@@jagaimo7912 Yep those two I keep hearing a lot, then once I searched for the OST alone on youtube, I started getting video recommendations from channels like Arisu Archive and Blue Sechi, now here I am, trying my best not to whale
The sports event incident(光輪大際) was not because of they hear what people wanted. What really happened was at the live stream where they showed the event(the one you roll die to earn reward), the reward shown was quite impressive(quite a lot of credit, report and hasumi bits). However, when the event started, they nerfed the reward by 1/5 within 2 hours by emergency patch. That created huge unfair difference between people who run like hell within that 2 hours and one who did not, so people were furious. Then Yongha Kim(main PD) made an apology letter to people(the tweet you showed) and give insane amount of compensation which made people happy and the event actually became a festival instead of hell fire. In my personal take, the popularity started to grow at C&C Bunny girl event(quite a lot of fan art started to pop up), spiked at Main story : Eden treaty 3rd chapter(a lot of talk about how good the story is) and exploded at 1.5 anniversary. Plus at the sport event, it became very easy for new comers to enter because of that insane compensation(free maxed out character+credit+report etc)
Ah, it would seem that my research with that event was quite wrong. I was going partially off memory but it seems my memory was quite wrong with that. Thank you for pointing it out and apologies for the mistake.🙇 The bunny girl event I certainly might've overlooked since in 2022 it was having a rerun in summer after the first DAU spike but even then considering it sparked all the fan art it mightve then contributed to more people knowing about the game too. Eden I looked into it around the time since the story was realcy good and I liked it alot but if I recall it didn't boost it as much sadly although it definetly would've helped to some extent since it would've given people a chance to tell their friends even more to play it.
I kind of feel like they intentionally made the Blue Enemies and Raids content harder after that just because everyone now had a fully maxed Hasumi Sports
@@55ziomal55 Blue raid content definitely does feel a lot harder what with Goz being as tough as he is compared to most other bosses at insane. I don't know if they actually did that, as someone who worked on these types of games in the past the sensible thing to do would be to not do that since it'd alienate new players who joined later who have no way to get her at that point. But I do know of certain games that have done things like that so I won't rule it out either. Either way fuck Goz and blue content pain.
Oh yes, I think it is this exact event also started the term of "ヤケクソ補填" in the Japan Gacha scene, where they refer to the acts of compensating the players a lot to a point almost everyone is happy and can't complain about it, except at the cost of breaking the game economy and making certain P2W player base unhappy, because they no longer have a big edge against F2P players. This tactic can hurt the revenue significantly but in exchange you get free advertisement plus customer loyalty, but it can backfire if there wasn't enough capital to sustain the loss. If translated it literally means "self-loathing sh1tty replenishment", but the actual meaning, I think it should be closing to something like "h0lysh1t replenishment"
@@stevefan8283 Yea the compensation that resulted from it was pretty massive but the goodwill that it managed to build was immense as well. Especially in blue archive's case since the goodwill would've been more important for them at the time than the revenue loss. The risk with displeasing the P2W playerbase is always a big issue with trying to provide compensation in mobile games with a lot of microtransactions which is what makes many titles worried at the same time to do it but I'm glad they did it in this case.
Imma give a shoutout to Blue Seichi and his animations bringing in a bunch of people. I see clips, gifs, and edits from his works everywhere now a days.
The fact that he even made a clip for the global/kr anniversary as well is really cool and goes to show how much of an influence his works had so it's truly cool what he has done.
It’ll never stop being funny to me how Asuna, despite being a one star character, became arguably the most popular and well known BA character entirely because of her bunny girl skin
It really is quite crazy how popular she is yea especially since she isn't a starter character like Yuuka. Truly the power of the energetic booba bunny cannot be underestimated.
I definitely feel like Fanart plays a huge role in marketing. It was how I found my way into Blue Archive, seeing characters like Izuna, Mutsuki, Hina, and Iroha pretty much all over the place. And them actually giving us alot more unique characters for generics is definitely gong to help in that aspect. Alongside the Gehenna girls of course~ But yeah. The art is the hook. Convenience and generosity go a long way in giving the game the support it needs from its more stingy competitors. The addition of accessible welfare students is a great step that all gachas should provide for new players. The very concept that they are improving as much as they are in the future is definitely making people have a more positive outlook. And I don't doubt that much like the build up to Mika, we will see a similar trend for Dress Hina. I am of course speaking on the English side of things. I'm sure it's hell for the people 6 months ahead of us that have to deal with so many limited banners without much planning. It's a big reason why I don't mind us being behind, because it means I can properly plan my resources. But I'm also quite certain those people are more than willing to spend for their favorites anyway, different culture and all. So I can't really hold that against them, when all other gacha pretty much stand by the same priniciples. Still really don't like Limited Characters though. BA can make some feel random at times, like Makoto or regular Toki. If it were just for alts, that'd make more sense. It's just so arbitrary. Maybe they could make the concession with FES units like S.Hoshino and Wakamo. I would rather them not all be limited, but I can understand the power gap characters like Mika and S.Hoshino bring to the table.
Yea the fact that the 3rd anniversary has 3 simultaneous limited characters definetly does make it feel a lot more stressful for the players as well no doubt. Thankfully it seems like they've dropped the number of limited characters compared to the initial year or so so hopefully we'll see them eventually find a way to get around this or learn to plan it better as well. I do agree on the point of fanart though. Maybe I should've mentioned it more in the video since all I did mention was the bit on Comiket at the end which feels a lil too late compared to when the game began to see a rise in popularity as well. Thanks for pointing that out! Especially with this third annivesary it does feel like they added a lot more work into things like in the in game model design and the art, pv etc a well as welfare which really goes a long way into showing that they are at least investing the money back into the game itself which really is nice to see.
the theme of ba of "this is where all miracle begins" kinda makes a lot of sense when you think about how it manage to survive the roughest sea and the...uh...hands of nexon (cause again. this is nexon) its still a mystery for me how they manage to convince nexon that Blue archive will rise from whatever mudpit she was in, but whoever did it must be very happy now
It truly is a miracle when you consider it went through the hands of nexon yea lol. I do hope one day they actually mention in an interview how they manage to convince top management to keep the game running past year one. Perhaps it might've been a result of some weird contract between Nexon Korea and Yostar but either way glad it worked out for them.
Part of the reason why they send it to jp first with Yostar as publisher because they are the ones with good rep. I might be mistaken here, but I think when they made BA, Nexon actually agreed to give the devs more freedom with the franchise instead of the executives to see if they could turn it around.
@@MrOverTyrant Feels like one of the rare times Nexon made a really good decision in doing that. You're quite right that Yostar's rep is pretty good especially in comparison to Nexon even within Japan so in doing so they probably helped to ensure the game would do a lot better.
Heck, I am still a bit bummed that the initial pitch of Blue Archive being a "Moe X-com game" (MX Games get it) didn't go through, and had to scale back into an auto battler. Now with Girls Frontline 2's success over at China, I hope Nexon and Yostar will try to go back with that idea for a spinoff game of Blue Archive, considering how somewhat easy it is to adapt as some of the hallmark mechanics are there (destructable cover system, accuracy, targeting abilities)
The fanart and doujins brought my attention to the game, as well as its infamy among non-anime fans. The game's story was surprisingly good and the characters were better than I could have hoped. I love this community
Infamy among non-anime fans sounds like one of the funniest ways I've heard so far 🤣 That said the game really does have quite a good story and the level of love that went into developing the characters as well really did pay off.
If you've ever seen the (un)godly popularity of the game series called Touhou(probably, it's everywhere in japan), I think blue archive has many of the same elements that Touhou has that allow for truly passionate fans. Like, the creators of Blue Archive, much like the creator of Touhou ZUN, both really interact witht he community, going as far as to promote fanwork, work alongside fans, etc. You see this in blue archive in the form of fanart promotion, but also the developers inviting actual fanartists to create official work. The limits on the fanwork is almost completely free as well, just like with Touhou Add in the story where every single character has unique and goofy personalities, backstories,etc, as well as killer music and a world that while not visually the best built, but hides an incredible amount of potential, and you have something that is truly special.
