I don't think gacha games are a rot, or anything—plenty of folks enjoy them, and grown ups can do whatever they want with their disposable income—but I'd be lying if I said that monetisation model didn't turn me right off whatever the latest horse-based craze is. Which is why I'm downright impressed by Duet Night Abyss.
Faced with the eternal power of the one ring—I mean, er, the monetisation potential of gacha mechanics—the developers of the upcoming Chinese action-RPG have decided to simply drop all of their RNG-dependent character pulls and dungeon stamina systems right before launch in late-October.
Per an interview with Automaton, producer Deca Bear confirms that "for the launch version, we’ve scrapped both the character and weapon gacha, and even removed the stamina (Sanergy) system. All characters will be free to obtain, and new characters will, in principle, be permanent.
"That means players won’t need to worry about spending money just to get characters. As for collecting resources, since dungeons no longer have stamina restrictions, players can play at their own pace. Our goal is to give back control to the players."
It could simply be that Bear and his co-workers have sensed the wind turning against gacha games—mind, Umamusume: Pretty Derby is very popular—but if I shove my inner cynic away for a moment, this does seem like a noble sacrifice. Gacha games are popular because they tend to make money, after all: Boatloads of the stuff.
"After analyzing player data, community feedback, and in-game survey results from the last beta, we realized that the complaints were fairly consistent. We debated the issue many times internally, and concluded that no matter how much we optimized the gacha and stamina systems, it wouldn’t be enough to address the fundamental dissatisfaction players felt."
As for the money they're leaving on the table, Bear argues that developer Pan Studio is going for long-term customers over short-term cashflow by, get this, simply making a game you might want to actually play because it's good.
"From a management perspective, our aim is to create a game that can keep running for a long time. That’s why our decisions regarding monetization are based not only on the current market, but also on what players will want three to five years from now.
"… In the short term, this means having to give up on some fast monetization opportunities, but in the long term, we believe it will lead to stronger player retention, a better reputation, and a healthier, more sustainable business model."
You know what? Hats off to Pan Studio for dropping the ring into the volcano on this one. Duet Night Abyss will be released for PC and mobile come October 28.
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