In my previous posts of the ‘Decline of SIFAS’ series, I described why Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS (SIFAS) is failing in KLab and what my thoughts were in transferring development of the game to MyNet Games. In 2022, the situation in SIFAS had somewhat stabilised, with the fall in revenues now stopped. However, SIFAS faced numerous issues in 2022 such as lower revenues, a shrinking player base and the move towards pay-to-win (P2W) tactics. In this post, I would like to provide an update on how SIFAS is going, and provide one possible reason why MyNet Games was facing the current situation in SIFAS over 2022.
SIFAS player counts in 2022
SIFAS continued to see declines in player counts throughout 2022. In Japan (JP), the number of players playing the game has decreased by 22-28%, from 63,361 in the January 2022 item exchange (itex) event to 45,871 players in the December 2022 itex event. Similar results were found for the story events, decreasing from 61,266 players at January 2022 to 47,869 players in December 2022.
In the global (GL) server, the decline in player counts was just as dramatic, decreasing by 22-31% throughout 2022. From 22,548 players in the January 2022 itex event, only 15,541 players participated in the December 2022 itex event. For story events, January 2022 saw 22,534 players, but this decreased to a low of 16,015 players in November 2022, before coming back to 17,653 players in December 2022 due to the Christmas celebrations. Based on the percentage decreases calculated for 2022, I predicted that by the end of 2023, there would be 33,028-37,338 players in JP and 10,724-11,371 players in GL.
The anime and anniversary campaigns attracted new players to SIFAS (represented by green and pink rectangles respectively in the graphs). This resulted in a temporary increase in player counts that was not sustained after the campaigns ended. The half-year anniversary campaign in March 2022 was associated with an increase in player counts for story events in both JP and GL servers (by 3% and 6% respectively). These increases were sustained in story events that were run throughout April-June 2022. For itex events, there was initial strong interest towards the game, as indicated by more players playing SIFAS in April 2022 compared to January 2022 in both servers. However, that interest was not sustained, with 8-9% players from April 2022 not participating in the May 2022 itex event and a further 1-3% players not participating in the June 2022 itex event. As soon as the anime season ended, interest towards SIFAS quickly fell apart. In particular, from the June 2022 story event, 13% and 15% of JP and GL players respectively did not participate in the July 2022 story event. This result most likely indicates that MyNet Games failed to capitalise on the anime season to retain new players in SIFAS.
During the anniversary celebrations that occurred from September to October 2022 (pink areas), itex events in both servers failed to show increases in player counts, either stagnating or decreasing by up to 4% of the player base. In contrast, the anniversary celebrations had different effects on player counts in the story events for both JP and GL servers. The JP server saw a temporary upswing in player counts, increasing by 9% from 50,942 players in August 2022 to 55,387 players in September 2022. However, that increase was not sustained, decreasing to 52,164 players (6% decrease) in October 2022. In contrast, player growth was sluggish in the GL server, only increasing by 2% from 18,247 players in August 2022 to 18,688 in September 2022 and 18,735 players in October 2022. After the anniversary period, player counts fell precipitously, falling by 7% for itex events in both JP and GL and, for story events, by 10% in JP and, more worryingly, 15% in GL. The player counts for both JP and GL in November 2022 were lower than those of August 2022 (before the anniversary celebrations), indicating that MyNet Games had failed to retain both new and existing players in SIFAS.
A number of things can be drawn from looking at player counts for both JP and GL servers. There were spikes in player counts during the anniversary periods, indicating that the anniversary rewards were attractive enough for new players. However, the increases in player counts were not sustained after the anime and anniversary periods ended, indicating that MyNet Games failed to retain new players.
At the same time, the precipitous declines in player counts in the GL server were very worrying. That put into question the viability of running a separate server for GL players as it would cost money to run two servers. There was a strong chance that MyNet Games will merge the JP and GL servers into one server in 2023, similar to what had happened in Love Live School Idol Festival. This would have major repercussions on retaining meta players as GL players will find it harder to compete in voltage ranking against JP players who had more time and opportunities to obtain and upgrade powerful cards.
SIFAS revenues in 2022
Two arguments can be made on the effect of MyNet Games on SIFAS revenues in JP. On the one hand, MyNet Games have stopped the constant declines in JP revenues when SIFAS was run by KLab (shown in pink). If KLab had continued to run SIFAS in 2022, SIFAS revenues in JP would have hovered around 60 million Japanese Yen by the end of 2022. Its continued decline would have led to its termination by 2023 or 2024. In contrast, since MyNet Games took over SIFAS (shown in blue), revenues remained steady, averaging around 125 million Japanese Yen per month.
