In between the myriad of awful things that have happened in the last several weeks nationwide, a much more trivial event has impacted me on a more personal level.
DeNA, a developer of various mobile games, announced that “Final Fantasy: Record Keeper” will be shutting down at the end of September.
FFRK, as it is abbreviated, launched in March of 2015 and I came across the game not long after. Since then, logging on to the game to collect my daily rewards and running my characters through a few dungeons has been part of my daily routine.
Over the last seven years I’ve built up my characters and adapted to the game’s ever changing meta, learning new strategies, creating new teams, tackling new content, and generally doing all the things that keep users of these kind of games persistently engaged.
I have a lot of sentiment towards FFRK. Locked away in my virtual item vault, I still have my “Danjuro,” the first 5-star weapon I ever acquired. Once a powerful addition to my arsenal, now it’s nothing more than a digital memento.
Likewise, I also have a defunct “Bahamut” ability, which has since been removed from the game outside of those that already had it. Like the “Danjuro,” it has long become obsolete, but I’ve kept it around anyway just for the satisfaction of having it.
Like a virtual attic, my vault is filled with useless trinkets that serve only as a reminder of days gone by. A collection of digital artifacts spanning the seven year history of the game.
And a few months from now, it will all be gone. Erased from the internet as though it was never there at all.
This was inevitable. It is the ultimate fate of all such games.
Traditional games, like “Super Mario Bros.,” can be played and replayed infinitely. You buy the game, play to the end, and start over. And you can do that as many times as you like.
Gacha games, which are the most common in the mobile market, do not operate like this. They are not closed experiences with a set beginning and end. They are ever changing worlds that are unique to the moment and only last as long as the money keeps coming in to sustain it.
Ironically, blame for the game’s impending end largely rests with players like me. The ones who have been happy to freeload on the game for years without making regular $30 sacrifices to its microtransaction model.
Like most gacha games, progress in FFRK is largely dictated by random drawings. In this case, you draw for equipment for your characters that endows them ever more powerful abilities needed to tackle the game’s highest levels of content.
Enough free currency is handed out over time that a free-to-play player can enjoy most the game, but the only way to really meet endgame challenges is to spend real money on additional draws. The players that do this, the “whales” of the game, are the ones that keep it running for everybody else.
However, it seems that there aren’t enough whales left to support the game so now the fun is ending for everybody.
It’s a sad, if not predictable, turn of events. I, personally, have put in maybe a couple hundred dollars into the game over the last seven years. All-in-all, considering the amount of time I’ve spent playing it, not a terrible return on investment. I feel a great swell of pity for the ones that have dumped thousands of dollars into the game, only to see everything they’ve purchased vanish in the blink of an eye.
It’s honestly a cruel business model, ensuring that the game’s biggest and most vital supporters are also the ones that feel it the hardest when it’s over.
But again, everybody knows going in that this an inevitable outcome. These kind of games cannot last forever. That still doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting when the inevitable happens.
I am bummed knowing that there’s a ticking clock on something that has been a constant part of my life for the better part of a decade now, but there is an upside. Knowing that I have a limited amount of time left has dramatically changed how I approach my play.
I’ve seen a lot of players in the community already abandon the game outright, not wanting to invest any more time into something that will be gone in a few months anyway. My reaction has been the opposite. The end-of-service announcement has reinvigorated my interest.
I no longer have to worry about long-term goals or holding back on spending resources in the event a better use for them comes up. The frugality that has maintained my free-to-play style no longer applies. There is nothing to save-up for anymore. There are no powerful upgrades to wait for. There is no long game to consider.
The only thing left to do is spend whatever resources I have and conquer as much of the content as I can before September.
After that, I’m not sure what I’ll do.
Maybe I’ll find another gacha game that tickles my fancy. Maybe I’ll just find something else entirely to fill in my spare moments. Whatever it is, after seven years, it’ll be interesting to start up a new hobby from scratch.
Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and is open to suggestions on a new pointless diversion.