Indeed I have. I didn't make a video about touhou specifically but I did make a few about Reitaisai. It's a series that has a special place in my heart as well. It really is nice to see that the devs for BA are as pro-doujin content as they are since they do seem to be quite into that site of weeb culture as well which as you said definitely does help with getting fanart to spread as much as it has to allow for the series to get even bigger from there as well. Coupled with how well designed the characters are as well as the music it really does feel like it does make for a lot of staying power on top of being able to attract people in.
The characters have pulling power, but the story has staying power. I started playing a few months ago, and the story kept me in the game. I don't want to miss the story that they put out, from the quirky meme events to volume F
For sure. They certainly did put in a lot of effort to strengthen the staying power of the game during the first 1.5 years and it's cool to see it all pay off the way it did as the game got more and more popular from the marketing and character draw it has.
Day 1 Global Player here, this video summarizes how Blue Archive got into a better place so well. For me personally, one of the biggest introductions to the series was through the fanart of Arisu, as well as Unwelcome School trending around Twitter. Despite that, the main reason I stayed was because of Hoshino, and how her story in Abydos' Volume 2 really made me love her character, as well as her 1st year designs making me hope for a playable version someday (and also her 2nd year design, which came along in Volume F. Also, can't wait for Abydos Volume 3, which was recently announced!). While I would also mention how the Bunny event had their designs (dont get me started on the Asuna/Karin combination going through on Twitter...), Eden Treaty 3 with its lore, and Get-Set-Go with its Twitter-based promotions went around with the voting event and all helped exposure (and Milleniums On Your Mark event being a prelude to the event, hyping up the 2nd half of the Sports event), the 1.5th anniversary truly felt like it was THE proper anniversary. Ever since then, they just keep going up and go further beyond. Especially with the second anniversary bringing in Volume F and Mika, a very much anticipated character that had Toyama Nao as her VA, which performed her character really well. You just HAD to be there when it happened. Overall, really solid video! I enjoyed my way through game analyses like these!
Maybe we might actually see one of those Hoshinos as well if they're really going deeper into that segment of her life in the upcoming plot it would be interesting. For me I do recall Unwelcome School being used in a lot of other memes as well. Especially morimori used it quite a fair bit if I recall XD. Yea the Mika announcement was certainly quite a hyped one at the time if I remember from the stream as well XD. Though with all the people also mentioning the Bunny event for Karin and Asuna I do feel like as you said as well that it definitely might've done more for the game than I gave it credit for. Thank you for pointing it out and I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
day 1 as well, aru definitely hooked me first thing when the game launched. Stopped playing for a while from the constant maintenance and the events being stale, came back at bunny event again and played permanently since then
@@whitefata12 Aru truly is quite cute with how big the gap between her usual cool demeanour and the sometimes derpy part of her are XD Though it really does make it feel a lot like the bunny event definetly brought a lotta people back int o the game
The amount of comments that said the C&C bunnies is what drew them to the game is actually insane because that’s how I got into the game. Asuna & Karin just showed up everywhere in fan art and when I finally figured out where they came from I got hooked onto the game. What a funny coincidence PS. Very good video it was fun to hear the history of Blue Archive :DD
Yea all the people saying that's what got them into it makes me convinced now that perhaps it was way bigger than I thought it was as well since the numbers in game for JP showed some level of a blip but nothing massive so at first I didn't think as much of it since it was a rerun in 2022 but now I feel like I should've looked even more into that a well.
The final nail for me to go back and Play Blue Archive is their Christmas Present to all their fans-- A beautiful Orchestra, not just a fan-made orchestra who raked millions of views already but an official one. I was already a fan of BA but uninstalled due to my old phone's storage and hardware limitations. Now, I played it just for the music, story, and characters revolving in the City of Kivotos. Now that the BA Animation is coming soon, I'm more hyped for this franchise to reach their greater hights.
The animation definitely looks to be quite hype as well as the orchestra that they put together back then for the live performance was really good as well. The stuff they are doing outside the game as well truly is quite interesting.
I'm day 1 global player and I play BA very casually. The biggest draws for me were lighthearted (for the most part) story and the great amount of cute students for all tastes who are just for (you). And I'm happy that even today it is so. There were some hiccups in the start like some censorship (which got pulled back) and questionable translation haunts global even today, but overall it's my favourite gacha of all time.
Casually is the best way to enjoy the game yes yes. Attempting stuff like towerless hod is just too much for my heart to handle. Glad to hear that some of the early controversies with global did get resolved though. Here's hoping the rest of the translation stuff gets settled eventually too.
3rd anniv now, one thing I'm surprised you didn't mention was the artwork side of things. Ie Kisaki and bunny Asuna and Karin basically pulling in almost a thousand of fanart within a week or so. Other than that it's a really refreshing video and kinda makes me solidify and glad that I stayed with Blue Archive as a global launch player. Didn't play JP even though I literally looked forward to it with pre-launch PVs due to the gameplay and obvious lack of understanding for the language. But now? Hot damn remembering the 2nd anniv as well and now the 3rd anniv (albeit a bit tamer) and how hype people is in those streams, plus enjoying the great story out of this game so far.
Hmmm you might have a point with the point on the bunny girls. I didn't add it in because the 2022 release was a rerun so I wasn't thinking as hard about it but you're certainly right since Karin and Kisaki did spawn a lot of fan art which could have contributed to it too. It certainly is impressive how good the game is doing now though, the jump was massive by most standards.
I get the thought yeah but I think it went like, global people saw Asuna and Karin in particular but didn't want to deal with playing JP and just waiting for the global release, hence I can see why it does not affect your data and particularly looking at JP sources. PS: Good job with the video! Seems like it popped off! @@overworkedsalaryman
@@suki4524 That is a possibility too although I do feel you brought up a good point as well since the amount of fanart for her prolly meant that quite a number of artists in Japan really did like her design too which might have led to some level of the increase in popularity of the game here too so thanks for bringing that up if anything! Glad the video is doing well though and thank you and everyone else who watched it if anything. If it popped off it's thanks to you all more so than me. 🙇
@@overworkedsalaryman I can tell you im one of them. I started playing BA purely because of bunny asuna. I saw her incredibly cultured fan art wondered what she was from and gave BA a shot and i have been playing since hoshino swimsuit banner
I think this game first huge win is the making of bunny asuna and bunny karin. That made the setup of hoshino summer to go viral. And the summer fes making the first inter school event that actually gives us a small taste of what their cooking on vol f. And that PV 4. That PV genuinely soo good for a PV. Even if im remembering right the server genuinely exploded with how much people wants to try the game. And good god above vol F might likely the best gacha story I've ever seen. That second anniversary what made this game felt extremely special. Thats on jp side, on english side, well with how crunchyroll killed of pricone the priconne refugee that didnt want to go to priconne japan, suddenly went to blue archive global. Do extremely convenient that at the time priconne global Eos BA is on their way to summer Hoshino event. And thus global got a lot of new player at that point. And then global also got a taste of vol f.
Vol F really was quite an enjoyable part. It really does feel like that plus the 4th PV were quite hyped. Though the more people mention it the more I'm starting to see the point on Asuna and Karin. While it might not have had a direct impact that was as massive as Hoshino Summer it definitely did give that a massive springboard to go more viral as you say,
@@overworkedsalaryman in football or soccer term. Karin and asuna bunny do the assist so the Hoshino meme can carry the franchise. Without Karin and asuna bunny no one would bat an eye on blue archive
The main thing about blue archive for me is, you can see the love they make for each character, the worldbuilding, and the story. The gameplay itself is super dull if you already finished and know how everything works but everyone (and i especially ) kept getting back to this game because how they make each characters and story immersive and charming to people who love anime. like almost everything they make is based on anime trope that every weeb understands and loves even when it's cliche, they dont try to be different and embrace the cliche bit and push it out as is, and it really shows. Blue archive is literally a really good anime that you can play with great world building and each characters and story update feels like getting a new episode of your favourite anime, and i think thats why it keeps on living with time despite the boring gameplay and lord know how many maintenance they did. EDIT : Oh.. and all their music is a BANGER. and i feel like they arent just an anime series that i wait each month, but also a music artist that i wait for the new release of each month
Yea and now they are gonna have a full season animation too so that's pretty cool! Really do love the style of music they have in the game too though. It does stylistically remind me a lot of early korean mmos like granado espada which makes me feel even more nostalgic listening to BA's music since it's a genre of music I don't see in games as much anymore. I do agree with the point on the characters too. The use of both momotalks and the cutscenes plus all the different lobby and cafe interactions really does help to give the characters more life and the way the devs talk about the characters during interviews it really does show that they really do put a lot of thought into the design too which is great compared to doing a gacha game where people just get character with no background or description.
