On the afternoon of March 22, Dragalia Lost ~ Lost Dragon Covenant announced its imminent suspension in the game's bulletin board, explaining to players what little updates were left and conveying the decision to shut down operations.
"DragaliaLost ~ Lost Dragon Covenant~ (hereinafter referred to as "Dragon Covenant") is not an ordinary two-dimensional mobile game, its developers "Nintendo" and "Cygames" are the two most knowledgeable manufacturers in the world.
Both Nintendo and Cygames have their own loyal audiences, and their games will never lack player patronage;
Yu Li, the quality of Long Yue in all aspects is considered to be the leader in similar games, and it is not an ordinary assembly line work;
Such a game has only been in operation for four years, which will inevitably surprise people.
But for the players of the Dragon Covenant, the news of this suspension is not unexpected.
If you do the math, Dragon Yo is Nintendo's fourth mobile game.
After Super Mario Coupe, Fire Emblem: Heroes, and Animal Friends, in April 2018, Nintendo announced a partnership with Cygames to acquire a 5% stake in Cygames, while the two manufacturers co-produced an "original" mobile game "Dragalia Lost ~ Lost Dragon Covenant" without IP halo bonuses.
Just when everyone imagined whether this product could have both the picture of Cygames and the playability of Nintendo, Nintendo synchronously released the reservation interface of the dragon covenant, in addition to the familiar Nintendo logo, a line of small words under the reservation button is more likely to make people think:
"Advance reservation is open!! Up to 1500 Dragon Crystals can be obtained!"
This line of small characters made many players familiar with Cygames routines show a mysterious smile, "What type of mobile game is the Lost Dragon Covenant?" They already know it. Of course, the dragon date that was officially tested in September did not live up to the expectations of this part of the players, and Nintendo could not stop Cygames's enthusiasm for making money with the game.
On the first day of the Dragon Covenant, CY pointed to the newly opened probability doubling card pool and scolded all players: "Crooked, give me a hard drop!"
There are three types of items available through the card pool at the beginning of the Dragon Covenant, namely "Character", "Dragon", and "Dragon Glow Talisman" (similar to the concept dress of Fate/Grand Order).
Players who like two-dimensional mobile games know that the props that have a standing drawing dubbing and can accompany the player for a long time are the ultimate purpose of the player's card draw, but the abnormal thing is that the dragon not only does not distinguish the three props and distribute them to different pools, but also increases the probability of the more insignificant "Dragon Glow Talisman" to twice the probability of the rest of the props in the card pool full of uncertainties.
Under this operation, the card pool launched by Long Yue is also mixed, so that the player's card drawing experience becomes very bad, and it is a very face-saving thing to hit the SSR character in the card pool itself, but after such a design, the players who are deeply trapped in the bottom of the reincarnation can hardly see several colored lights falling in the sky, and all of them have become "gifts with insufficient gold content", and the mood may not be very calm.
So when we take our eyes off Cy's most familiar routine, what kind of game is dragon dating after the card draw?
It uses a plot performance constructed from standing dialogue, it has the same enhancement page as "Blue Fantasy", it has the attribute restraint as the basis of combat, as long as the player experiences a little time, they can easily find the shadow left by countless "Cygames" in Ryujo, but what about Nintendo? Is it responsible for the most important part of the gameplay?
Probably not.
The gameplay of dragon covenant is not new, players need to complete a series of operations such as movement, attack, skill and so on through on-screen operation, which is the same as the mobile game "White Cat Project" developed and operated by the Japanese company COLOPL, which is difficult to call Nintendo's handiwork. In addition, the complex operation of the dragon makes the game even more difficult, and after the player understands the game mechanics, this set of operation processes that are not novel has finally been enriched into a rather hardcore RPG that looks quite hardcore.
Although there were many problems, the lost Dragon Covenant was still one of the highest quality mobile games at the time, and the Dragon Covenant, jokingly known as the "DAOKO Player", earned $16 million in revenue when it was launched two weeks ago, but this impressive revenue did not convince everyone, and CyGames employees also gave an interview after the success of the Dragon Covenant, complaining: "If the Dragon Covenant can be operated by them alone, then the money will be more."
Hearing the complaints of "friends", Nintendo also responded: "We are committed to providing consumers with high-quality entertainment in all aspects, not just kryptonite." It sounds very official, but this is also the difference in the business philosophy of the two manufacturers, as a partner CyGames also showed respect for Nintendo's choice, and together with Nintendo improved the various kryptonite items within the Dragon Covenant.
In subsequent version updates, Dragon Covenant not only implemented the "Well" setting, but also further reduced the resources used to draw cards from 150 to 120, and the irritating "Dragon Glow Talisman" was also directly removed from the card pool, which can be redeemed by players in the Store.
In addition to the kryptonite project, simplifying the daily life, adjusting the difficulty curve, and large-scale welfare rolling out, these adjustments that are convenient for most players have allowed The dragon to sweep away the name of the kryptonian liver that once cheated kryptonian liver, not only has become synonymous with conscience games, but also has become the highest-paid mobile game under Nintendo besides "Fire Emblem".
