Licensed video games have at all times gotten a nasty rep. However, as a poor child rising up within the early 2000s, discount bin licensed video games had been my entrance into the world of gaming. Whereas my friends had been taking part in Zelda and CoD, I used to be taking part in Madagascar and Scooby Doo Thriller Mayhem on PS2 for the hundredth time.
For sure, I’ve a delicate spot for the licensed video games of that period – however there are some that simply don’t deserve defending. Sadly, to the frustration of anime followers like me, a variety of licensed anime video games fall into this class, particularly on cell.
It’s grow to be a little bit of a joke lately. You see a gacha sport primarily based on a licensed anime, it’s most likely going to be an extremely primary idle affair with equally as primary gameplay mechanics, egregious microtransactions with compelled change, and all your favourite characters are going to be locked behind limited-time banners with horrible charges. No IP is protected from these, from Tokyo Ghoul to My Hero Academia.
Alternatively, if an anime sport manages to flee the grasping gacha gods weaponizing the recognition of the IP, it’s prone to be one other primary re-skinned combating sport. Don’t get me fallacious, I benefit from the occasional combating sport – but it surely does get boring after some time, doesn’t it? A few of these could be fairly pungent, too. I’ve tried with all my may to wipe 2024’s Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Conflict from my thoughts. Gojo deserves a lot extra.
That’s why, once I obtained the chance to do my One Punch Man: World preview, I used to be pleasantly shocked by simply how a lot enjoyable I had throughout the beta, and I discovered myself approaching its launch with cautious optimism. Sadly, my warning wasn’t sufficient, and my optimism was misplaced.
One Punch Man: World is an ARPG set on the earth of, you guessed it, One Punch Man. The narrative parallels that of the primary season of the anime, whereas additionally carving out a few of its personal story beats, primarily specializing in Lightning Max and a handful of his hero buddies following on shortly after a devastating assault on Metropolis A.
Whereas the story and dialog had been a bit of flawed at occasions, I used to be fairly impressed with the eye to element and faithfulness to the supply materials, and the visuals, fight, and general gameplay had been genuinely enjoyable. In actual fact, throughout my preview again in 2023, I said it’s “the closest a sport has ever gotten to capturing that basic One Punch Man attraction.”
Plus, having been a fan of the anime for fairly a while, it was genuinely thrilling to play as my favourite characters as I ran round a superbly rendered, bustling metropolis, beating up memorable dangerous guys from the present and serving to little previous girls. However, in fact, One Punch Man: World can also be a gacha sport, which means all these aforementioned characters are locked behind banners, RNG charges, and quite a lot of totally different currencies – a few of which you’ll want to splash actual money on.
Now, I need to spotlight that, whereas I’m not significantly keen on the predatory nature of gacha mechanics, a few of my favourite video games of all time are gachas. I’ve spent extra hours than I can rely in Genshin Influence, I stayed up all evening to see the launches of each Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero, and Infinity Nikki was my high cell sport of the yr in 2024. Nevertheless, there’s a proper manner and a fallacious solution to implement gacha mechanics in your sport, and One Punch Man World did it very, very fallacious.
The primary large misstep that One Punch Man: World made on launch was the newbie’s banner. If you happen to’re aware of different gacha video games, you’ve doubtless seen your fair proportion of newbie’s banners previously. Usually, they provide some form of low cost, resembling ten pulls for the worth of eight – and more often than not you may scrounge up sufficient forex by way of early-game quests and rewards to do a few ten-pulls. It might sound beneficiant, but it surely’s really a reasonably intelligent tactic. In any case, a participant is extra prone to stick round if they’ve no less than one highly effective character early within the sport, and freebies construct up a way of excellent will amongst gamers, making them extra prone to splash their very own money in the event that they’re already having enjoyable.
OPM: World’s learners banner, alternatively, was an absolute disaster. Initially, it appeared fairly good – you could possibly carry out ten ten-pulls at no cost, then choose which ten-pull you need to preserve. Whereas this doesn’t offer you as many gadgets as different newbie’s banners normally do, the choice to decide on your favourite ten-pull offers you some management that’s typically missing in gacha. You may also rating a fortunate ten pull with a number of characters, which may create a pleasant basis to your account, which, in flip, retains you invested within the sport.
Nevertheless, it quickly turned obvious that, when you can ‘carry out’ these ten pulls on the Starter Choice Draw newbie’s banner, you may’t really declare your chosen ten-pull with out spending 260 gold. “How do you earn gold?” I hear you ask. Effectively, you don’t – it’s primarily a premium forex just like Genshin’s genesis crystals, and as a way to get 260 gold, you don’t have any selection however to spend round $50.
