playing the game for a long time. People were wondering, "What the hell is this? Some kind of prank? What's going on here? Well, it turned out that the whole story changed. Okay, it was retconed. That's the term. It was retconed and everything you've known beforehand didn't matter anymore. There was no dress in the attic. Your mother, who cares about her? You having to save the world? We don't know why. You're just a goddess or whatever. And uh yeah, just go do you. Like nothing made sense.

14:38 Players were absolutely baffled. Why would you change such a perfect story? It didn't make any sense. Here are some comparisons. Right, you start in the attic in the old one. In the new one, you just start somewhere unknown. You have no idea where you're at. Anna, that woman with the white hair that you meet in chains in the first intro who was your mother's friend, just appears randomly like with no cool cut scene or whatever in the second new intro. This is also without mentioning the fact that it just looked uglier, almost like it was rushed for whatever reason. Some people had the theory that Infold did this to make co-op mode make sense lore-wise since the new tutorial had an emphasis on different worlds. But seriously, how stupid is that? No one needs lore or a justification as to why you can play with your friend. No one asked for this. There was no one who saw this new tutorial and thought, "Man, I'm really glad they did this. If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And they just

15:25 broke it in the process of trying to fix something that didn't need fixing. This is without us going into detail about how they butchered some beloved side characters by retconing the story. One character that was beloved by the community, because of course, most of them are female, is Giovani, this dreamy looking fellow right here. The story being retconed made his whole story not really make much sense anymore, which is wonderful news to many players who play the game. Now, you might be thinking, "Okay, I get it. I get why Infinity and Nikki players are so pissed. I'd be pissed, too." But buddy, we're not even halfway through this mess yet, so hold your horses. Things are about to get way worse. Look, if you play gacha games, you know how the gacha system works. You pull on the banner of a character you want using either the currency you earn in game or one that you buy in the store. You can get really lucky initially and get what you want, or you can get really unlucky, but not too unlucky because there's a pity system

16:10 that limits how unlucky you can get before giving you what you want. If you want to go the extra mile, or if you're rich or just irresponsible with your money, you can usually pull for the same character multiple times, and their copies would give them more abilities, making them OP as hell. Now, based on how lucky or unlucky you are, and if we're going to assume that you're only buying the currency, not earning it in game, prices have always varied. But recently, because of pressure from the United States, Genchin was forced to show exactly how much a character would cost if you were to be lucky or the unluckiest possible. And as you can see here, it's $1.98 to $475.2. So, if you bought all your currency from the store in Genchin Impact and got extremely unlucky, reaching heart pity at 90 wishes, you would have paid $475.2. Keep that in mind. Now, in Infinity Nikki, you're not pulling for a

16:55 character. You're pulling for an outfit. But not just one outfit, not one piece. you're pulling for multiple pieces of that same outfit. Usually, a five-star limited outfit will have around 10 different pieces, so you're going to be wishing a lot. But thankfully, the chances of getting a duplicate are very low. And before the dice system was even introduced, the way you could get different colors for the outfit was to one, get the whole outfit, two, get 180 wishes, or three, get 230 wishes with each one granting you a different color. Now, look, overall, a lot of players collected currency in-game in order to get these outfits. But if you were to do this with money only, with no currency collected in game, this could amount to close to 600 USD, trying to get all the pieces of an outfit plus getting all colors, including the 230 Wish one. Even compared to other gotacha games, this was more expensive on average. So, it

17:42 comes as no surprise that when 1.5 dropped and the very hyped up limited outfit banners came out, people couldn't believe the fact that instead of having 10 pieces, these outfits had 11 pieces, which meant that you had to pull an average of 20 more times in order to get that 11th piece, making the overall banner or outfit acquisition even more expensive than it used to be. This, just like the story getting retconed, came out of nowhere with no prior communication. And speaking of no prior communication, things would only get worse in that regard. You see, the endgame content for Infinity Nikki is called Mirror Crown. Think of it like Infinity Nikki's version of Dress to Impress. You have to come up with different combinations of outfits throughout very specific challenges in order to progress. And once you did, you got currency that you could use to wish on banners. Prior to 1.5, these would