But after this gratifying effect, some players who stick to the dragon for about two years, and who like the operability of the dragon contract, because of the sharp adjustment of the difficulty curve, make the game process itself stimulated into a hang-up automatic video, and the boring daily and automatic brush copy wear out many players' ideas to continue, and the real appearance of many abrupt adjustments has become: the game is more close to the people, but the old players no longer want to play.
In addition to player feedback on the adjustment of the game process, in response to the reduction of kryptonite points in the game and the spread of benefits, the Wall Street Journal published the financial report of CyGames, one of the developers of dragon contracts, in which it was clearly mentioned that the revenue of one mobile game did not meet expectations:
"When we announced the initial earnings forecast, we saw a new game off to a good start, but now it's not doing as much as we expected at the time. With this change, the operating income of existing businesses, such as advertising and games, was adjusted from 50 billion yen to 40 billion yen. ”
The meaning of this report is self-evident, in the financial report has a "good start" of the product is also as everyone expected is the "Lost Dragon Covenant", since the end of the 3rd anniversary of the dragon about the renewal, the size of the dragon covenant update has shrunk significantly, combined with the president of CyberAgent (Cygames parent company) a few years ago said that the dragon covenant "dragged down the company's performance", and the continuous decline in the flow and ranking, many people think of the next "possible" of the dragon covenant.
In the announcement that LongYue announced that it was about to "die", it did not clearly state the time to shut down the server, but installed the new content for the 3.5th anniversary, and then chose the specific date of suspension after the main line was completed for a period of time. Compared with some domestic games that have made a fuss because of "suspension" and "resurrection", Long Yue's "notice of critical illness" is quite humane.
Nintendo has always wanted to make a difference in mobile games. In 2016, Nintendo launched its own water test work "Miitomo" to enter the mobile game market. As Nintendo's first mobile game, "Miitomo" is actually more like a question box, when interacting with the pinched Mii, Mii will ask you a variety of questions, and after answering, it will be revealed to your friends, and through other people's Mii you can also see which questions your friends have answered.
Just as the essence of mii games is Nintendo's test, this game with social attributes is ultimately because the game content is relatively small and the content lacks stickiness. So the game didn't achieve much after that, but Nintendo said everything was expected.
At Apple's autumn conference in September 2016, Nintendo announced its second mobile game "Super Mario Cool Run", this mobile game produced in the name of IP abandons most of the social elements, and the operation is simplified after the original feeling, it may become one of Nintendo's top two products, but in the vast majority of games choose free in-app purchase mobile platform, "Cool Run" still chooses the buyout system of the console genre, after the end of the three-day free trial, Players will need to spend 68 RMB to unlock all levels.
Perhaps because of the higher pricing, Super Mario Cool Run fell into a long silence after reaching 37 million downloads in its first week.
After two tests, Nintendo finally understood the market situation and launched its first draw card game "Fire Emblem: Heroes"; in Nintendo's game IP, Fire Emblem is far less than Mario, Pokémon and other first-line brands, and the limitations of the battle flag game itself make Fire emblem highlight a niche and hardcore.
But unexpectedly, Fire Emblem has become Nintendo's most profitable mobile game so far under the management of Nintendo, including many mobile games that have since been used, and the combined revenue of many mobile games in Nintendo has not exceeded that of "Fire Emblem: Heroes".
At this time, players who understand or do not understand Nintendo have seen that they have been relying on the accumulation of long-term hard work in the game industry to break into the mobile game market, and the failure to get rid of the imprisonment of IP has always been a thorn in the long road of Nintendo mobile games, in 2018 they finally decided to re-cultivate an original IP in the mobile market, and finally Nintendo, which joined forces with CyGames, brought players the "lost dragon covenant".
Today, Dragon Covenant has finally fallen into this land of the rising, Nintendo has continued to try to adapt IP works after Dragon Covenant, and has successively launched related games such as "Doctor Mario: World" and "Animal Forest Friends: Pocket Camping Plaza", but these games are rarely mentioned in China, and the revenue is "not as good as a generation".
I think it is most appropriate to use "regret" to describe Nintendo's mobile game, "Fire Emblem" has become the mainstay, dragon covenant is facing a downturn, and many subsequent works are expected to sell unsatisfactory, but fortunately, although it has not been able to open up the territory for Nintendo, Nintendo's games have a good ending, including the lost dragon covenant.
Nintendo may be such a game manufacturer, in their vision, mobile games are not a clear price of the business but a harmonious party, they want to provide players with better content to attract them to understand the new game on the console, rather than a sudden crammed into the player a good and bad experience, through the sunk cost to cultivate a loyal group of fans.
From this point of view, the dragon covenant that is about to be suspended is undoubtedly successful, and this game born from two manufacturers working together with a strong purpose can properly bid farewell to the player for the last period of time after the end of the main line, which in a sense is already a kind of "good ending".
Note: This article is from fan submissions and does not represent the dynamic view of the game.
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