|<center>~</center>|<center>Hidden Realm</center>|<center>~</center>|
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|<center>https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/vincric/23wzXCtmJwpdQPg6xMiubg2VGrSR7RYLaeAvtPHeMbygDsoPCsqyQoGayuRi2imdtCLRv.jpg</center>|<center>https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/vincric/23tkhYtYaKfv4K4v7GKWB5oxhkKg8qbnVVmgUotgVgGtC6VN9bCHE9KEu16kEiAQpYiGd.jpg</center>|<center>https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/adamada/23u5xN9FGESR3zemqigonzebDPcm8n3xKxoL892W3S6uxWuxP1cB25aZ7CUjg5MpLvyMa.jpg</center>|

I made a [review about this game](https://peakd.com/hive-140217/@adamada/hidden-realm-mobile-game-review) a few months back. I stopped playing it a month ago because there’s just too many things to keep me occupied. The game was suffering a lack of content to go on anyway (even if I didn’t clear it, there were too few events to keep players occupied). 

I liked playing the game for the visual research in improving my own art style. There’s just something easy to reproduce but classy about the aesthetics of the game that appealed to me. I wasn’t playing for the story with this one. I was playing to unlock some skins to put on my inspiration archive for future references. 

<center>![Screenshot_20211113_142132.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/adamada/2424CXyw51uT7DEXN4nv6dJQcjeapGT3cG5Va6F9QzFPMtoyDxv3MtutxqP5zgESLeJan.jpg)</center>

The game now looks like this after they pulled a bait and switch. I uninstalled and didn’t bother exploring what’s new anymore as the game doesn’t resemble anything like it was before. I’m just happy I recorded the skins for art reference in the future. 

I consider this rug pull as a learning experience for game development. I'm still trying to build my own game as a side hobby and there has been a lot of marked changes since I last shared about it.

***

##### Why I think the game failed:

It wasn’t a bad game but there were better alternatives that made it uncompetitive with the market. It’s a gacha game using European folklore with a twist and had an art style that isn’t but bad but not better than the average gacha game it has to compete with. I think the previous sentence sums up the whole post.

Japan has ruled over this genre on the mobile platforms with China and Korea coming up second. If you’ve been browsing the Google playstore long enough, you’ll notice the top gacha games are products from Japan or in collaboration with Japan. This is a tough market for the Western based gacha games to compete with. The visual aesthetics and waifus aren’t enough anymore. There has to be a solid gameplay and content to incentivize players to keep spending their money on the game. 

What I like about playing games like Azur Lane is how layers of content are put into the game. There’s the general story mode, then mini games, and then event only games. Whether it’s a casual day or an event special, there’s incentives people could look forward to with a few minutes of their time spent on opening the game. Waifu art is nice but there’s just a limit point to how much boobs you can keep your audience hooked into your content. 

If you’re like me who enjoys Waifu collection and actual content, you’d probably enjoy games like [Arknights](https://www.arknights.global/), [Azur Lane](https://azurlane.yo-star.com/#/), and [Girl's Frontline](https://gf.sunborngame.com/) for both visuals and story content. These type of games have yet to manifest on the NFT game space due to how much resource intensive the production value and marketing is require to pump out this level of quality but it’s not unlikely to see it happening within the decade or next. 

Hidden Realm also suffered what every mobile game needs to constantly overcome once they onboarded the player, a long term effective rewarding strategy for both free and premium players. It’s no surprise that only a few players would have the wallets to fund the game while majority would be reliant on free to play alms. Like any other game, HD rewards players generously with premium currencies for free by doing mundane quests and routine work. 

Getting SSR teams and upgrades became an easy task even when you’re just starting out in a week. While the game made the player require less time to grind to get better sets, this also defeated the purpose of players being invested on the effort their progressed made. Right now, the area of trying to reward players to get them interested long term is a nightmare to balance. There’s just too many games that pump out rewards to keep that dopamine kick running when players have other mobile game alternatives for their time. 

HD just enjoyed their 15 minute of hype before fading into obscurity. I also saw another [branch of the game](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tapplus.tog.gp&hl=en&gl=US) under a different team name on the play store. They had the same art style but different gameplay now. I suppose some internal conflicts with the art and licensing were involved but that’s just my speculation.

If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.