18:29 reset every 2 weeks, allowing you to get an ample amount of currency twice every month from the endgame content. When 1.5 released though, people found out that it would take three weeks for it to reset as opposed to two weeks, making it even harder to get currency without spending money, and you're over here dealing with the fact that there's an 11th piece on an outfit you want. Yeah, it's just been punch after punch to the face, but we're far from being done. The dice system that was so incredibly long awaited was a massive disappointment. Those materials that people spent a very long time farming in preparation for this system were now deemed useless. You now needed a new kind of currency that costs money in order to unlock the colors. And just as you thought that this already sucks, well, it sucks even

19:15 more because you have to unlock the color you want on each individual piece of clothing, which means you need to unlock it 11 times. 11 times. So unless you were willing to cough out hundreds of dollars on currency packs, you could kiss that sweet dream of having a functioning die system goodbye. This was especially hurtful to the players because much of these colors were named after the fruit materials that were present during the dying event. Player trust was being squandered at every second. And it was obvious much of these changes were last second. What was going on at infold for this to happen? Well, a lot of incompetence, but also potentially illegal activities. Someone had made a lengthy post on the Infinity Nikki Reddit highlighting the illegal practices that Infold was committing in their game. For example, someone looked

20:01 into the game files and found that the drop rates for different items in an outfit were not the same with the most wanted aspects of an outfit like the hairstyle and the dress itself being lower than shoes, socks, and accessories. This is not in any way, shape, or form specified in game, going against European gambling laws and also American FTC laws. At the same time, the game had these ridiculous discounts on items that didn't make any sense. For example, one item you could buy in 1.5 was a bathtub. And as you can see here, there's a discount with the original price being €49 and it being sold for €10. Dubious discounts like this are illegal by the FTC and European consumer laws. This wasn't just present in Europe. This was present in all regions.

20:46 And dubious discounts go against all consumer laws, period. People complained heavily about this and threatened legal action. So, Infold gave in. They removed the discount and miraculously it seems that the final price is $14. Wow. But listen, all these things suck so much, but they've been mostly tied to game features and monetization, right? Well, yeah. That's because we haven't talked about one of the biggest issues with 1.5, and that's the fact that it made the game almost unplayable because of bugs, like this one right [Music] here. Like, what the hell? This was not present in the game before 1.5. What happened? Or how about this one right here? The floating bike. Like, come on. How does this happen? Someone commented, "Insane. Another retcon. Nikki now literally a bodyless noclipip

21:33 entity." I should mention though that not all bugs were funny. Some people genuinely couldn't log into the game, and if they did, it would immediately just crash. But there really were a lot of funny bugs. Oh, Nikki's opening a door. Oh, the door teleported. There was even a bug in which the new character that shows up in the new intro doesn't even appear. And the person who posted it said, "Maybe the best bug in 1.5 version." Dude, people hated this new story. Actually, I think it was safe to say that people hated every single aspect of 1.5 and were hoping to go back to 1.4 at this point. It got so bad that they started threatening boycots on the Infinity Nikki official subreddit as well as the official Infinity Nikki Discord. just couldn't handle this anymore. To their surprise though,

22:20 Infold revealed their true colors and started banning or muting anyone that would say the word boycott. So, what did the community do? They uh they started using the word girlcott. This movement started quickly spreading even outside of Infinity Nikki, reaching other games from Infold like Levven Deep Space. It even got reported on by Vice and other publications because the community was doing everything they could to let the world know our game is going through the But if you thought that only Western players were participating in this girlcott, then you'd be mistaken because this even reached the Chinese community who went all the way to Steam forums to warn new players not to download the game as you can see from all these posts over here. Bad, bad, bad. Everybody don't play. Do not get in. This game makes you unfortunate. this was now a global movement and they