I started playing Blue Archive during the Sport event in Global randomly, just for the "funy" memes and my twitter timeline was filled with BA fan arts, thought it would be a passing phase since i didn't like the actual gameplay that much but the story, characters and music hooked me and i can't let it go now The problem with BA is that outside of Japan is pretty niche and having videos that talk about the game are rare, even rarer videos about the development/life of the game it self Cheers to you for this, your video was very interesting and a fun watch, keep it up
Glad you enjoyed the video and thanks for watching! 🙏 Yea when I first saw the gameplay segment it felt like it had the potential to be a mini-rts on mobile so the fact that controlling the characters was limited to using ex skills was a lil unfortunate but I ended up sticking with it too so I kinda get what you mean. I knew that outside of Japan and (maybe) Korea the game would prolly be more niche but I didn't know it was to that extent. Though that might be due to the difference in taste of the Asian market compared to other parts of the world. Cool to hear about the game and how it does in the rest of the world though!
Day 1 global player here as well As soon as i first opened the game and the music started with the loadong art, i knew i was in for something special. Since i already had an idea of the premise, and i used to play GFL,i expected something dark and gloomy, but the bright scenery and almost pastel-like colors used on those splash screens catched my eye immediately. Then, after getting the first taste of the lore, i got hooked hard, since i felt the whole "carrying a gun is mandatory and shootouts are always the answer for every problem" gimmick was very unique. It was rough at first, but i couldnt help myself to want more. And as an artist, i pretty much shifted from Azur Lane and other games illustrations to almost exclusively Blue Archive. I just feel like the characters themsleves are very lovingly designed, and every time a PV releases, I'm awestruck by how clean the art looks.
In a way the bright and energetic design really does feel like it helped it to stand out as well especially since it feels like many other Korean games had been going in the whole dark and gloomy angle with recent years. The blend of that brightness and how dark the story gets at times certainly is quite interesting as well though and really does help make it feel even more hype. The PVs too are really great. Love how looking back on the PVs as well there really is a visible shift in how much better they've been getting with the designs too. 😄
Day 1 JP player here I believe one of the times the game came dangerous close to the low point is also when the first limited summer alts were introduced. Quite a few people were a bit put off by the sudden introduction of alts, especially since they were lim, but as time went on (and thankfully some alts are also perm), the alts have become a means to further expand character stories. One of Blue Archive's strongest points is their character development in stories, where we see what the students are really like outside of their usual shenanigans. And like how you mentioned, BA focused hard on marketing and their devs reflect on that, even sharing fan made content if it means giving characters their spotlight. They have created multiple short ads showcasing a character and their skills, as well as a snippet of their memorial lobby and them saying some of their lines. BA understands that the characters they create are what players are most interested in, and do their best to flesh them out, both minimally in the ads, and then fully in the game. Equally, the game stories have also introduced us to multiple NPCs that at some cases have even become more popular than playable characters themselves for one reason or another (looking at you, Kisaki), and slowly, those characters are slowly being released as playable characters, which further builds more interest and anticipation. I also believe that the 4th PV (Volume F) also helped to garner more interest in the game: it should be said that at this point there are still some people who have taken BA for granted, thinking cute and funny SOL game with school girls, nothing much, despite having heard about the game having a great story. Then this PV releases, and those same girls are facing skies dyed with red, world ending apocalypses as well as the alternate scenes of what might have happened if Sensei werent there to intervene in their lives; a stark contrast to their intial assumptions. Suddnely there's interest, and people wish to understand more of what this slice-of-life story is really about, they start hearing about the story, and then they finally get curious enough to download it and find out for themselves. It should be noted that 4th PV is also their most watched video on the channel yet, and was even trending on RU-vid at one point. That was how much impact the PV made.
Yea I agree with you that the way they develop the students does indeed feel quite interesting since they use those opportunities to show a different side of them with how they interact differently when in the events or main story the player isn't around etc. The 4th PV truly is quite a banger with how it shows in a nutshell how different the game can be from the colorful and cheerful image that it'd usually give with the artwork and key visuals and as you said is definitely quite important as well in showing how much the plot has to offer. Also the fact that there are so many npc characters that are so popular and that people rlly want to have implemented goes to show how good of a job they did getting people to engage with the characters too it feels like.
Thank you for loving it too. Really am looking forward to seeing what the main story arc is gonna go into this time as the key visual was quite hype, same for the animation.
OOooo Toki I can see being a big draw too yea. Both with her super mecha form and her being as funni as she is alongside all the memes in general. Feels like those really did help a lot too
I actually watched the whole thing, great video! I'm quite surprised there's no mention about the 4th PV, I thought it was quite the hype at the time, I know nothing about the statistic though.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video though I'm sorry it was so long haha. The 4th anniversary PV was quite hype and definitely drew in some people but it seemed to be one of those things where it was a bigger hype within the community than out of it or at least that was what the numbers seemed to suggest at the time. That said I remember being quite excited for it and some have mentioned that it was what got them into the game so you might be on to something there as well.
The brand and customer confidence is extremely convincing. My initial experience with Blue Archive was my friend hyping up the game a ton, but he ended up not playing. When I tried to log in during the 1st rerun of New Year event, I was faced with the game kept crashing and I threw the towel and just left for until I coincidentally got back on the 2nd rerun of the same event. The game was still running like dogwater. I would probably just continue to be on-and-off if it wasn't the very apparent marketing and brand maintenance that they were doing. It was only then did I really dive into the lore and the game's stability felt much better. Great video and thanks for the insight.
The power of marketing is truly scary. As much as I hate to admit it working on making games the levels to which it can elevate and IP like this is truly amazing to watch. Of course the devs did do a very good job of improving the game to keep people staying after the initial marketing impact too and that is important as well but the level of marketing though... got to hand it to yostar they really know what they're doing.
While a Karin fanart boom sometime last year is indeed how I found out Blue Archive existed, another less objectively measurable factor at play here could have been the loss of players elsewhere, with the game picking up players from some of their gacha game competition that happen to have been bleeding at the time (such as the aforementioned behemoth of FGO, which seems to be succeeding inspite of its management's efforts these days). Luck - as in, being in the right time and place to make use of an opportunity that occurrs outside of your control - has, unfortunately, an even bigger impact on success of a product than advertisement strategy at times. Thank you for the time and effort put into this video. An informative, as well as fun, watch!
Indeed, even with the popularity of the memes that get some people into the game that too is something out of the devs control as all it takes is the lucky break of having the right person play your game at the right time, make good fan work for it and suddenly it blows up (That seems to happen quite a lot with indie games too it seems) Arguably this might've been how a different game I ended up talking about might have died instead. Wrong place, wrong time. That said I'm glad you enjoyed the video and thank you for pointing that out. 🙇
They had crazy marketing opportunities and capitalized accordingly! I'm in the minority here since very much not Hentai Guy or even an Anime Twitter guy, i think the devs have something pretty special on their hands. They've crafted a pressure free zone for enjoying the game instead of spending money, since there really isn't a *great* reason to sweat in raids, but the power creep and hyper specificity is there for high end players anyway. i can see players just falling in love with characters in general too, another reason to spend or play for casuals. also the designs are kinda basic compared to most gachas these days, where every unit needs to be "The Most Special Best Girl!", and i find it very charming. Someone might think "ah boring anime shit" but it so clear that it's done with intent and love! The presentation and music is my #1 reason to play. while i think marketing and fan-art to be fleeting for a project like this, i think they've got something great and unique in the long term and i hope they continue to thrive. I started on the first anniversary so its interesting to see dark period with industry perspective. The positivity in the game's theming extends further than just the story it seems. 😙 Great video!
Glad you enjoyed the video! Yea it's interesting how they have designs that are at times more on the simple side but use very specific small things to make the characters memorable as well. Things such as Kasumi with the shirt weirdly sticking out of her pants or Yuuka and Noa's uniform where it isn't very showy but the color pallette & the characters' personalities pull through to make them easy to remember all the same. The music as well they truly did go for a very unique choice. To me it is quite reminiscent of early 2000s Korean mmo styles of electronic focused music but with a more modern take on it which in a way does help it stand out as well. Really do hope they keep it up with the music and characters. As you said, the game does feel like it has a lot of potential on its hands.
