I’m going to talk about @thearcanagame and its company’s business practices. My goal with this piece is to educate and urge consumers to hold all companies to a higher standard in the mobile games industry.
Nix Hydra Games is a company that acquired $5.6 million in funding in 2014.That funding was not for The Arcana (which didn’t begin development until 2016), I point this out only to demonstrate that Nix Hydra is not a struggling indie company. This isn’t their first app and their marketing team is smart; they titled it “The Arcana – A Mystic Romance” to likely capitalize on people searching for Mystic Messenger as this subtitle is seen nowhere else. The player character is faceless and nameless, instilling a sense of ownership in the player who creates their own original character. Nix Hydra apparently have no trouble acquiring funding and only used Kickstarter as a way to gauge interest and marketing.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that, where they mistepped was on their promises to backers and false marketing.
In numerous places they stated that backers will receive the PC/Mac versions in exchange for backing the project. Less than a year later, in an update to their Kickstarter on October 9, 2017, they reneged:
Why would their artist and writers need to stop creating content to port the game to PC unless they’re also programmers? Mobile games are developed on a desktop and get compiled to a mobile device. Bug testing and distribution is required but the major work is already complete – it’s already on the PC. They’re using Unity, a game engine that supports all platforms, and a visual novel is not a complicated program. Porting is not as difficult as they’d like you to believe. There’s even a video in which their programmer states they’re at a point where the game doesn’t need him anymore.
Programmer Zach Vinless said, “We pretty much have the game to a point where the story is totally content driven – data driven – so that, you know, I’m pretty much free to not work on stuff specific to the-the story or the user interface and we can work on, you know, maybe some cool new features.”
The dead look in his downcast eyes and the way he trails off is telling. This man knows what’s up but he’s sitting right next to his boss. Writer Elle Hudson, visibly thrilled to be receiving a paycheck no matter where it comes from, jumps in to say, “Some of those features require content like the Wheel of Fortune […]”
So instead of instructing their programmer to port the game to PC/Mac, they are using their time to implement more blatant pay-to-win gambling “features” like their new Heart Hunter and Wheel of Fortune.
But let’s just say PC/Mac is impossible for some reason. On their Kickstarter update from March 21, 2017: “The purpose of releasing a desktop version of the game on itch.io for backers is to circumvent app store rules that prevent us from giving paid content only to specific players for free.”
It’s true that Google and Apple have strict rules and limits on promo codes, they want their piece of the capitalistic pie. However, what is stopping Nix Hydra from distributing a copy of their app directly to their backers with all of the content unlocked? They could create a download portal on their website strictly for backers and update it with each content release or simply send copies via a mailing list.
Oh right, there’s no money in that. An office in LA with over twenty employees doesn’t come cheap. The founders are Yale graduates, do you really think they aren’t aware they can do this? They are counting on you to not know. The desktop market is far less profitable than mobile, microtransactions and premium currency are a harder sell. They ran the numbers and know that refunding people $10 is cheaper than giving backers what they were promised. They’re hoping their fans grow impatient and just spend more money to unlock the content for which they already paid. This pricing isn’t going to fly with a PC audience:
As of May 25, 2018 all content in the game is unlockable for $180. That’s not too bad until you consider what the current route will cost when complete: $170 each. That’s $510 total for three characters. Now add the three extra routes they plan to complete – we’re up to $1020. That is more than the price of some first edition signed books and certainly more than an AAA game. It doesn’t even include the bonus content acquired through their sordid gambling minigames.
That’s quite a change. Maybe they put the decimal in the wrong spot?
This is a classic bait and switch with some microtransaction bullshit sprinkled on top. Updates are released in increments and not everyone will do the math, leading people to spend more than they might want otherwise. They pressure you to spend premium currency with manipulative wording and make the call to action buttons nice and big:
They give you a time limited chance to earn in-game currency through gambling but they don’t publish their (likely low to impossible) probabilities:
Their argument for their ludicrous pricing is that it’s premium content and unnecessary to the story. Is it not false marketing to declare this is a romance novel then put all romance behind a paywall?
Founder Lina Chen said in the video linked above, “We get a lot of really positive reviews, the only negative ones are often about money. Um, and I don’t think people understand how much it costs to make something like this. How much it costs for a company to run to be able to offer this to people, that, like – and I don’t think people are quite thinking about, like, okay the people who make this also need to, like, buy food, and, like [laugh] and like living-living, you know, with a roof over our heads, that kind of thing.”
Using addictive gambling and every psychological trick in the book to bleed microtransactions out of the people who supported you then being condescending to them when they dare say it’s a bit much is reprehensible. I absolutely support creators getting paid – I am one – but let’s be real. They are making an unanimated visual novel in Unity. They don’t need half the resources they claim to need and they aren’t acquiring them in an honest manner. This behavior hurts mobile developer reputation, consumer trust of crowdsourcing platforms that indie developers require and the industry as a whole.
Friendly reminder that Lina Chen’s statement about “our developers need to eat!” is absolute bullshit because according to reviews by actual employees on Glassdoor, they make well below market average. How much below market average? The yearly salary for game designers at Nix Hydra is $44K-$48K. If you search California companies to see what their salary for game designers is and order those results by salary, you are given 12 pages of results. So, where’s Nix Hyrdra in that list? You won’t find them until more than halfway down page 11.
Honestly, I’m not sure how any of the employees can afford to live in Silicon Valley with the salaries they make. According to a 2015 Priceonomics article, an employee making $100,000 per year would have to devote 100% of their after tax paycheck to housing if they wanted to live in a 3 bedroom. Okay, not everyone needs 3 bedrooms, but even a studio apartment is going to cost you $2,722 a month.
Continuing to pay for the Arcana is not doing its developers any favors. By doing so, you are not only paying far more than you should have to be for a game, you are also contributing to keeping your favorite developers in a job that is exploiting. The level of pay they get at Nix Hydra is going to affect them for the rest of their lives. It’s going to keep them from being able to save for their future retirement, it will keep them from being able to ever afford to start a family should they desire to do so, and it’s going to make getting paid the salary that they deserve at their next job harder.
If you really want to support your favorite Arcana developers, you should contact them and let them know you will support their next project should they decide to leave Nix Hydra. The only ones who are benefiting from the pricing on the Arcana are Nix Hydra’s corrupt upper management.
Soards 