23:07 were pissed and it forced Infinity Nikki to make some sort of a statement and they came out with this apology at the end of April shortly after 1.5 had released saying apology letter regarding version 1.5 gaming experience. Dear stylists, hope this message finds you well. First and foremost, we would like to extend our sincerest apologies. We are truly sorry that we were unable to provide you with a stable experience upon the release of the new version. We understand that every stylist's love and trust in Infinity Nikki is something we must cherish and uphold with the utmost dedication. With a desire to offer Nikki and all of you a more vibrant and colorful journey, we had planned various new content for this update, designing outfits and diverse styles, creating fun and engaging gameplay and crafting unique landscapes. We hoped Nikki could embark on thrilling adventures across

23:54 parallel worlds, discovering endless surprises and joy in Mirrorland. However, this time we fell short of expectations. Following the version update, we received a lot of feedback regarding game experience issues, primarily concerning the DIY workshop, co-op feature, and overall game performance, including issues such as login failures, crashes, and resolution problems. We have been carefully collecting each report, immediately working with our teams to address these issues. We sincerely apologize for the issues that disrupted Nikki's dazzling and dreamlike journey. Following an urgent review by the development team, we have already resolved nearly 100 issues, improved the stability of multiplayer servers, and carried out emergency fixes for certain visual display issues. Moving forward, we will continue to monitor the game's performance to ensure these problems do not reoccur. Below is a detailed update on the fixes. So, here they give a list of around 13 different issues that they

24:41 seemingly fixed. Then, they go ahead and talk about the elephant in the room, saying additional clarifications based on community feedback. Number one, number of pieces in the five-star outfits, snowy ballad, and crimson feather. In version 1.5, the bubble season update introduced multiplayer gameplay to create a richer, more engaging adventure for Nikki and all stylists. This idea also shaped the design direction of the new outfits. From the early design stage, we intended the five-star outfits to embody themes of collaboration and companionship, symbolized by the story of the everlazing bird sacrificing herself to save the iceborn mermaid. Thus, we introduced dedicated dynamic effects, transformation animations, and unique music compositions for these outfits. In Snowy Ballad, we introduced highly dynamic special effects for the pieces, and special aurora effects for the hair. The crimson feather outfit was designed around the core concept of rebirth,

25:27 featuring a unique ash form appearance and different transformation effects depending on whether Nikki is in the air or on the ground. In addition, to align with the theme of the new version, we introduced multiplayer features in the design of both the decoration item and dance move. The eternal snowd decoration now features a special co-op interaction. And for the everlasting hope dance move, we attempted to create a co-op dance mode based on the original dance move. Both the versions were developed with dedicated custom music compositions to enrich styling combinations. The total number of pieces for these outfits was set at 11. We sincerely apologize for the lack of prior communication regarding this adjustment. Moving forward, we guarantee that the number of pieces in fivestar outfits will not exceed 11 and major changes will be communicated in advance through official channels. So, look, the majority of this paragraph was just mumbo jumbo. Honestly, it doesn't make

26:14 any sense to include this. I don't care about your vision for the outfit. People are just concerned about it going from 10 to 11 and costing more. And their logic was because it was meant to be in the spirit of cooperiveness or whatever the hell or or new features. But, you have to keep in mind in one of the outfits there are 11 pieces and you can't even see one of the pieces, which are the socks. It's hidden behind the dress. You literally cannot see it. So, what's the point? In any case, this was them saying that 11 pieces are here to stay, but hey, we won't increase it unless we let you know in the future. This is kind of hard to believe since they already did it without notifying anyone to begin with. They then say, number two, duration changes for the Mirror Crown Pinnacle Contest. To offer a richer and more diverse styling experience, the Mirror Crown Pinnacle contest and the special effects are periodically refreshed and updated. As each version varies in duration, the duration of each Mirror Crown Pinnacle contest has also differed accordingly.