Hi, new player from SEA here, like, a few days old lmao. I was introduced to the game by a friend from the US, and while I always knew it existed, I was always wary of it. The Nexon name definitely brings with it incredibly bad vibes with it, and I found it really hard to join the game even when I knew I would like it. With my friend getting into it, I finally took the first step and went to see what the current situation for the game is and wow. This video was really interesting, showcasing the history of the game and to an extent justifying my wariness in the early days. I'll hopefully start playing before the 3rd anni, as of now though..... Kanna has COMPLETELY enraptured me. I have been rerolling for her in the standard banner for 3 days now LMAO. Thank you for the great retrospective video, was entertaining.
Yea it's a good thing they went with Yostar in JP at least so at least there was some level of saving grace from that since the content for global and kr follows on that. Kanna is really great too though yea. The stuff she does in Vol 4 is so good but I won't spoil it I hope you enjoy it. Really like the gap in the way she behaves though it's really cute.
Correction for 12:15 -Priconne launched with 300 draw spark, it was reduced to 200 a few years later.- EDIT: Priconne launched with no spark, then added 300 draw spark, then reduced it to 200.
@@x2250 Rip. Guess Global didn't reach the point where the spark reduction was implemented since it was fairly late I guess... sucks that crunchroll ended it the way they did before it reached that point though.
started playing on day 2 of global launch cuz i was bored, needless to say i got all my attendance days in my club checked out since launch. don't think i ever missed a day.
@@overworkedsalaryman yeah so I just checked, today was my 793th day login in the club. I mean I just love the character design, the story is amazingly well written, events stories are always lovely, the community is top notch, f2p friendly,... And that's the QOL that does it for me. If I don't have the time I can complete all dailies in less than a 10 mins window. No FOMO. God I love that game
@@nebulae_wanderer Hot damn, 793 days is pretty badass. Truly the writing for the game events and story are both really interesting. The character design as well it really is so good. Really hope they continue to improve everything going forward.
Those really were the days. When the game just died over during connection and it was just normal. Though it rlly is a good thing they manage to mostly fix that.
Dont know if this is mentioned in the video ( I havent finished watching) but I think one strong think BA has going for it is the art direction, the color palette on top of really good 3d model animation are the top of the industry to that of Hoyoverse, they really got my attention on the details of the character expressions.
Yea especially in recent months it does feel like they've really put a lot more effort and quality into the chibi models as well. It's quite amazing the level of detail they put into those and the colors as you mention used in the character and world design really does make it feel very unique too. ☺
what got me into Blue Archive is BlueSechi sensei content randomly appear in my feed. I think its before Arisu Usagi Flap getting popular. Second sensei is Dorontabi (r/japanpeopletwitter god). Posting some cute and funny blue archive character Last sensei is my own roommate. We play l4d2 often and he have blue archive mod (really a lot). I said "who tf are this kid?" and then he start give me blue archive lore from chapter 1 until recent played for 8 month, and im not regret downloading it (UOGHH IORI CHOCOLATE FEEEETTT 😭😭😭😭😭😭)
That's quite an interesting way to get into the game. Sechi's videos really were very cute so can see how those would've done a lot for the game. Didn't know about r/japanpeopletwitter shall go give that a look one day. 🤔 Though it really does sound like the game has a lot more fan content with people making mods for it in all sorts of games now and with all the fan made videos, music and art which feels like it definetly does a lot to make the game more popular.
It was the Yuuka shorts from July '22 that got me to try the game (JP server), so I've only ever had the "modern" BA experience, I had no idea it had such a rough start This was a really interesting video! I loved the peek into the industry side of things, the types of metrics they look at and how marketing and messaging are approached. Really informative! Something I think is interesting is that, as you pointed out in the description, there are issues with the dice board event. It seems the devs took notice of this, because when they ran the sports event again, iirc they moved some of the more impactful rewards (the fragments, I think) off the board to either the shop or quests, and added the ability to get "banked rolls", for lack of a better term. These let you essentially choose which square to stop at, if you had the right number banked. Those two changes probably helped reduce a lot of the disparity in the event rewards
I'm glad that you enjoyed the video and thank you for watchin! The Yuuka shorts really did feel like they had quite a lot of reach at the time too. The sports day event truly feels like many things were going on with it at the time that felt like an issue so the fact that they revamped it and made it the way they did instead certainly made it more enjoyable. As someone who dislikes the idea of dice board minigames for events in gacha games in their base form due to the reward disparity that can arise from rng it was nice to see them add bankable numbers and shift some of the rewards to make it less salty so that players can have a more enjoyable time with it.
For me tbh, it was the Bunny Asuna and Bunny Karin that made Blue Archive popular. It was because of that I discovered Blue Archive but was hesitant to play in JP server. Fortunately, I somehow learned that Global Version was coming and became a day 1 player on the Global server
In quite a few ways it does feel that global has it better at least so it does feel like you made a good choice. The delay does give prep time and it's prolly easier than trying to decipher moon runes as well.
Around a year ago, a friend and I had a joke whenever blue archive came up: “Dude I love blue archive, it’s my favorite gacha, I play it once a year”. Since then he no longer plays anymore due to his lack of miyu, but now a lot of my other friends, even ones who have stated their hatred of gacha games, love to play this game. I kind of do regret not sticking with the game fully when I started since I missed out on some characters, but at least I’m back now.
With how rough the game was when it first started out can imagine that'd happen now. Though on the bright side at least there aren't as many limited characters now so you have a chance to get the newer characters. Hopefully you get the ones you missed soon though. 🙏🙏
I am surprised you didnt mention 4th PV/Final Episode of the game. Like it was so hype, 4th pv video has maybe 2m+ views, so many discussions and fan arts about it, even global players couldnt wait for it.
I don't doubt that it did pull in quite a bunch of players as well since there are some who mentioned that the 4th PV was what got their interest into the game. I remember being quite hyped for it too and quite surprised they were calling it the final chapter seeing all the hype for it as well and the numbers I was looking at did show a rise during the period as well but it was not on the level of the School festival or Summer Hoshino where there was a massive spike on the chart so my hypothesis at the time when I made the video was that it was likely one of those things that resonated harder within the community than outside. Although that's not to say it did nothing. It definitely did contribute to the momentum of the game and it's quite possible that while it did not result in an immediate spike it did help to keep the players who came in from leaving as there was something to hype for and that combined with the new players drawn in by it might explain why the DAU was on a continual increase.
Thank you for making this vids! I really have same question too when heard Blue Archive out of nowwhere sky rocketing like crazy and how they really dominated Comiket section besides like exist for 3 years
I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Indeed it has been a surprising twist to see it come to be so big at Comiket like this. Especially since it also simultaneously has 2 exclusive doujin events in Tokyo too.
This was a really insightful video even for a day one global player like me. I had known about the big issues with the game and all the up and downs the game has to face, but the small stuff and the general reception of some of the events from JP perspective was new to me. I knew the atsui meme was really popular in Japan and Korea but I didn't knew it was big enough to help push the game this much. And even though there was a steady increase in game popularity ever since the Abydos summer event, I think personally the truly big shift was the 2nd anniversary and it only grew from there on. I'm really glad I stayed with the game for as long as I did despite all the negativity people throwing at the game mostly because of the company it's tied to. And again looking back on it, this game really came a long way.
In a way I'm glad that the issues were something that wasn't as well known solely because that means that at least global didn't have to suffer through those which is a big W and also means that they did do a good job of figuring out what to fix and how. The game certainly did come a very long way from where it used to be which is pretty cool to see and there certainly was a lot of factors from the community to the devs that really did contribute to it.
What brought my attention to the Blue Archive was watching a stream of Shigure Ui playing the game and talking about how Hifumi looked a bit like her. After that, I joined the game about a month after the EN server launched.