That’s proper. $50 for ten gadgets from the newbie’s banner, a number of of that are prone to be gear for characters you don’t even personal, and all of which can be found on the usual banner. The newbie’s banner can also be time-limited, and is simply accessible for a set interval after you unlock the draw system. After that, it’s gone for good.
This instantly brought on uproar within the playerbase, killing a variety of good religion. Many gamers flocked to social media to criticize this mechanic, even replying to official One Punch Man: World posts to complain (to no response, in fact). For a few examples, you may take a look at these tweets from customers @legendsuck, @AsumaAouDeus, and @RoKage6. In the meantime, over on Reddit, a now-deleted person posted “New sport, One Punch Man: World has a $60 paid reroll banner” to r/gachagaming, sparking little shock within the feedback.
However that was just the start of the downfall. As highlighted on this tweet by @MightyWeakY, on launch the shop listed an SSR Character Pack as ‘on sale’ for 90% off. The sale value? $99.99. Sure, this means {that a} single SSR character from the usual banner is ‘price’ $999.90. However don’t fear – the SSR Character Pack comes with 648 gold, too! That’s sufficient to buy that ten pull from the newbie’s banner, and also you’ll nonetheless have some gold left over!
In fact, even OPM: World would by no means really record the SSR Character Pack for $999.90 – it’s the age-old tactic of inflating a value to make the ‘sale’ value seem like a greater deal. However truthfully, this one’s simply ridiculous. Even with out the clearly faux ‘low cost’, charging $100 for a single, commonplace banner character (not even a restricted one) and a handful of digital forex is much from worth for cash, and, together with the newbie’s banner fiasco, it actually put a nasty style in everybody’s mouth throughout an important a part of the sport’s life cycle.
Naturally, only a few gamers had been tempted by the SSR Character Pack or the newbie’s banner, however what about different gadgets within the store? Effectively, that didn’t go to plan both. In fact, nearly each cell sport has microtransactions popping out of its ears – that’s how they work, in spite of everything – and the costs proven in OPM: World aren’t removed from what we’ve seen in different gacha video games. Nevertheless, it’s the shortage of worth for cash that really pushed gamers to close their wallets, even when they initially went in with the intent to spend.
In a put up on the official r/OnePunchManWorldGame subreddit, u/Skeltalmans mentioned “For me personally, what killed it was insane costs for 0 return.” This appears to be a standard theme throughout social media circles discussing this sport. In one other insightful put up on the subreddit entitled “Why OPM: World failed”, u/diglanime states “The issue with OPM: World’s monetization is that there wasn’t a lot of a degree shopping for something within the sport. Nearly all the pieces was dangerous worth, overpriced, and tedious. […] Not a lot to purchase, not a lot of a cause to spend, which surprisingly kinda leads folks to not need to spend.”
OPM: World tried to repair this round two months after launch by introducing a $1 buy, and the Welkin-style month-to-month buy that drip feeds you a set quantity of silver per day positively lured no less than just a few gamers to splash a few {dollars}, however at this level the harm was executed. And, in fact, the perceived greed of the monetization practices mixed with the extreme lack of freebies to hook you in had already ruined any good will that will have coaxed a lot of the playerbase into spending.
There have been no memorable occasions, very restricted quest rewards, and barely any One Punch Man: World codes popping up, whereas different gachas continued to throw log-in occasions, free characters, and heaps of enjoyable festivities at us. In actual fact, in a Reddit put up discussing what 250 pulls will get in you within the sport, u/pedanticProgramer highlighted “in ZZZ I’ve already amassed extra pulls in two months of launch than I used to be in a position to handle in six months of OPM […] All in all this sport had a variety of potential, and I’m unhappy to see its state.”
The opposite reoccurring situation mentioned amongst gamers is that there’s nothing to do within the sport. It doesn’t take lengthy to get by way of the primary content material, then you definitely’re caught in a cycle of repetitive, boring duties the place your solely objective is acquiring heroes and upgrading them – however for what? To struggle the identical mobs you fought at degree one? Even whales flip away from a sport if there aren’t any challenges the place they’ll showcase their extraordinarily costly roster of characters.
With all this in thoughts, it quickly turned evident that the sport was a monetary flop. Over the primary three months following the worldwide launch, One Punch Man: World’s income went into freefall, with it incomes $1.3m in February 2024 (the primary month after its January 31 launch), $270k in March, and simply $92k in April. So far as we all know, this information solely covers Android and iOS income in sure areas, so including in PC earnings could properly push these numbers up fairly a bit. However, regardless of not figuring out an actual price range for the sport, a 2023 interview with PocketGamer.biz revealed that One Punch Man: World was in improvement for 5 years (beginning in 2019) and, even with the pandemic inflicting a variety of delays, it’s fairly protected to say that the price of improvement over that point far exceeds the income earned within the first few months after launch.
