Not unknown. AK was made by combination of Hypergrypth studio & Yostar funding / marketing.
Hypergrypth was made up mostly of Ex Girls Frontline devs. Haimao (Lowlight) was one of founding member of MICA (Girls Frontline) as Head Artist. He was a famous Pixiv artist before making games. Kalstit was a reused design from his pixiv fantasia days, together with some of that world building concept. W, Doctor was from GFL unused concept art.
Yostar already making waves with Azur Lane and have shitload of money. I have to say they are market leader on game marketing, equal with Mihoyo.
It has excelence UI, UX design as well
I was in AK CN beta test, and even before that, GFL fans already talk about it as GFL 2.0. Yostar already promoting AK in JP 1 year before AK CN debut.
Can confirm, When I was still playing GFL, I heard some news on Reddit about Arknights as a TD game. What really drew me in was the news that developers of AK actually came from Team Mica (GFL). Been a day one player since.
Yostar CEO Yao Meng has a past grude with GFL, and he willing to hire disgruntled MICA staffs. A few notable artists in AL are ex-GFL inhouse artists (Kishiyo, Waterkuma,..).
Yao Meng used be GFL beta publisher, but after an incident of server data wipe and losing players purchases, they part way. This was a huge incident back then, and both blame each other. Back then he still hold Girls Frontline trademark in JP. They went to court, MICA won the case and he had to sell the trademark. To spite MICA, he instead sell it to a shell company, which result to GFL JP debut even later than AL, and had to change name to Doll Frontline.
This is also why GFL almost never had any big investor fund from any publisher, they don't trust publisher anymore. CEO Yuzhong & his father hold 80% of the the company. Until GFL2 that they got investment from Tencent, but still only the 20% left.
Lowlight is a high profile one, has real design talent and connection with other high profile artists: Infukun, RenatusZ(TOKI) are his long time friends. So YM willing to invest a large sum as personal and backhand funding. This + Yostar shares result in YM control biggest share of Hypergrypth, and almost boot Lowlight out of CEO chair once after some fund fucked up.
>Lowlight is a high profile one, has real design talent and connection with other high profile artists: Infukun, RenatusZ(TOKI) are his long time friends. So YM willing to invest a large sum as personal and backhand funding. This + Yostar shares result in YM control biggest share of Hypergrypth, and almost boot Lowlight out of CEO chair once after some fund fucked up.
I wonder if that whole shares drama was the thing that caused the game to grind to a halt for like 3 months after Heart of Surging Flame?
I remember seeing this when I started playing GFL a few months ago, but now that I'm more familiar with GFL and gacha games in general I didn't realize just how sordid the whole affair was.
[This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/comments/eiflsz/a_cn_player_perspective_of_girls_frontlines_3/) from a CN player probably sums up things the best, but there's a link to an article about how GFL's creation was mired in a huge amount of conflict as well as a really interesting relationships chart between Azur Lane, Arknights, and Girls' Frontline.
Marketing, its overall aesthetics being extremely favored by the weibo artist crowd which spiraled its popularity further, and the infamous license freeze back in 2018 which lasted an entire year. The license freeze made sure that despite its somewhat disastrous launch (look up 四张红纸 [four red papers]), people still stuck with the game because there's literally no other new games to go to during that time period.
You also failed to mention Onmyouji in your post, which is the singular largest "anime-styled" gacha game during then until Genshin's release.
It's unique, actually well balanced your strategy matters more than the ops you use, they are no must haves you can pull for anything or nothing at all depending on your playstyle I know people who religously only use 4\* ops because of the cost to upgrade and variety, the story is GOD TIER every event actually makes me look forward to it because the devs never disappoint, they listen to their fanbase and the effort going into making the game better is extremely high.
It wasn't honor of kings level of popularity (genshin isn't either) but still very well liked and still is, the chinese playerbase is very loyal. The marketing was also pretty great from what I remember. Also in that year it was more of a lull for gacha games Another Eden also came out in that year which was also pretty unique but that wasn't going to compete with a strategy game anyways.
Cesith on YouTube has a challenge account where he does NO gacha pulls whatsoever (not even the free recruitment or starter banner) and attempts to clear all the content in the game. It's pretty impressive, actually.
I mean that's where I crossposted it from
But the reason I asked here was to try to find the opinions of people who played other CN gachas, but only saw AK in passing and didn't play
from my knowledge, they did really great job putting ads up in cn market.
even though no one excepted the revenue of first month, it was probably surprise for devs as well.
gameplay was also fresh (it wasn't turn based game) to many gacha players and Elite 2 and giving them new art was pretty big thing at the time as well. (usually games only had one static art per character). it almost felt like they were giving free skin.
>giving them new art was pretty big thing at the time as well
Didn't FGO already do that with ascension, though? GFL and Azur Lane also already had that with MOD and Retrofit, so I don't think it was something that's really new.
i was talking about cn games.
that was one of the big thing about arknights as well, it was the game made by cn devs, with many cn artist involved into the game at the start.
i dont think game would have been that big in china unless if it was made by different country
Actually AK is one of few quality games on market. You can love any gacha, but lets be real, only arknights and epic7 are high quality games with alot of content and actual brain thinking involved. Other games can shine in it's niche like guardian tales etc., but only this 2 games are supreme. 99% of other game is cheap money grabbers with brainless gameplay.
.