Now that you mention it they do look quite similar... Though it did surprise me a first how many vtubers did pick up the game at some point even if only for a short while.
i remember when i first got into blue archive, it was back when global had been released and all my internet friends were talking about it. it was pretty fun for some time until the first batch of censorship hit global, after that me and the same group of friends all unistalled and it stayed that way until there was that whole thing with korean players taking down the rating board of korea and the BA devs getting rid of the censorship. fast forward to today and they are still fixing some of the issues related to the toning down of some dialogues. all in all pretty cool. me and the same group of fellas have mostly gone back to playing the game and we all enjoy talking about it every now and then
Finally, someone mentions 'the incident', I thought that's what this video would be about, the absolute Nexon-ing of such a beautiful game, which started with censor-zooming into Aris and ended up reminding people that the upcoming bunny and swimsuit costumes might get neutered due to certain countries' 'policies'. So glad we got the outcome we did, cuz the story, art, music and pretty much everything in this game ended up being well worth it.
My apologies I ended up focusing the video more on the jp side because I wasn't as familiar with the global controversies other than that it did happen, some people in Korea took down the ratings board at some point (not sure if related) and also that they eventually did away with it. That said I'm glad that they actually fixed the issue for global and kr since the game is great and the censoring did feel like quite a strange restriction to impose on the entire world just because of certain countries restrictions. May they continue to keep the game censor free there. 🙏
I've heard about some of the dialogue changes but am not as familiar with those but the ones I did hear about like them removing the word princess with mika which did feel like a very bizarre thing to remove as it doesn't seem like there's any connotation to it that would make it worth removing. Here's hoping that they don't do that too often though especially since they've already created seperate age versions of the app. Glad to hear you and the crew are enjoying the game again now though and may they continue to keep the game free of strange censorships.
@@overworkedsalaryman Man, I suppose I should have taken the hint that this was a JP-centered video, it's my first of yours so I wasn't entirely sure. But though I was salty with them for what they did to poor Aris, I guess I did hear other issues that you outlined in your video in what I'd consider the 'background'. Behind the twittards calling people pedos and people misconstruing what the outrage was about, I did notice that the Ivan Kupala event was seen as underwhelming and the server outages you did actually remind me of (though I feel like those were far less-pronounced for global than they seemed to be for JP). I may have even seen memes about it's comparison to Priconne, which I played at the time (and I'm still salty af since they killed the global release 😭 Poor Kokkoro is alone). I actually introduced Blue Archive to people by saying the mechanics and game modes are essentially the same as Priconne, since to my mind, they were. Forgot where I was going, but yeah, sorry if I seemed offended, that whole time period on the game was just me seething at what I thought was gonna kill a stellar game.
@@fleetingimmersion No no, no need to apologize really XD Though welcome welcome to the channel \o/ I get what you mean yea for sure seeing the game getting censored in the global release and people misunderstanding the reason why this is a problem especially the people on Twitter would be quite annoying. They did go after some Japanese artists as well so I know the feel of seeing the unjustified backlash from them too. Funnily enough there was a Reddit post in EN on the matter as well which was predicting that this game was gonna get killed by Uma Musume as well which looking back on now is really funny with how it has aged. The way crunchyroll handled Priconne global was horrible for sure like there really likely wasn't a good reason for them to do that other than that they just didn't care imo. It's a shame Cygames didn't manage that globally at the time... With the amount of stuff it sounds like global went through it does feel like it'd warrant making a timeline video on as well with all the stuff from release till now including the batshit insane stuff that happened in Korea too. Will consider looking more into it with how rough it sounds like it was there too. But yea bless the game for surviving through all of that. 🙏
Feels good to cover something positive after all the sad stuff that has been happening recently with all the service terminations recently. I do hope they do learn from it rather than just writing it off as an anomaly that can't be mimiced since there is some good stuff to take away from it too it feels like.
For someone like me who at the time was not involved with any gacha games Asuna and Karin was what caused me to know the game. I didn't play it at the time yet and it took a long time (until the summer sport festival) to play it but the fact that tons of art was popping of of them really brought the game to public view, in my opinion at least. Thanks for the video. This was really informative and a great insight (from within the industry) to know what made BA to gain so much popularity.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video! It really does seem like Asuna and Karin did have more of an impact that I initially expected looking at just the jp numbers. One thing I might've failed to consider is the fact that the hype of their release might've led up to the increase at summer as well even if it didn't lead to an immediate increase during their re-run period. That's something that I should've mentioned in the video as well perhaps since at the very least it does seem like it gave global a lot of new players as well.
Wasn't aware of the troubled past of the game and I'm very surprised. The quality it has now is immense, especially compared to other gachas. Sure, rates are atrocious, but they do have to get somewhere the money for L2Ds, music, animations; heck, even the side stories have way more effort than other games. 46:00 great, now I want a Kanna cutout
The initially launch truly was something of legends with how bad it was. Though from what I heard global didn't have to suffer as much of it on their launch which is also a wonderful thing. 🙏 Yea the level of quality that has been going into it especially recently is impressive. It feels like with every passing month or so the chibi models, L2Ds and even the map design has been getting more detailed and lively. The music too and the amount of detail in the story with how much goes into it is really a cut above many. I would love a Kanna cutout too it's a shame they didn't sell the one from the event that time : /
Very interesting! I only picked up BA global about 6 months ago (right after Mika’s banner, unfortunately) so I didn’t know about any of that. In fact, I’d never even heard of Blue Archive before last summer. I don’t remember exactly where I first heard about it - maybe when they announced the anime - but it was perfect timing because I was ready for a new mobile game: Love Live All-Stars had just shut down and I was getting bored with FGO. But once I actually downloaded BA, I was blown away by how player-friendly it was compared to literally every other mobage I’d played in the past. I originally expected to just take a short break from FGO (I mean, I did put six years into that game), but I enjoy playing BA so much now that I haven’t logged into FGO in weeks and I don’t miss it at all. So whatever it was that BA’s devs did right, I’m just glad they got it turned around.
Ah, global certainly didn't have as rough of a launch at least thankfully but they certainly did go through their own fair share of weird controveries as well which is pretty cool to see them having gotten through as well. They certainly did do a pretty impressive job with trying to do right by their playerbase. I used to play FGO in its early days quite a lot as well being one of those low rarity team players and one thing with games of that era that feels a little dated now is probably just the level of grind they expect the players to do per day. BA too has a lot of grind but it does feel nice that the daily amount needed is a lot more manageable especially with the auto and skip features.
I followed since shortly after it released in Japan, mostly because of some fanart of mutsuki💢 I kept seeing. I think another reason it did so poorly is because Uma musume released in the same month, I think 3 weeks after Blue archives release (everyone was saying how stupid of yostar to do this), and Japan absolutely LOVES its horse girls. This probably explains it's first month drop off. Gacha's based around anime girls with guns wasn't exactly a new thing, there were already several on the market like Arknights which was already very well established with a lot of characters and highly praised storylines. Blue archive didn't have a lot to offer at first, plus I don't think it released with a lot of main story, players would reach the end of the main story quickly... and what was there was probably the weakest chapters. Truly is a miracle the game survived all of that and the maintenance issues. Also at the time I didn't care for Nexon, I knew of their reputation so I thought it was karma, I was almost hoping against it's survival. But now I play everyday with almost 140 students, hoping for another 15 years of blue archive! 😭
Yea I recall a lot of talk globally as well of alotta people who were saying that they dropped the game for Uma Musume as well. For me at the time Uma Musume was a game that I was quite wary to start since I recall it being stuck in dev hell for 2 years but the 3D models and amount of animation it had really did help it take off massively. With Blue Archive it really does feel like a lot of the content that was steadily added after really did help bump it up quite a lot and the fact that they manage to get their marketing break as well really feels like it pulled in so many people that the game just snowballed from there so it's great to see it as big as it is now.
Started playing the game not long after it’s global launch. Played the very first event of the game where there’s Izuna, Shizuko, and Pina (Fina). I’m slowly hooked to the game at that point. What drew me to play the game is the chibi gameplay models, especially when i see picture of the saiba twins on mission complete screen. And yes, i do see the bunny asunas, but that’s not what drew me to play the game. It’s amazing that the game is now very popular to the general audience, much until it has it’s own hall in comiket, it’s own offline festival event, and one emoji to unite them all. So proud of this game 😭
If one day they started doing an exclusive event the level of Reitaisai for doujin creators as well it truly would be a miracle and a sign that the game really is going in amazing directions. 🙏 But yes the chibi models are really adorable and I love how they've been putting more and more effort into those too.