27:00 We have taken note of the community's discussions regarding the contest duration. In response, we are planning to end the current contest at 4:00 a.m. on May 16th with the next contest starting immediately at 4 a.m. on May 16th. Starting from the next cycle, the Mirror Crown Pinnacle contest will be held twice a month starting on the 1st and 16th of each month. So, hey, I guess they fixed this, but only because the community spoke up. Otherwise, they would have been completely fine keeping it 3 weeks at a time instead of two, giving the community less currency to wish on their favorite outfits. They then continue. Number three, DIY workshop design intentions and future plans. The original intention behind the DIY workshop was to provide stylists with greater freedom in outfit design and styling combinations. We have received all of your feedback and are carefully reviewing the current designs to further optimize the DIY workshop experience. In addition, for fully

27:45 evolved outfits, we plan to introduce a more advanced dying system in the future, offering expanded customization options and richer visual effects. If you have suggestions regarding the DIY workshop, please feel free to email us at our support email. Every piece of feedback from you is a driving force for us. Your voices guide Infinity Nikki's path forward. In the future, we will conduct thorough reviews, strengthen our QA processes, and approach every update to prevent such issues from happening again. As an expression of our heartfelt apologies, we will be distributing the following compensation to all players via in-game mail, which are 10 Revelation crystals, 10 Resonide crystals, and 1,200 diamonds. So, 10 wishes on the limited banner, 10 wishes on the permanent banner, and 1,200 diamonds for you to buy 10 wishes on whichever banner you want. They then end this by saying, "Finally, we would like to speak from the heart. Version 1.5

28:31 marks a major milestone for Infinity Nikki. In this version, we took a bold step forward, introducing co-op gameplay for the first time. We hope Nikki's journey can now stretch even further across the vast sea of stars, where every heart longing for warmth can find connection and companionship. Every member of our team shares the same deep love for the Nikki IP and treats every version update with the utmost care and commitment. We stand together with all our stylists. We may have yet to build a world that fully lives up to your expectations, but we have never stopped running forward. Because to us, Infinity Nikki has always been more than just a game. It is a dream built over 5 years from thousands of sketches and endless passion. Like many of you, we adjust the camera angles again and again to capture Nikki's perfect moments, and we cheer with joy at the beauty of each new outfit. These are not just empty words. We have always held tightly to the original dream and passion, which is to make Infinity Nikki a world worth staying in. that has always been and

29:17 will always will be our reason for loving this world. Thank you once again for your support. We know that there is still much for us to improve, but because of your companionship, Nikki's journey can continue to push the boundaries of imagination. Please give us one more chance to let Nikki's starlight continue to shine for us all and to keep the warmth in our hearts forever burning bright. Sincerely, the Infinity Nikki dev team. So yeah, it was definitely a whole lot of yapping. And unfortunately, even though that last part was very heartwarming, and you kind of do feel bad for the devs because these decisions were probably not theirs to make, there are many things that were not addressed, like how the dice system was clearly supposed to be something you earn in game but became something you buy with money, or how they intentionally tried to deceive consumers with their dubious discounts. And let's not forget the biggest issue that people had, which was them changing the story for no reason. For many, this apology was lackluster. even if the compensation

30:04 and apology that you received in the in-game mail was fairly generous. But hey, you know what's funny? Speaking of being generous, there were many players logging in to find that their crystal balance was in the negative. Something usually reserved for people who buy crystals and then charge back with their credit card in order to try to pull a case of fraud. You see, there's this pass that you can buy for $5 that gives you currency every single day. Well, at some point the game was bugged beyond recognition and it would count you logging in twice, something that the player had no control over. So, they started taking those crystals away. Not to mention this person right here posting this post saying, "I'm going to cry." Spending €20 on the game and then for whatever reason logging in the next day and seeing that the balance was in the negative even though they didn't charge back or anything. Speaking of that monthly pass, in order to get the

30:50 daily currency that you paid for, you have to log in otherwise you miss out on them whenever you don't. Someone had spent $5 on the pass and wanted to log in in order to get the daily currency, but they couldn't because the game was so damn bugged. They sent an email to support, and this is what they had to say. Sorry for the late reply. This inability to log in resulting in rewards not being claimed is not compensible. Please log in on another device as soon as possible the next time you experience the situation. Thank you for your patience, bro. I don't know who the hell's training this customer support team, but that is not how you approach the situation. This, of course, was disastrous. People were spending money on the game, couldn't log in because, well, it wasn't their fault. They were being penalized for these bugs, and support had this to say. Wow. But don't worry, because a higher up in the support team saw this disastrous response and decided to take things into