However, that flat trendline masks a pattern of peaks and troughs in revenue that were worse than KLab’s. Unlike KLab, MyNet Games did see an ‘anniversary bump’ in revenues, increasing by 41% from August to September 2022. The revenue peaks in 2022; though, only matched KLab’s worst-performing month in November 2021. MyNet Games also experienced much lower baseline revenues than KLab. Half of 2022 had monthly revenues that only hovered around the 100 million JP Yen mark
Collectively, these results indicate that although revenues stabilised in 2022, they did not increase during the year. MyNet Games would become increasingly reliant on anniversary celebrations to collect much of their revenue, with the rest of the year stagnating around a baseline level of revenue. That baseline revenue may fall during 2023; though, as meta players either stop paying or playing the game and are not replaced by new paying players.
MyNet Games burning the bridge for paying players
The stable revenues experienced in 2022 despite a shrinking player base were driven by MyNet Games transitioning SIFAS towards a pay-to-win (P2W) strategy. Their actions, particularly during the second half of 2022, heavily supported whales (players who spend a lot of money on the game) at the expense of free-to-play (F2P) players and low and middle spenders. These included:
- Making limited resources such as High Memories and Shikishi Boards unlimited by selling them as paid packs. This allowed whales who were willing to spend to purchase them to quickly boost their cards and idols while shutting out F2P, low and middle spenders.
- Increasing the tap cap from 50,000 to 100,000 per tap in Advanced songs. This destroyed the meta in the Advanced difficulty as song requirements were trivialised and voltage ranking these songs heavily favoured whales who had strong cards. The change also reinforced the existing meta, placing SP filler cards above all other cards due to their ability to reach the tap cap often.
- The increased tap cap led to continual powercreep over the last months which made older cards increasingly redundant. This pressured players to get new cards, making it difficult to keep up with the meta without investing a significant amount of money. These effects increased player burnout and fatigue towards SIFAS.
- Combining actions 2 and 3, there was a sudden change to the meta of one event (Super Big Live (SBL)) which drastically marginalised a card that was released just beforehand (found below). That card was useful for voltage ranking in SBL under the old tap cap of 50,000 per tap. After the SBL and the gacha to get that card ended, MyNet Games released a notice saying that the tap cap for SBL would be raised from 50k to 100k. This relegated the card from an essential card in every SBL song to a niche role of scoring well in one attribute and swapping subunits in certain songs to maximise the score. This change upset plenty of meta players who have obtained that card in an effort to compete in the old SBL meta. This was evidenced by the fact that four JP whales who used to compete in SBL voltage ranking left the game altogether.
Altogether, MyNet Games implemented these changes in an effort to extract money from the whales while the game was going well, maintaining steady revenues. This came at the expense of new players who were not retained, as well as existing free-to-play and paying players who left the game due to the burnout they experienced in SIFAS. The shrinking of the player base not only precluded increases in revenues, but also resulted in a slow but continual decline in revenue.
This is in contrast to Genshin Impact which not only maintained high revenues throughout 2022, but have also promoted practices that are friendly to both casual and meta players:
- Hoyoverse’s commitment to not release end-game content for Genshin Impact, while controversial, actually positioned it as a casual game to be enjoyed at its own pace instead of being a competitive game like Tower of Fantasy. Players do not feel pressured to get the latest character in an effort to keep up with the meta. This not only reduces stress towards the game, but players can still enjoy playing their favourite characters without it being powercrept.
- The introduction of the dendro element in Version 3.0, along with its associated elemental reactions, improved the gameplay of existing characters. For example, electro characters such as Keqing now have an elemental reaction (aggravate) that increased their damage output compared to previous versions.
- Hoyoverse also gives players time to decide whether to pull a new character. They not only drip-market new characters before they are released, but they also give players the opportunity to trial new characters before pulling for them. This allows players to decide whether the character fits their playstyle before pulling for the character in the gacha.
Hoyoverse’s practices in running Genshin Impact have allowed them to generate high revenues without resorting to P2W practices or alienating any part of their player base. Their practices are better than MyNet Games which have placed all their chips on extracting money from the whales at the expense of other players before SIFAS’ eventual decline and termination.
Conclusion
I provided a balanced picture on the situation in SIFAS in 2022. The stabilisation of revenues in 2022 was good news for SIFAS. However, this is contrasted by a declining player base, where the meta players leaving the game are not being replaced by new players entering the game. This motivated MyNet Games to move towards P2W tactics which heavily favoured whales at the expense of other players. The result was short-term gain for long-term pain for all players in terms of revenues and player counts. The next blog post explains the termination of SIFAS, and the reasons why it was terminated.