I saw how badass Aru looked back when global was just releasing PV's I was interested in her and I was not disappointed it was a pleasant surprise for me, also the story made me stay, Abydos and Millenium volumes were good back then, but the Trinity volume was definitely something that got me hooked. *The community is definitely a huge factor on why the game is so popular, the developers/writers also did pretty well considering the game's contents/story.* The community pulled and the Devs makes the players stay.
Aru certainly was quite a surprise when she turned out in the story with the gap between her demeanour in the PVs and how she looks v.s when she panics XD. That feels like it adds to her charm though. But yea the story definetly is pretty good with Trinity especially turning out way bigger than it initially was and its cool how active the community is and how well the dev interacts with them!
Same here. If anything, it's interesting to see that they got that approval as well and it does make me wonder if Yostar had any part in helping the team to push the idea of continuing to Nexon as well. Would be cool to see all the interactions that prolly went on behind the scenes during that period tbh
Day 1 player. I still remember the heavy doomposting the game received before its release. "Don't play this game," one post says, which got hundreds of upvotes. Luckily, I still decided to play the game after watching FG's videos. I saw the highly detailed chibi character designs where even individual fingers are rendered; you rarely see that. And when I got a brand new phone, I installed the game and am still playing it today. I only play two gacha games, Genshin (day 1 as well thanks to the person destroying his ps4) and BA, and I'm proud to say that I picked two games that have since become so popular nowadays, and I got rewarded with good times playing these games.
Yea I remember seeing some of those doomposts too while doing research for this video. It's a lot funnier seeing it now compared to back then. It's crazy to see the level of detail that goes into the chibis for the game and it's cool that BA has gotten as popular as it is now.
Maybe I should've added the reddit post in as well while talking about it to show the comparison between the game aging like wine and the post aging like milk. XD
Well made video! I also think that music also played a part of it since its really very good! Edit: songs like unwelcome school and usagi flap being meme songs
Yea the music in the game was great! I recall some of the bigger Japanese meme channels such as morimori using it quite a lot as well for quite a long time.
@@overworkedsalaryman indeed, i also wanna point out the subreddit of blue archive being super wholesome and not as toxic as other gacha games like genshin and all. So anyone who is actually wants to find out more about the game could go to the subreddit and really enjoy themselves there. Btw good video i love it!
Great video- I started playing the game myself to troll my 2 friends who already played but quickly got hooked by the characters story and music- one thing I think you could have maybe mentioned besides the bunny girls other people already stated was- the music of blue archive is widespread and amazingly popular. I have friends who don’t even play the game who listen to the soundtrack, and there are so many inter gacha franchise memes with unwelcome school in them.
That is true you have a very good point there. If I recall morimori uses quite a fair bit of BA music as well and it's one thing I really enjoy about the game as well. The Gregorius theme and the Summer Rabbits ones also hit pretty hard for me. XD
While I would give credit to the classic events that led to the game spiking in popularity (Bunny C&C fanart explosion, the big story event, etc) I want to give a big one to the community. While playing the game, I dropped the game twice due to lack of motivation and desire to play the game. I came back each time and even stuck by because of the community. Talking with the subreddit, enjoying artwork on Twitter, talking to Discord mates on who to roll or hyping a man to read the story. It's those things that made me stuck by the game and feel like i had fun.
For sure the community definitely is a big part of the game as you said. It might be why BA ended up being the biggest series at Comiket the last two times it has ran. It truly is amazing how big the community has gotten.
Day 1 JP player here. that is quite really nice essay you made; it is really describe what happen within Blue Archive IP! as a day one player, the first thing that made me said "Okay! I'm sold to this franchise!" was visual and music. and during the first-year experience I do feel the boredom within the game. but it was started to change right around after first anniversary. what makes me believe this game will succeed was at first is the nice to look visual of the game: A near-future City style, Clear blue sky, cute girls doing cute (and shooty shooty) thing, the mysterious post-apocalyptic landscape that people there seems used to see (which sparks tons of theorycrafting in my mind) and its all packaged with Kawaii Future style music... it is like a Cute game that hide certain deep secret behind that cute daily lives.
Yea the way the game's world is built it really does make it feel like there's a lot going on below the surface that we don't see which adds an interesting layer of mystery to it. The music, art and story do help add a lot to that which is pretty cool as well. 🔥 Also, glad that you enjoye the video 🙇
I started playing it, then it got censored in the global version, a few weeks ago I heard that the censorship was removed and it was uncensored now so I started, and it's super generous.
It's pretty cool that they were willing to remove the censorship and went as far as to make a 15+ app just so that they can maintain the current level of work while also allowing those who wished to to play on the family friendlier version as well.
Played since first week release on global here, the things that got me hooked most was their unique chibi gameplay style, and also how all 3 Stars feel special when you're new compared to other games giving you way too much in the beginning.
Their use of chibi 3d models is certainly something very unique. Most companies nowadays refuse to do this as the general belief is that a game using this won't succeed since it doesn't focus on the waifu enough as compared to something like epic 7's more accurately proportioned characters. Tbh I don't believe that since both BA and Princess Connect feel like they bucked this trend as well but especially with BA with the level of detail they add into their 3D models it really is quite amazing & helps to set it apart as it does feel like no other game has gone this far with this style.
Day 1 JP player without leaving. I think BA has a bad day in first launch aside the sh@t show in-game as Uma Musume mobile had just release 20 days after BA. It was like a dream looking back the past 3 years.
Yea it does feel like Cygames coincidentally or otherwise did a lot of things that brought a lot of competition. From the release or Uma Musume to Priconne reducing spark requirements in Feb of 2021 it does make for tough competition. It really is pretty crazy how much BA has improved these 3 years though, it's a pretty respectable effort in the climate of the mobile game market now.
As a Global launch player, what made me notice this game was of course B.Asuna like every other global launch player. But what kept me playing the game is the sweep function. As a former fgo & azur lane player, farming for event currency was absolute HELL so the sweep function was a godsend for me. It makes me possible to play this game as an actual mobile game where i’d log in pretty much twice a day and keeping it under 3 hours when there’s an event going on unlike fgo & AL where i need to farm for hours just to get the limited time rewards
In terms of grinding BA definitely does make it a lot easier than a lot of the older titles out there. In there regards it reminds me a lot more of priconne but at the same time the equipment in BA is less convoluted which makes thinking about the grind less brain intensive too which feels like a nice balance between that and fgo where even at the best it was still a case of needing to push buttons for 3 turns to wipe each wave quickly which sometimes it feels like the devs used to actively work against with the one very high hp enemy on the last wave.
The series really did start to have many weird but funni memes as times passed. If you're a connoiseur of the mutsuki calis this might be funni too. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NwcZYkEIrSc.html
Day 1 JP player here. This video was a really nice throwback to the nostalgia of it's growth! Although i would say the thing that kept a lot of people still playing the game even in it's early stale state was the community really, everyone who kept on playing genuinely liked what the game had to offer and only rarely do people ever mention that the game is dying. Due to that i had kept playing as i never really felt like the game would die out soon and could still see it's potential. Although one thing i would say is missed in this video, like what a lot of people said, was the Bunny Outfits which really gave the game a good exposure, it was notable point to see people from outside the game playing.
Yea it really was quite crazy how the launch of the game went and also how much the Bunny event affected the game's popularity later on I really do feel like I should've added that in as a point too now. But it really is quite cool how much it grew since then especially with how much doom and gloom was about.
The first thing I remember from Blue Archive was the jp PV for the bunny chaser event and bunny Neru. It was bunny Neru and the killer soundtrack that got me interested enough to be there for day 1 of global.
I think the biggest factors would be bunny Asuna/Karin fanarts, short doujins (the uoh cunny, sensei drawing, yuuka 100kg thighs) and the blue sechi's Arisu vid, along with the usagi flap song Or at least that's what I'm exposed to before playing the game
All the things you mentioned definitely added to it too yea. Really do love sechi's stuff as well it's all really cute. Truly it does feel like fanworks of all times because they were allowed to grow the way they did really ended up playing quite a big part in getting many people to start the game.
