برچسب: Archive

Blue Archive developers, Nexon Games, have canned their “Steam Review Event”, after someone probably gave them a heads up that Valve has explicit rules about manipulating Steam reviews. Announced over on Steam itself, the gacha strategy game has “decided to terminate the event early”, as it goes expressly against Steam’s terms of service.

While Steam’s review system, despite sometimes being used maliciously by players themselves, has strict guidelines on what not to do. Valve clearly states on its support site that, alongside threats and harassment, not to “coerce” players into leaving reviews.

The event would have rewarded players with in-game rewards if it hit 10,000 reviews. Some gacha games will run events through iOS or Android versions that urge you to leave a review, complete a survey, or interact with social media for a prize. Oftentimes, you can simply hit whatever button, have the app think you’ve done it, and return without ever handing over your precious morals or data.

As pointed out by a user on the Gacha Gaming Reddit, it would have been smarter to simply give items out as and when milestones were hit.

Unfortunately, because Nexon has scrapped the event, it won’t be distributing the rewards in any capacity. It’s an odd statement as it is, as it reads as if no one on the team over at Nexon was even aware this wasn’t allowed.

This is even though they’ve been on Steam for quite some time, with MMOs Vindictus and MapleStory in 2012. They even have a direct partnership with Valve to run Counter-Strike Nexon. Baffling, to say the least.

Nexon didn’t even need to coerce reviews out of players

Looking at the reviews themselves, it’s clear that coercion wasn’t even needed, as the game has been positively received by players. Since its launch on July 4, it has had a massive influx of 5700 reviews, which has naturally dipped to a few hundred in the following week. Reviews claim that it’s running great, and cross-saves work just fine, allowing addicts to continue their self-inflicted gacha torture.

Some negative reviews have pointed out that it is running kernel-level anti-cheat, similar to Riot Games’ Valorant. However, it sits pretty at a “Very Positive” rating on Steam as of writing and doesn’t look like that’ll change anytime soon.

Blue Archive is a multi-million-dollar gacha money generator

If you’re wondering what Blue Archive even is, it’s a 2021 gacha game that regularly brings in millions of dollars. In 2023, it was reported to have made well over $400 million in total, and presumably, that number has climbed exponentially. It also makes a lot of its money in the heartland of gacha gaming, Japan. Reports from last year pointed out that Japan provides 72% of the game’s revenue in total.

Blue Archive manages this through its various microtransactions and that key gacha system. It stems from gachapon, the little toys that you’d pop a quarter in for and get a random piece of plastic. Similarly, gacha games run “banners”, which the player “pulls” from and is awarded a random character, skin, item, or whatever else is being flogged.

When I gave it a spin on launch in 2021, I was taken for a little bit by its snappy action and tactics-lite focus. Now it’s hit Steam, maybe it’s time to dip back into it, if only those anime racing horse girls didn’t absorb so much of my time recently.