31:36 their own hands, sending another message to this person saying, "Dear stylist, we noticed that our previous response to your inquiry was incorrect, and we apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. Please provide us with your UID, the symptoms of your inability to log in, and the number of days affected. We will further verify the situation and promptly communicate with you on the follow-up situation. Best regards, Infinity Nikki support team. Well, that's cool, right? That's that that's way better than that last response. Way to go, right? Well, uh 12 hours later, he gets another message and it's, "Hi, stylist. We have detected that you have not responded for a long time and this ticket will be automatically closed. If you have any further questions, please initiate a new inquiry. Thank you for your understanding." total unforgivable chaos in every way, shape, and form. And after that first apology, there was nothing

32:23 else coming from them. Absolute radio silence. The community was still not happy, mind you, because the apology barely covered half of the grievances they had. But this all changed on May 18th, a bit over 2 weeks since 1.5 came out. And it somehow managed to get even worse. On May 18th, Infinity Nikki would put out yet another statement saying, "Dear stylist, this is the Infinity Nikki deaf team. First and foremost, we sincerely thank you for your unwavering support and love for Infinity Nikki. Since the launch of version 1.5, insufficient preparation during pre-release testing led to unexpected live issues, resulting in an unstable game environment and unsatisfactory content. We fully acknowledge that this is our responsibility and addressing these shortcomings remains a top priority for our team moving forward. Additionally, we encountered technical

33:09 challenges during development that require more time to resolve thoroughly. Following rigorous assessment, we decided to extend version 1.5's end date to ensure greater stability and prevent similar issues from reoccurring. We're acutely aware that these recent issues have impacted your experience and damaged the trust and affection you've placed in us. To all stylists, we offer our deepest apologies. So then they go ahead and outline that version 1.5 is going to end on June 12th, a delay of a few weeks. And then they proceed to say, "Weekly tasks, Starllet Pursuit delay notice. After version 1.5 launched, we received extensive feedback on co-op features and gameplay. Based on this, we are optimizing related systems, and the new weekly tasks, Starlet Pursuit, originally scheduled for May 20th, will now debut in version 1.6. This is an event with co-op being the main focus, right?" They then continue saying, "This

33:54 delay allows us to refine task mechanics for a smoother experience. Additional details will be announced at a later date. Please stay tuned." In light of this change, 360 Starllet crystals will be given to all players as compensation. That's three wishes. Okay. They continue. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to every stylist for your understanding and continued support. Throughout the development journey since launch, we faced a multitude of challenges and uncertainties from optimizing performance across diverse devices with varying capabilities to tackling unexpected technical roadblocks. And many of these hurdles were unprecedented for our team. Rather than offering premature communication, we chose to tackle these problems methodically. Responding to your expectations only once we had secured concrete solutions, but rest assured, we've heard your feedback loud and clear. The threads of reunion storyline's absence in this version was never intended as a removal from Infinity Nikki's narrative. Its

34:40 associated outfit remains on our development road map. Due to technical hurdles in version 1.5, we were unable to properly refine the introduction of the Sea of Stars chapter and the narrative setup for Threads of Reunion, which regrettably led to confusion. These elements are planned for future updates. Plans are underway to expand tiered cumulative top-up rewards in upcoming versions. New gameplay systems will undergo rigorous design scrutiny to ensure seamless integration into the open world experience and more consistency. On top of that, adaptation, performance, and stability issues across various platforms, including PlayStation, have been identified and are being resolved systematically. There are also unlisted adjustments under discussion. Some changes require extended development cycles, but we commit to implementing them through phased updates. We will share progress once plans solidify and milestones are reached. In the meantime, we humbly ask for your continued patience and trust.