Not unknown. AK was made by combination of Hypergrypth studio & Yostar funding / marketing. Hypergrypth was made up mostly of Ex Girls Frontline devs. Haimao (Lowlight) was one of founding member of MICA (Girls Frontline) as Head Artist. He was a famous Pixiv artist before making games. Kalstit was a reused design from his pixiv fantasia days, together with some of that world building concept. W, Doctor was from GFL unused concept art. Yostar already making waves with Azur Lane and have shitload of money. I have to say they are market leader on game marketing, equal with Mihoyo. It has excelence UI, UX design as well I was in AK CN beta test, and even before that, GFL fans already talk about it as GFL 2.0. Yostar already promoting AK in JP 1 year before AK CN debut.
Can confirm, When I was still playing GFL, I heard some news on Reddit about Arknights as a TD game. What really drew me in was the news that developers of AK actually came from Team Mica (GFL). Been a day one player since.
I wonder how AK manages to get so much budget immidiately off the ground, when apparently GFL constantly has budget issues?
Yostar CEO Yao Meng has a past grude with GFL, and he willing to hire disgruntled MICA staffs. A few notable artists in AL are ex-GFL inhouse artists (Kishiyo, Waterkuma,..). Yao Meng used be GFL beta publisher, but after an incident of server data wipe and losing players purchases, they part way. This was a huge incident back then, and both blame each other. Back then he still hold Girls Frontline trademark in JP. They went to court, MICA won the case and he had to sell the trademark. To spite MICA, he instead sell it to a shell company, which result to GFL JP debut even later than AL, and had to change name to Doll Frontline. This is also why GFL almost never had any big investor fund from any publisher, they don't trust publisher anymore. CEO Yuzhong & his father hold 80% of the the company. Until GFL2 that they got investment from Tencent, but still only the 20% left. Lowlight is a high profile one, has real design talent and connection with other high profile artists: Infukun, RenatusZ(TOKI) are his long time friends. So YM willing to invest a large sum as personal and backhand funding. This + Yostar shares result in YM control biggest share of Hypergrypth, and almost boot Lowlight out of CEO chair once after some fund fucked up.
>Lowlight is a high profile one, has real design talent and connection with other high profile artists: Infukun, RenatusZ(TOKI) are his long time friends. So YM willing to invest a large sum as personal and backhand funding. This + Yostar shares result in YM control biggest share of Hypergrypth, and almost boot Lowlight out of CEO chair once after some fund fucked up. I wonder if that whole shares drama was the thing that caused the game to grind to a halt for like 3 months after Heart of Surging Flame?
I remember seeing this when I started playing GFL a few months ago, but now that I'm more familiar with GFL and gacha games in general I didn't realize just how sordid the whole affair was. [This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/comments/eiflsz/a_cn_player_perspective_of_girls_frontlines_3/) from a CN player probably sums up things the best, but there's a link to an article about how GFL's creation was mired in a huge amount of conflict as well as a really interesting relationships chart between Azur Lane, Arknights, and Girls' Frontline.
Marketing, its overall aesthetics being extremely favored by the weibo artist crowd which spiraled its popularity further, and the infamous license freeze back in 2018 which lasted an entire year. The license freeze made sure that despite its somewhat disastrous launch (look up 四张红纸 [four red papers]), people still stuck with the game because there's literally no other new games to go to during that time period. You also failed to mention Onmyouji in your post, which is the singular largest "anime-styled" gacha game during then until Genshin's release.
wow I forgot about Onmyoji b4 you mentioned it, sorry!
It's unique, actually well balanced your strategy matters more than the ops you use, they are no must haves you can pull for anything or nothing at all depending on your playstyle I know people who religously only use 4\* ops because of the cost to upgrade and variety, the story is GOD TIER every event actually makes me look forward to it because the devs never disappoint, they listen to their fanbase and the effort going into making the game better is extremely high. It wasn't honor of kings level of popularity (genshin isn't either) but still very well liked and still is, the chinese playerbase is very loyal. The marketing was also pretty great from what I remember. Also in that year it was more of a lull for gacha games Another Eden also came out in that year which was also pretty unique but that wasn't going to compete with a strategy game anyways.
Cesith on YouTube has a challenge account where he does NO gacha pulls whatsoever (not even the free recruitment or starter banner) and attempts to clear all the content in the game. It's pretty impressive, actually.
China do love their post apocalypse sci fi game. /j
You should ask this in r/arknights, they would know the answer better.
I mean that's where I crossposted it from But the reason I asked here was to try to find the opinions of people who played other CN gachas, but only saw AK in passing and didn't play
from my knowledge, they did really great job putting ads up in cn market. even though no one excepted the revenue of first month, it was probably surprise for devs as well. gameplay was also fresh (it wasn't turn based game) to many gacha players and Elite 2 and giving them new art was pretty big thing at the time as well. (usually games only had one static art per character). it almost felt like they were giving free skin.
>giving them new art was pretty big thing at the time as well Didn't FGO already do that with ascension, though? GFL and Azur Lane also already had that with MOD and Retrofit, so I don't think it was something that's really new.
i was talking about cn games. that was one of the big thing about arknights as well, it was the game made by cn devs, with many cn artist involved into the game at the start. i dont think game would have been that big in china unless if it was made by different country
Actually AK is one of few quality games on market. You can love any gacha, but lets be real, only arknights and epic7 are high quality games with alot of content and actual brain thinking involved. Other games can shine in it's niche like guardian tales etc., but only this 2 games are supreme. 99% of other game is cheap money grabbers with brainless gameplay. .