The Arcana Game

Second this.  I'll buy it as a game but not as a weird microtransaction thing.

The paid choice are not required for get the best end. And you can get coin if login everyday. We already got guide for ends and guide for get cg. I play this game some years now. I agree that could be amazing this be one way purchase, but i believe that this worked pretty well for company, and after many years in this format is hard change, but i would like a version for pc, for downlad and paid too.

WHAATTT??? i have almost of the routes bought w/ coins and haven't spent a real world cent? yikes! i got a lot of coins through heart hunter if you want a free to play option

i got a laptop because of a gift, i'm actually poor lol. too bad there is no pc version. :(

We hope you enjoy it! Thank you for trying our app.

Good luck spending hundreds of dollars on this game 🤣

Thank you for this. After hearing/seeing all the flack about the freemium/premium associated costs, this has sealed the deal for me. It's not at all worth even playing through the free/prologue pieces at this point, in my opinion. I'd rather not get to know a story/lore/characters if it's just going to nickel/dime me later. 

I could bring myself to agree about the intentions, perhaps, being good at one point. But at a certain point, I think that went away, and the greed kicked in. I know more than a handful of small/single (or even three-person) indie devs who haven't had such successful kickstarters, haven't had such a high number of downloads and/or sales, and/or haven't even had as much merch (if any at all) - and yet those devs haven't adopted the freemium model, and are doing just fine making their game/s and are even keeping the promises they've made (even if they take time).

I'm 100% in agreement about it being much better to pay $30-$35 for a full game than the microtransaction/freemium (greed) model. Honestly, I'm even okay with paying that for a mobile game/version, if it was all of it/complete (and didn't still have microtransactions). I'd even be okay with pay more than that for a PC version (also complete, no microtransactions). But there's neither of those options available with this game/company. 

Any one of these factors are a red flag, or at least rub me the wrong way. Widely successful kickstarter (more than just funded), tons of downloads, tons of purchases made, tons of moderately-fairly-over -priced merch, unkept promises from the kickstarter, some fulfilled kickstarter promises that were given to non-kickstarter supporters first (or simultaneously), costs/premium costs already in the prologue, advertising/stating/promoting all day/everywhere as "free" despite only some of the prologue being free, premium costs for the rest of the game/storyline. Not just this, but the "nsfw" content that's locked behind a paywall is PG-13, amounting to a booty shot/teasing at most. And if you calculate how much it would be to unlock all the content - it's $500+. 

Then there's the operations/actions of the company that have nothing to do with the game - absolute rudeness to fans and customers, earning strikes against (long-time/hard-earned) youtubers who were doing letsplay videos & (legit) promoting the game (not just passive playing, but were legitimately telling people to go buy/play), some of which resulted in their entire channel getting deleted (a consolation offered to one of them was a keychain from their merch). They also begged/asked for more money while dangling/threatening a lack of development for stories/characters that were assured per their campaign and unrelated/outside promises. 

Further still, they currently keep pushing the "we're a mobile company, now" or "many of the people on the team weren't around then" or whatever other agenda/excuse they have for why they're not held to the original promises, subsequent promises, and/or even just reasonable price-structure, etc. This is absolutely abhorrent, and only solidifies the current team's unprofessionalism, unappreciation/disrespect, and greed. Just because the current team is not the one that assured $2/route instead of per chapter doesn't mean that they're incapable of making good on that price-structure. It's essentially the most expensive game to exist at this point, let alone the fact that it's a mobile game? AYKM? And now they're (again) further pushing their mobile game on a PC game platform? It's insulting and almost laughable, since they'll never make a PC game. Even more - they're literally just advertising their in-game stories for their Fictif app on their page - so no game from those will ever be for sale, here, never be on PC, and all are purchased within their app. 

So, any one of these factors is a strike, in my book. Let alone all of these factors together? Many of these tactics are greedy, predatory, and absolutely and incredibly hypocritical for an dev company, let alone an 'indie' one. And this combination of factors just compounds upon itself. It legit does the opposite of intention and makes it so I not only don't want to play any game from this company, but I also don't want to support anything that comes from this company. Which is really unfortunate, as an avid gamer and avid indie gamer/supporter/enthusiast.

Thank you for the review. Our company is not perfect but we are trying to make The Arcana and Fictif better everyday. We are a small company that is trying to grow. We do listen to customer feedback and we continue to make product changes over time. We appreciate your support.

As the arcana doesn't actually rely on irl time as you mentioned, I don't think mobile has any significant benefits over PC - it's just a different medium. Some people prefer PC for reasons such as a larger screen size that's easier on their eyes. It has taken Nix Hydra 4-5 years to deliver on their kickstarter rewards and they have carefully avoided mentioning (and sometimes edited out mentions of) their failed PC promise - the dodgy attitude and partial reimbursement of higher tier pledges who only wanted a PC version are the reasons people are upset, not that it's on mobile.

That the content costs money is not the issue anybody has with this game. The issue is that the cost is well beyond what similar content is priced at in other games, and soars into the realm of unaffordable or extreme costs for the average consumer compared to almost literally any other game I can think of, excluding gacha games which are intended to be predatory.

Regarding changing their prices - this will not happen, as there has been uproar over the pricing scheme since launch and Nix Hydra appears to be satisfied with their absurd costs. Even the 5 star top positive reviews mention the price point as a negative, whether or not it's reflected in their rating.

Other visual novels rarely cost more than $60-$120 for a COMPLETE GAME, with no missing paid content aside from unrelated DLCs or costumes. The Arcana costs around this PER ROUTE. I can't understand and am not privy to their financial decisions, but this is not reasonable or justified on the consumer end.

And if you have to miss most of the CGs and romantic content to play for free (viewing them on a wiki instead can be considered akin to piracy - this is not a valid solution for customers that they should be considering while pricing out their game), well then,  it's a pretty awful free to play experience.

You're welcome to enjoy the game - I also had no problem with the actual game's contents, and thought they were quite good...when you're not having to abruptly cut heartfelt moments short because you can't afford a paid choice. But just because worse pricing schemes exist, doesn't mean this one is good.

Hi Crosscyote,

   We respect your viewpoint and we always look for ways to improve our game, which we have done over time. We have worked on The Arcana for approximately four years now and we are still expanding the content. One can play our game for free and the endings of each character route are not determined by whether one pays us money. We have expanded the ways we offer free coins and including special weekends with infinity keys and coin sales. We feel our high ratings in the app store reflect the overall high quality of our product and the time and money we have invested in The Arcana. We know our game is not for everyone, but we continue to improve every year and we respect everyone's opinions whether they like or don't like The Arcana.  Thank you.