35:26 So, finally, around halfway through this paragraph, we got some sort of a confirmation that they're aware that people hate this new intro, but they only were talking about the associated outfit to that original story, and they said, "Don't worry, guys. It's still coming." No mention of the entire story changing and and them maybe going back to the old one. They then said, "Oh, yeah, due to technical hurdles, we had to kind of rush this intro." Well, how is that my problem? How about you just don't release it because the old one was perfect in its own way. You didn't need to even do this, especially not to introduce co-op. Who cares? And then my favorite part is that how as soon as they're done talking about what pisses people off the most, this change in story, they say plans are underway to expand tiered cumulative top-up rewards in upcoming versions. Dude, who asked? Like, who asked? It's like, hey guys, we know you hate the fact that we changed the story anyway. If you spend money, you'll be getting more rewards. It's

36:12 like, I don't care, How tonedeaf is that? They then continue and say, "We fully recognize that our current communication efforts may not meet every stylist expectations." Uh-huh. To address this, we are launching a new initiative, the Mirrorand Roundt, to openly address player concerns and collaboratively explore solutions. We sincerely invite all stylists to share their feedback and suggestions through the following dedicated channels. Your candid feedback, both critical and encouraging, has prompted deeper reflection. Drafting this message stirs mixed emotions, guilt over delayed promises, yet gratitude for your unwavering support. As compensation for version 1.5 shortcomings and schedule changes, all stylists will receive diamonds as well as energy crystals every day from June 5th to June 12th totaling 960 diamonds and eight energy crystals. Thank you for standing with us. Together we'll make Infinity Nikki

36:57 shine brighter than ever. So, uh, yeah, another nonapology pretty much not reassuring players in any way, shape, or form. This whole mirror land roundt is too little too late. You've already implemented changes that are ridiculous in scope and size without even notifying the community. How are they supposed to trust you with this round table? Now, there are 444 replies to this tweet. And let me tell you, most of them are furious because as this comment right here points out, 220 pity not being lowered, barely addressing Redcon's story, no addressing the horrible dying system, no addressing the Mirror Crown changes, but hey, we got eight polls. That was the sentiment in the majority of the community, both global and Chinese. So, it didn't really take long, but people who were very big fans of the game painfully chose to uninstall after

37:42 seeing just how tonedeaf the deaf team was. And this once wholesome community, this once very positive and contagiously nice community was just riddled with people who had lost all hope, who were depressed at the fact that this game was never going to be the game they loved just one update ago. It was very sad to see because as I said in the beginning in the gotacha community, this was seen as the beacon of hope. The one game that was immune to the very stupid gotacha drama that plagues other games every single day online. And some people were getting tired of people telling them that they uninstalled because the posts were getting that much common on the Infinity Nikki unofficial Reddit as well as other places online. But why did this happen? Why did this developer shoot themselves in the foot with a goddamn shotgun when their community loved their

38:28 game? Well, there are a few theories. Let's talk about them. As I pointed out before, the revenue for this game has just been going down every single month fairly consistently. Before the game released, the CEO of the studio revealed that Infinity Nikki was being developed by over 1,000 people. Okay, this was a very big team. Of course, this includes outsources. Not everyone actually works at Infold, but you get the point. This cost a lot of money to make. So, look, like this post on Reddit explains it, there are many theories here. But if you worked a corporate job before and everything was going well until one of your bosses was replaced with some idiot, this might seem very familiar to you. It happens too often, unfortunately. Maybe a new boss comes in, they have ego issues, they're insecure, they have imposttor syndrome, they want people to think that they're smart, so they make these crazy major changes that no one ends up liking, and

39:14 they end up screwing up the whole company. This is maybe what's happening at Infold. But interestingly enough, this hasn't stopped them from aggressively recruiting in their Shanghai office. And you got to wonder why. Maybe it's for their money printer love and deep space. Or maybe because they laid off a lot of Infinity Nikki devs that were originally on the game and are replacing them with cheaper labor. Who knows? What I do know for certain, though, is that this game was a breath of fresh air in the gotacha community, and it made an important segment if players feel like they're finally validated with a game that meant something for them. Are they going to be able to get a game like that again? Well, I hope so, because they deserve it. But that's not to say that there aren't any Infinity Nikki players hoping that the game will redeem itself. Those still exist. And you know what? For their sake, I hope that that will be the case. But if you ask my opinion, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. Anyway, thanks so much for watching the

40:00 video till the end. I really, really appreciate it, and I'll see you in the next video, whenever that is, which should be in a few days from now. I love you so much, and uh yeah, take care. Mwah. Heat. [Music]