At launch, mobile title Infinity Nikki seemed immune to what gave other gacha games a bad rap. There were minimal microtransactions, and the dialogue was meaningful and sparse. It was heavily marketed as a cozy open-world game, like the love child of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and the online Barbie dress games of the 2000s.
Completing quests, defeating enemies, and exploring the vast world at your fingertips led you to unlock new outfits. Some of these outfits weren’t just cosmetic either. They granted special abilities, like floating to distant islands and serenading NPCs with classical violin melodies.
Unfortunately, the honeymoon phase had to end at some point. The 1.5 update, released at the end of April, led to players refusing to play the game altogether. A boycott, or in Infinity Nikki's case, 'girlcott'.
Mo' gacha, mo' problems
No matter how free-to-play a gacha game might seem, there will always be the temptation to pay for cosmetics, lootboxes, or playable characters. This temptation is increased tenfold when there’s tartan cowboy chaps and fancy ball gowns at stake.
Gacha games have shot up in popularity over the last few years. They’re based on ‘gachapon’, or Japanese capsule toy vending machines. Slide in a 500 yen coin, and in return, you’ll get a randomly selected toy. Gacha games use this mechanic to simulate the uncertainty and surprise that make gachapon so fun. Throw some in-game currency at the gacha machine, and gamble, or ‘pull’ for characters, items, or outfits from a weighted pool of options.
Some items, like elaborate, five-star outfits, are harder to obtain than others. They're also placed on a limited-time banner, so you’ve got two weeks to work through the quest log for in-game currency or pull out your wallet.
Infinity Nikki had all the markers of a gacha game, but it felt more rational and fair than other games in the gacha space. Each outfit comprises nine components. Even if the odds weren’t in your favour, it would take you 180 pulls to obtain the outfit you want. This price is pretty standard across the board. It takes about the same amount to get a limited edition character in Genshin Impact, and even less in Wuthering Waves, both also free-to-play open world gacha games.
Infold, the company behind Infinity Nikki, shifted the rules of this system in the 1.5 update.
Instead of nine components for five-star outfits, you’ll now need to pull for eleven. This means you could now have to spend up to 220 pulls for one outfit. If you were to purchase said outfit, it would cost you $50 more than before the 1.5 update. Unless you’re spending hours searching for extra side quests or throwing cash into the gacha machine like a responsible adult, getting a five-star outfit in the span of a few weeks is nearly impossible.
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States forced the company behind Genshin Impact to add currency disclaimers to its banners. They’d faced several allegations of misrepresenting and deceiving users about the real price and probability of prizes they stood little chance of winning.
Infinity Nikki (allegedly) seems to be following in their footsteps. There have been several cases where users were offered fake discounts on items that were never intended to be sold at their original price. This violates advertising law in several countries, including Australia and the EU. Even though this issue was quickly rectified, it’s still clear Infinity Nikki is sowing the seeds of its own destruction.
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The plague
I don’t know what the developers at Infold did in a past life, but the 1.5 update brought with it a biblical plague of bugs. Following the update, a huge chunk of players were barred from logging in. Some players (including myself) were met with an ominous black screen for up to a week after launch. Even if you could log in, you were met with constant crashes, lagging, and UI bugs in almost every menu.
Quests were bugged, and cutscenes failed to trigger, causing users to get soft-locked in their quest area. They could walk around, but couldn’t interact with NPCs or leave the area, because they were technically stuck in a quest that was blocked from progressing. Some users even reported getting soft-locked in the opening tutorial. Yikes.
The 1.5 update was also set to bring a much-anticipated co-op mode. Like Genshin Impact, you can explore the open-world terrain with your friends and complete selected quests together. However, even if you were able to log in, main co-op features like holding hands and riding bikes in tandem simply did not work.
Since launching on April 27, there have been over 100 game-breaking bugs that Infold has worked to patch. But even then, it’s still a far cry from getting back to pre-update stability.
