Nikke Mobile Game Does $62 million in Sales In First 2 Weeks
By Josh Bobrowsky
What is Nikke?
Nikke is a 3rd person shooter Gacha style game for your mobile phone. If you are an American gamer the game presents a unique and different experience.
The game takes place in a sci-fi fantasy world of powerful female robot shooters.
As you can see, the main protagonists consist of scantily clad female characters (who are actually robots) and you are the commander.
Quick background on Gacha Gaming
Gacha typically refers to Japanese style gaming that has a heavy focus on purchasing in-game items such as loot boxes. The term Gacha stems from old toy vending machines that would make a noise when you turned a crank. That sound of the vending machine phonetically would be spelled Gacha.
Gacha gaming also has a gambling or luck based element to your purchases. Although unlike gambling there is no financial upside.
Stepping out of my comfort zone
This isn’t the typical style of game that I play nor is it the style of games I grew up with.
I grew up playing Zelda, GTA, Mortal Kombat, God of War, World of Warcraft etc.
Violence first
The major focus of the previous games I have played has been heavy on violence and light on sexuality.
Most of the games involved the main character being a strong warrior of sorts and going into battle with occasional romantic interests in the background.
In early games like Mario you are looking for a princess, and even in GTA 5 where you may engage in sex it is a minor part of the overall gameplay.
Video Game Sexuality
Entering into the world of Nikke it is clear from the start that sex is a part of what makes up the game.
The layering of sexuality into storyline and dialogue of gaming feels a bit odd to me, but at the same time I respect that it is one of the largest categories in mobile gaming and incredibly valuable.
Just because something isn’t my cup of tea doesn’t mean it isn’t a good game.
Every gamer won’t enjoy every style of game, but it is good to be self aware that this may be a great game even if not a great game for me.
To give a simple analogy, I may not personally be a Taylor Swift mega fan, but I can appreciate how her concert tickets sell for thousands of dollars even if I’m not the target audience.
Heavy Story
The voice acting and writing were both high quality at the early stages of the game (this was as far as I got).
Even more impressive is that English was the third language of the game, so at least 3 sets of high quality voice actors.
The game was originally voiced in Japanese with the second language being Korean and third language being English.
In addition to the voice acting, the fully animated cut scenes were at the same level you would expect to see in a high quality anime show.
Free To Play
For many American gamers we have grown accustom to paying a one time $70 fee to buy the game and being able to play through the game without needing further purchases.
We also have games like Fortnite which are free to play but the purchase of gear is merely cosmetic.
However “Free to Play” is a category often known for “Pay to win” and while it may not appeal to some markets many people are happy to spend over $5,000 on a single game to be competitive.
Once you start playing a game like Nikki you reach a point where in order to advance at an enjoyable pace you need to pay money to buy new gear or to speed up long wait periods.
It will be interesting to watch how Web 3.0 gaming evolves as games move into the NFT field.
This is where the revenue comes from.
$60 million, in 2 weeks
Nikke has generated a massive amount of revenue with a large audience. Clearly the game has a product market fit and is performing incredibly well for its category.
I expect within 3 years we will see a web 3 game do 10x this within their first month of revenue.
Idle Gaming
Part of Nikke is the game theory of “Idle Gaming”, meaning that in order to advance you often need to step away from the game to let resources gather, this can often be avoided by paying a fee to accelerate gameplay.
Games like Game of War and Clash of Clans are known for game mechanics that encourage users to pay money to avoid wait times.
Also, there are “Auto Play” features that allow you to build your team without having to actually play the fighting aspects of the game and have it auto play.
Contrasting this with other games like Genshin Impact, it feels like this game is a lighter game that you may end up spending less than an hour a day interacting with an Idle Gameplay world rather than an immersive world similar to Genshin.
Conclusion
The game is interesting from a financial and psychological level. While I’m probably not the target audience as previously stated, I appreciate that the game has found a solid product market fit.
I’m personally not a fan of shooter games on mobile so I don’t think this particular game would be for me as a long term play.
My guess is that this game really shines when you put more time, effort and money into the game as well as the storyline.
It is clear that Japanese games are here to stay and are only going to get bigger. I hope you have enjoyed an extremely brief overview of one of the largest game categories.
Cheers
Josh Bobrowsky