Infinity Nikki has been feeling a lot less whimsical lately. After a recent patch that brought new outfits and activities to the game also introduced a host of bugs and unpopular changes, players responded by flooding the game with negative reviews and calling out developer Infold online. Infold has responded by issuing multiple public apologies but little in the way of fixes, and is now stepping up its apology tour with adjustments to its update schedule and compensation for players.
The launch of April’s Bubble Season update coincided with Infinity Nikki’s launch on Steam, turning what was already a problematic patch into a catastrophe by immediately sending the fashion game’s reviews to Mostly Negative territory. The biggest issues with the update are numerous bugs, which have left some players unable to even load the game or use its multiplayer features without causing a crash. Players also accuse Infold of pushing microtransactions more aggressively, even changing the game’s story to shoehorn in more paid outfits.
Infold quickly posted a long apology to social media, but when fixes didn’t follow, players vented their frustrations, some organizing a “girlcott” and promising not to play the game until their concerns were addressed. After a long silence, Infold again apologized on social media on May 17, laying out its plans to deal with the issues. According to Infold, a story chapter originally intended for Bubble Season was delayed due to “technical hurdles,” and the developer promises more rigorous testing to avoid the performance problems introduced by the patch in the future. It’s also making a peace offering of in-game currency for the trouble, and extending seasonal events until June 12 to give players more time to finish them.
"Insufficient preparation during pre-release testing led to unexpected live issues, resulting in an unstable game environment and unsatisfactory content," Infold said. "We fully acknowledge that this is our responsibility, and addressing these shortcomings remains a top priority for our team moving forward."
Despite the latest apology and offer of compensation, players aren’t accepting Infold back into their good graces. Comments to the post are a perfume-scented bloodbath, with most players rejecting it outright. As they point out, the currency Infold is compensating players with requires them to log in daily, which some still can’t do because of the patch’s issues. While the announcement that a missing story chapter will be added later is a good thing, Infold doesn’t address why the game’s original story was changed or whether it will be restored.
But the biggest point of contention is how Infold addresses — or rather, doesn’t address — the patch’s effect on monetization and item drops. Infinity Nikki is a gacha game where players need to spend currency to randomly acquire outfits. Like in any gacha game, that system can be exploitative, nudging players into spending more money than they want to for fear of missing out on a limited-time item drop. Bubble Season both increased the number of items included in full outfits and made the game’s pity system — which increases the chances of obtaining rare items the more attempts you make to roll for one — less generous. That adds up to a game that demands a bigger investment of time and money to get the best items, all while it’s in its worst state since launch.
Infinity Nikki’s performance and even its story changes could be fixed in a future patch, but it’s the changes to monetization that seem least likely to get rolled back, and the most likely to become a permanent stain on the game. At launch, Infinity Nikki put relatively low pressure on players to spend money for the outfits they wanted, but as more outfits pieces are added and generous launch bonuses go away, it’s harder to acquire any given outfit, especially the rarest ones. Infinity Nikki is also a game that largely appeals to women with its focus on fashion and features a story emphasizing its heroine’s kindness and curiosity over more typical power fantasies. Despite the inherently predatory nature of its gacha system, that made Infinity Nikki feel like a welcoming outlier for a big portion of its audience, but Infold’s recent changes may have just changed that dynamic permanently.