Dye system be gone
In the 1.4 Caring for the Bullquet quest, Infold soft-launched the dye system. The colour combination system meant that players could experiment with various foraged plants, berries, and shellfish to create colours of their choosing. These dyes could then be used to edit the colour palette of outfits they already own. Infold geared its players up for a new era of outfit creativity and customisation.
Come the 1.5 update, the proposed dye system was canned. Instead of collecting materials, players will now have to pay in-game currency to dye their outfits. You do have a small pool of colours to work with, but at least 75% of them are locked behind a paywall. It’s not like we’re talking about a few dollars per outfit, either. If you want the ability to freely dye one five-star outfit, you’re looking at around $50.
To make matters worse, if you want full access to all available palettes for a single outfit, you’ll need the highest evolution of that item. In addition to the in-game currency, you’ll need to spend even more on pulling for duplicates of the outfits you want upgraded. We’re talking hundreds of real dollars for premium items. For a single outfit in the colour of your choice.
While it might seem dire, Infinity Nikki’s fall from grace doesn't stop there.
The lore bombshell
The final nail in Infinity Nikki’s coffin wasn’t the greediness of its parent company. It was the complete retcon of the opening story.
Before the 1.5 update, Infinity Nikki opens with Nikki in her mother’s basement. As she searches around for the perfect dress to wear to her prom, the doors to an old closet swing open. Out jumps a burgundy, sequinned dress that whisks Nikki around the room. It feels like a dreamy, whimsical version of the Shrek 2 scene where the furniture comes to life. Nikki is dragged through the closet into an alternate world, where she encounters Ena, a woman who used to know her mother. She tells Nikki about her newfound power as a stylist. It's offbeat, fun, and isn’t dialogue-heavy like other gacha games. It did a perfect job of explaining the core mechanics and storyline of the game.
Now, when you launch the game, you’re dropped into a space castle. You’re asked to complete a co-op quest with an unknown character, who is supposedly a goddess. She tells you that the world as you know it has been destroyed, and you don’t remember who you are because you’re an immortal, amnesiac space traveller. It feels disjointed and awkward, never mind the fact that it straight-up destroys the original story. There were speculations that the new opening tutorial was created to justify the new co-op mode, as if playing dress-up with your friends on a magical island needed a lore-accurate explanation.
Player response
Expectedly, players were outraged. Long-term players had previously raved about Infinity Nikki. It was a dreamy dress-up game, with a unique story and collectible cosmetics. But come the 1.5 update, it feels like Infold has thrown all caution to the wind.
Players flocked to the Infinity Nikki iPhone App Store, Google Play Store, and Steam pages to tank the page’s ratings with a barrage of negative reviews. They also took to Reddit, Discord, and X (formerly Twitter) to express their outrage. So much so that developers had muted the term ‘boycott’ on their social media platforms. This sent Infinity Nikki players into further unrest, launching the ‘girlcott’ hashtag instead.
Infinity Nikki's developers took stock of the uproar that its players were in and issued a public apology. They apologised for the failed co-op features, numerous bugs and crashes, and a request for forgiveness. They also pledge that future five-star outfits won’t exceed eleven pieces. Users are cautiously optimistic that the community feedback will be taken on board. Even though Infold has issued a public apology, they’re standing firm on their decision to keep the new 220-pull structure. They won’t go back to nine-piece outfits, but we won’t have to pull for more than eleven pieces. Lucky us, I guess?
For what was originally a game about fashion expressionism, it seems like Infold is strangling their golden goose, all in the name of some extra revenue. Infinity Nikki no longer feels like the cozy, magical dreamscape it was at launch. Unfortunately, it’s going to take more than in-game currency as compensation for 1.5’s shortcomings. Unless they address their players’ concerns (especially around the retconned narrative), Infinity Nikki's developers can kiss their once loyal player base goodbye.
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Hannah Geremia
Digital Content Editor
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