In a Reddit put up addressing this income catastrophe, u/ZFGod states that “the title ‘One Punch Man’ has so many followers across the globe and the corporate may have made a good amount of cash in the event that they’d have really been extra pro-active in the neighborhood, [adding] roadmaps and small occasions each week or so”. In any case, “having a ‘restricted’ banner doesn’t rely as an occasion”. In response, person u/AnalysisSmooth commented “that is probably the WORST fumbled bag ever in gacha historical past. The simplest slam dunk of a product botched” – and, sadly, it’s exhausting to disagree.
Lately, if you happen to search One Punch Man: World on Sensor Tower the income is wanting much more bleak, with numbers sitting at lower than $5k throughout the board. For comparability’s sake, this put up displaying the highest 50 video games within the gacha income month-to-month report exhibits Love and Deepspace at primary, raking in $75.4mil all through December 2024, whereas BanG Dream!! Ladies Band Celebration! pulls up the rear at quantity 50, incomes a complete of $1.75mil. Briefly, lower than a yr after launch, One Punch Man: World is barely pulling in sufficient money to maintain the lights on.
And it’s no marvel why. Many early gamers had been scared away by the sport’s horrible launch, however even those that caught round started to desert ship as a consequence of a extreme lack of content material within the following months – and it solely obtained worse from there. The final One Punch Man: World replace went reside on June 7, 2024. On the time of writing, that’s simply over seven months in the past. In that point, there have been six main Genshin Influence updates, together with the discharge of the brand-new nation of Natlan. We’ve additionally seen 5 Honkai Star Rail updates since then, in addition to the discharge of Zenless Zone Zero, which has seen 4 updates of its personal.
Whereas it could appear unfair to match One Punch Man: World to large video games like Genshin Influence, the exhausting fact is that each one of those video games are competing in the identical house, and are every combating for a slice of our time and hard-earned cash. However even when I evaluate it to a sport nearer to its standing, the outlook is fairly depressing. Solo Leveling: Come up, one other licensed sport primarily based on an iconic internet novel and webtoon sequence, launched globally on Might 8, 2024. Whereas it actually has its flaws, it’s seen large success since its launch, pushing Netmarble’s 2024 earnings previous the $1bn mark throughout Q2.
There’s no denying that Solo Leveling: Come up’s monetization system is much more pushy and predatory than OPM: World’s, which actually helped it safe all that money, however there are different elements at play, too. The sport sees frequent updates, participating (albeit easy) occasions that pop up typically, contemporary content material and characters to drag gamers in, and a cleverly-developed development system that toes the road between irritating and satisfying. Sadly, these are all components that OPM: World lacks.
Now, just lately a message from the official SEA Discord has revealed that the builders are “getting ready one thing new”. The developer message explains that it was initially imagined to be revealed in December, but it surely needed to be delayed “for some cause”. Nevertheless, the devs declare to nonetheless be engaged on it, and “if all the pieces goes properly there will probably be an replace in January”. At present, the one factor we learn about this replace is that it’ll introduce a brand new battle mode.
There have been rumors a couple of ‘massive replace’ floating round for months now, and the remaining gamers are hoping that this will probably be it. However, as a lot as I’d like to see the One Punch Man: World that I dreamed about, with the present trajectory of the sport, I don’t assume there’s something that the builders may do to patch up this ship – at this level, it’s virtually fully underwater.
I imply, let’s face it, even when this new replace doubled the sport’s content material, coated the whole lot of the second season of the anime, supplied a complete free roster of characters, and gave each participant a again therapeutic massage, there’s actually no saving OPM: World at this level. And truthfully, I’m not even mad anymore. I’m not shocked. I’m simply dissatisfied.
Sadly, it seems like we anime followers have to come back to phrases with the truth that Fortnite is one of the best licensed anime sport we’re gonna get in the intervening time – adopted intently by the various fan-made Roblox video games that in some way handle to do a greater job than these large studios. However, whereas I’ll proceed to dream of a sport that efficiently manages to carry one in all our favourite animes to life, no less than now we have loads of good, anime-style cell RPGs like Genshin, HSR, and ZZZ to maintain us entertained. Hoyo’s tagline of ‘tech otakus save the world’ is beginning to make sense, huh?
So, if you wish to seize some freebies for a sport that manages to reach each manner that One Punch Man: World failed, you should definitely take a look at our Genshin Influence codes, Honkai Star Rail codes, and Zenless Zone Zero codes. You may simply have the ability to nab a personality with out spending $50-100 if you happen to do.