Played every single day from launch till now, got Miku as a flex. Always enjoyed it compared to the other half a dozen gachas I play concurrently. I think the issue was world building and character development early on, people just saw a massive list of characters so many of them were treated like token or filler students until more and more events and story came out highlighted particular traits and personality. People started seeing individuality instead of just another SSR student unit so literal fandoms would develop, in turn increasing interest and popularity of the game (most "fan art" online compared to every other gacha). EVEN mob characters are adored and given, thats how good their design is... The music was another thing that keep alot of players like myself invested, every track is absolute banger even with some being adopted in meme culture such as the "Unwelcome school" track. I think initially for global launch, it was quite because people were actively boycotting Nexon. I remember seeing a bunch of forum post telling people not to play the game and support Nexon due to their negative history, however people got over that after hype for first anniversary where it started to explode in the west. Quality continues to rise as events come and go, giving more confidence to players and prospective players (also based devs that actually listens to their community). Overall, a great gacha with awesome devs, a strong and thriving community, great music, quality fan and official art etc. will keep this game alive for many many years.
I remember seeing one of those megaposts about this while doing my research as well yea. It was kinda funny reading it now and seeing all the reasons it listed and the long list of people agreeing with them about how the game was dead because Uma Musume had released. Certainly the start was rough but as you said, over time they really did add in a lot more content to give the characters more individuality from the scenes with each of them down to their involvement in the overarching plot as well. Like it was fun seeing how Hifumi pretty much turned into the main character at some point as well. XD Though with all the factors that improved the game and the devs own pro-doujin/fanwork culture it certainly helped to give the game even more of a boost as it made it easier for everyone to get into it.
@@overworkedsalarymanuma musume was always a strange one to me as they launched an anime for it right when the game closed up in Japan, and were getting heated about ecchi/H fan art because the characters were named after real racing horses in Japan. The statue in the states for such a thing amount to representing existing humans but the artist community at large mostly respected and avoided this opportunity. As a result we have 3 seasons of anime and very little H doujin as a result 😅
It's interesting to see the game's growth and just how dire the first 1.5 years were. I remember hearing about their horrible launch in JP but I figured they had a steady incline. When I picked up the game some time around 2.5 anniversary, it already felt like the game had years of fan engagement since constant independent works were the main reason that got me into the game. It seemed like the game's first marketing boom happened at quite a lucky time when there was much less problems to hide. What made me continue playing was just how well made the OST, story and character animations were, so I think the game is at a crucial point where there are a lot more expectations to hit and hopefully the devs can deliver a refreshing pace of content.
Yea the game has a lot of good going for it later on with all the improvements and the added story and character details as well so it's nice to see it doing as well as it is now. With the sheer quantity of works out there I can see why it looks like there has been years of it though. It does feel like an IP where fanworks were allowed to grow extremely well and that resulted in it exploding the way it did in a way what with all the positive dev interactions with creators as well. If anything it makes me wish more of the companies I worked with in the past were like that too lol.
The main reason I was dragged in blue archive was the music at first since it was very good and eventually I had the confidence to even download the app itself, I honestly thought when playing the game that the gameplay and story would be ok but they put their heart in it and I was thrilled by the fact they threw everything in the game that it was fun, the events are thought out the same was as the main stories as well as the relationships. Even though the rng can be so bad it feels like the game is rigged and the community can be questionable sometimes at least for me, this game is very fun and I don’t even regret installing blue archive
Yea it does feel like the community has its weird parts as well and Nexon having all those shady gacha related patents is a lil worrying but at the very least it doesn't seem like any of those patents have been found to be in Blue Archive yet so that's nice... gotta love the music though it really does give the game a very unique vibe. So far it has been quite interesting to see how many people pointed out that the music was what got them into the game. It's a smaller crowd no doubt but still a surprising number nonetheless.
I played BuruAka when it released, dropped it. But one day I got reminded of that game and searched it up to look how is it going, then 4th PV showed up; here I am today, back being a teacher again!
The 4th PV really was quite hype. 🔥🔥🔥 Cool to hear that the PV was what got you back in though! I was considering whether or not to mention the PV more in the vid but it felt like something that wouldn't resonate with people who never touched the game before as much at least within Japan but it sounds like outside of Japan that PV might've actually been a lot more effective.
This is interesting to hear about. Though yeah, one of the things among my friend group is that you can tell the success of a Gatcha by how much fanart it gets. At first BA didn't get a lot, but then exploded with Bunny C&C which probably marks around the time the game started increasing in popularity. And it kinda matches with what you said so pretty nice to hear about it from a different perspective. I may be a global player now but I was there when the JP server launched, I was there for the 50 Hour Maint. Good lord, those were the days, 100% agree that the coding was shite, me being outside of the Japan didn't help things but I remember taking minutes to load screens and randomly getting booted from the game from time to time. I thought that was just me being ina place with poor internet and being outside of JP, I had assumed that within JP the game ran smoothly. In the end I had to drop it as it was getting too much of a hastle to play, I left around after the Cherino event, but came back immediately when the Global server launched. It is quite the sight to see the game increase in popularity from the playerside but thanks for sharing you're perspective as a game dev, it's very interesting. I wish you luck in your endeavors and pulls.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video if anything. Yea it does seem like a lot of people have been bringing up the Bunny C&C more and more in the comments too which is making it feel even more so like a lot of people really did pick up the game as a result of it which is cool. Though yea the bugs on launch were quite horrid and quite likely not due to some issue with your internet etc so hopefully you didn't actually change any hardware because of that. 😅 Hope the gamings have been good on the Global server now though, it definetly would be a less stressful place to be. 🙏
I think one of the major early controversies that really killed player confidence and hurt the growth was broken promises on the censorship front. What the lead developer promised then delivered with Alice(Arisu?) Introduction it felt like a slap to the face for many of the early global players. I could argue that it was only a slight infraction but those early fans built a tidal wave of backlash where even the dev said they did it for "global sensibilities"(bullshit) and would do it again/more often going forward. I remember it being so much that not only were they compelled to backpedal but created 2 separate clients for the game AND the Korean fans literally rallied around the content ratings and exposed corruption in their own government as a result. I literally didn't even remember the rampant bug squashing going on until you mentioned it but the kind of unity the story and art BA has created only bolsters it's practically legendary reputation. 😊
I remember the take down on their ratings board, that one really got quite big at the time and it was amazing seeing how insane that situation got. The controversy as well was surprising to see tbh. It never struck me as something big enough to warrant censorship since everything was pretty much already covered and what was more worrying than that was hearing that they were gonna censor it. I'm glad that you guys eventually got them to walk it back and separate it the way they did. Feels like it worked out a lot bette for the community that they separated it the way they did instead. Though yea as you said, the story and art really is so good. Really feels like that boosted the game quite a lot.
@@overworkedsalaryman tbf there's plenty of issues with the game play but the love they've put into building character back stories and animation giving them personality just icing on the cake for a cute and funny story that turned dark and even epic...if you told me I had to dump all gacha except for one this is probably the one I'd keep. It really blew me away when you mentioned memento mori was doing better in the early term for that because I loved the art and music but quickly fell off after the initial story concept was expressed.
Grats on getting her before the 200 🙏 Yea it definetly sounds like Bunny Asuna really managed to get a lot of people into the game from what all of you are saying. Now I really feel like I should've have mentioned that too.
I play since the week it release on global, I started to apreciate BA more and more because the amount of love the devs put on it, the music is amazing, meme worthy for a lot of them, the live 2D, art and voice actors gives each character amazing personality, the story is soo good and charming, and the chibis, my god they are top tier, each time they get more expresive and complex. Each student design is really well tought out, I feel gachas usually get really generic design with no consideration from the overall stetic, just waifus and husbandos to pull, BA feel more organized in thst scense. Also, I really love sensei, they are not a blank slate you can proyect into and watch from the side, they ARE the main character, and they act like what they role its suppose to be, an advisor, one that risk their live for the people he supervise, you can see how sensei work to earn their respect, abydos, rabbit platoon, Hina, etc, you can see on each interaction and subsecuential event how their relationship with sensei advance in a genuine way, and how they treat them, not with autority, but with genuine care for them, individually. Its easy to overlook how well crafted the world building really is because it feels natural, its not; "and then Hoshino say 'sensei, now I trust you, so we are besties', its actually something you get to deduct after seeing what sensei does and how far they are willing to go just for her sake. Thats why I love BA, that and also because it respect your time, daylies are quick, 5 min. max, stamina is limited per day, so it really feel like the dev went "ok touch grass now", that way its hard to feel burn out on the game.
The game really does a good job in many different ways. It does feel like when it comes to chibi characters they very well might reach the point where BA has the most detailed chibi design at some point. The way the sensei behaves in the plot as well it really does feel like he does have quite a lot of personality as well yea with the way he constantly gives advise and tries to help those around him and even in the way he interacts with all the students too like you say. Dailies being as short as they are feel quite reminiscent of Priconne but I like the fact that they keep it short since usually I end up doing the dailies either on the train or just before I sleep so it's nice that they are overly long as it helps make them feel less stressful to repeat.
I got into BA because of 1 promotional artwork when the game was preparing its debut on global servers that I saw in a random gaming news website forum. The artwork in question was that one horizontal illustration with abydos team and the vibrant blue sky and the iconic blue archive logo. That artwork alone caught my eye. like I said, the vibrant color choices made with that illustration. The contrast of the various blues and coziness of the promotional art is what sold me on trying out the game. I’d be lying that Asuna & karin didn’t caught my attention. Overall the art style really sold me. And I am glad I stuck with it even though I’m normally not into playing gacha games. I usually drop them pretty quickly, but BA’s visuals, art style kept me playing.
Same here tbh I don't really play any gacha games for long anymore since usually they don't have to staying power to make me want to play from home and at some point I just forget and get lazy but Blue Archive so far has done a pretty good job with the out of game stuff as well as the way the art and story is done that has kept me going at least. I remember that artwork too it certainly was really well done of a key visual. Especially with the colors that each of the members has too can imagine it'd be quite striking. Didn't know that gaming news sites were still in use overseas I sorta assumed most people just look for trailers and info on youtube or other social media nowadays so I sorta assumed that it was just Japan that still used it. That's very interesting to know as companies I've worked in here in Japan have always questioned whether reaching out to such sites are even worthwhile. I have learnt something very new and important today thank you. 🙇
@@overworkedsalaryman Yeah, Blue Archive’s art style is so pleasing to the eyes. I enjoy the game a lot due to how little effort is required for the player. The game is not too complex, there is a layer of complexity but that’s only when you go through end-game content and such. The characters are all quirky and likable, and the soundtrack is fantastic. Another thing I appreciate about BA over any other gacha game, it’s the use of SD/Chibi models, the developers clearly love the characters so much since each character has their own distinct quirks with how they move, interact, battle, and talk. Oh yeah… I’m probably the minority who uses gaming forums and articles, I mainly browse around some of these gaming forums to see some of the opinions from other Jrpg fans going around in these various gaming forums. Btw, a bit off topic. This isn’t the first time I was introduced to ur videos. I was introduced through ur Sting retrospective video. I never got around to experiencing much JRPG’s, unfortunately this comes with the territory of being a bit close minded during my early years of gaming, I wasn’t a huge fan JRPG’s essentially. I genuinely hope that developers like Sting does keep their word in preserving their games for modern audiences. I honestly want to try out the depth of heaven games, unfortunately Yggdra union is the only game that’s available in English for the time being amongst the titles they’ve been re-releasing on switch/pc. I wouldn’t mind going out of my way to find some of original versions of stings games without doing the emulation route. Anyways, really enjoyed that Sting retrospective video. It gave me lots of insightful information about Sting as a company, and their whole unique ideals of making uniquely complex JRPG’s. You did a fantastic job with this video and the Sting video. 👍🏻😃
Bro I had no idea it did so badly during the first year! I remember seeing it and hoping that it would be released globally, as I really liked the charm the game had. Now that it is on global, I have 800 (and I mean exactly 800!!!) daily logins and to think I wouldn’t have experienced this world and characters if Nexon was a bit more trigger happy is crazy!
I really wish there was a way to peak into the conversations that were probably going on between Yostar, Nexon and Natgames at the time. Would be interesting to see what went on in the conversations between the three to decide on the fate of the game. Because while for sure it was not performing the worst in that many games nowadays do EoS in much worse positions than BA was in (such as Engage Kill did). For a Nexon game this was a title that was initially doing quite badly which for a company like Nexon it's surprising they kept it going long enough for this to turn around. Gotta thank the dev team for all the hard work they did in attempting to turn it around though. They seem to have a much more player first mentatlity than quite a lotta gacha game dev teams have at the very least.
Funny How I was introduced to the game really early because of a singular ost which is ofcourse was unwelcome school which was so cool from that time and still is
No marketing made me play bruaka, in 2019-2020 I consistently only played Azurlane and at that time got the news that yostar would release 2 new games, Arknight & Project MX (Blue Archive). And here I am now, leaving Azurlane because my device is not capable of playing it.
there's a reason why lots of comments said C&C Bunny is the reason why this game become popular: fanart of Asuna bunny girl version was everywhere when JP first time released it. i remembered my pixiv home page was almost full of Asuna Bunny, even artists i followed started to draw her as well
Indeed you are right, she really did cause a spike in the amount of fan art as well which definetly drew quite a bunch of people into the game fo sure. Really makes me feel like I should've mentioned that as well.
Playing the game was a different experience for me, I initially was a fan of Mitsukiyo's work. After playing blue Archive at its global launch, recognising his style just make me stay longer to the point where I became so invested into the story and game style that I play the game until now
Mitsukiyo's music really is something else. Can imagine wanting to hop on just for his music 🔥🔥 Though the story truly does feel pretty good though to want to stay on for. That 3rd Volume 😭
They listen to the players and maintain the game running well, loving it. But what really got me hooked was the music if I’m being honest! Yuuka best calculator btw
They definitely did a really good job of listening to the players and improving the game over the years yea. It's quite respectable how much they stuck with the game over the years.
The reason I get into this game was the dork Aru herself,the unwelcome school bgm got me hook for a long time. but the first time I try the game when the global priconne announced eos and this game may not replace the priconne in my heart ,but I glad that i got to join another great game with great community
Aru really is quite cute and funny with the way she behaves at times yea XD. It's quite unfortunate that the global priconne closed the way it did though. Feels like a waste that crunchyroll let it go that way and glad you're enjoying this game.
i always joke about "This is the blue archive, where all miracle begins" but now it really is the blue archive, where all miracle begins Play the game because bored, end up staying for the Aru
I knew BA thank to the California Girl Mutsuki meme, I didn't know the game got such a troublesome start. I also know BA is blowing up but it way bigger than I thought, thank to the hard work of dev no less.
That meme gave me such wonderful brain rot I still go back to it sometimes. Think I still watch this like once a week because of how weird it is. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NwcZYkEIrSc.html But yea the game really has been growing massively in the past 1.5 years. Like I knew it was growing big but only after I got curious and started digging the numbers at work did I realise that the growth was way more insane than I thought. It truly is quite a miracle it got to this point.
The idea they had to create a separate app so they wouldn't have to censor truly was quite a unique one at the time though in spite of the trouble it probably was it certainly was a good idea as well. Also Hibiki in her cheerleader outfit really ended up being quite cute too, that L2D is so good.
I am a US Princess Connect refugee. While looking for a replacement I got into BA from just hearing about it from the internets. I think I came in last year just as "Get Set, Go" started Since Hoshino is my fav character, I am happy her meme is so important to the game's comeback
You came in at quite the good timing then that's good. 🙏 Was playing Princess Connect for quite a few years before too. Really enjoyed the game though with all the new systems in the JP version now it feels quite confusing everytime I periodically go back to the game XD That said, yea it was quite cool how much impact she had on the game's meme culture kinda like the whole California Girls thing now. Kinda cool how much all of that adds to the game's state as well
I'd say if you still want to give it as try maybe waiting for a month before the next anniversary for the server you wanna start in would be good. They do have double rates during the anniversary so if you wanted to potentially get the good units as well that'd be a good time since all the good limited anniversary characters will be in the pity and most of the good non-limited characters will have a fairer chance to appear as well.
Been playing the game for about 3 months now. Came in after quitting genshit and needed a game to play while waiting for Limbus Company content drops. My BF has been bugging me to play and I've been whaling since. Im glad that Blue Archive been able to survive despite the circumstances, it definitely deserves the success it does.
Glad you've been enjoying it so far and yea it really is pretty cool it survived the way it did! Feels weird to say that when I'm not a dev for the game lol but it's cool to hear though. Limbus Company certainly has been an interesting game so far as well, really love the aesthetics of the game really hope they make another game like Lobotomy Corp someday too.
