The tricks of the "Harvest Gifts" monetization system
BEFORE WE BEGIN. I want to state that this is not a zone for judging how people spend money. I have spoken before about one of Infold's monetization tricks and THAT turned into a whole thing. But I have also defended the existence of whales because in the current free to play gacha ecosystem, spenders are necessary to keep the game free. It's also, y'know, none of my or your business what people who can afford to pay for things they enjoy choose to spend their money on.
This post is here because I want everyone, spenders and free to play alike, to be aware of how this system works.
That said, since I know Infinity Nikki is the first gacha game for a lot of people, let's talk about this!
This is a fairly common mobile game "gift" system, even Shining Nikki does this, where you get 1-2 free items (which you can see I have already claimed the one free item here) and then you hit a paywall point for very cheap, then you get some more free stuff, then again on the paywall until you get everything at the end.
Now, this post isn't about if this is worth it or not, but let's quickly go over that too. At the moment, to get all items from this, it would cost me 6.27 USD. Since there is no stellarite in these gifts, the main comparison point would be the 12 revelation crystals. 6.99 USD buying crystals directly only gets you 8 (of course, please check your own currency too, 6.27 USD in my own is not big but not insignificant either). And of course, you get a bunch of nice "extra" stuff too!
So at the moment, I'd find this worth it, BUT KEEP IN MIND. There is a chance the amounts changes if they do this again in the future.
There is no guarantee the amounts of items you get from this system will be the same every time.
So why is it so "generous" right now? Because it's the first one. If people buy this because it's so generous, there's a good chance we'll see it come back in some form but again, there's no guarantee it will be the same level of "generous".
But let's talk about WHY it's designed the way it is. Think about this:
Why do you have to click each item to claim them one at a time instead of just getting them all at once?
Why is it broken up into 3 relatively cheap costs instead of just one whole price?
Why is it labeled "Harvest Gifts" when you still have to buy it (just like "Monthly Gifts"?
All of these can be answered on their own, but here's what it boils down to:
This system is designed to change the way you think and engage with the monetization of the game...especially if you are a low spender or are free to play.
But here are the separate answers:
The items are separated into multiple individual clicks to get you to form the habit of clicking those buttons. This sounds silly, but the more used you are to clicking the buttons in a certain UI, you eventually pay less attention to what you're clicking. Now, I hope they won't the locations of where things are within this UI, but be aware of this possibility if you do buy this, and in the future versions, DOUBLE CHECK THE PRICE. MAKE SURE IT IS STILL WORTH IT TO YOU.
Never get comfortable clicking on buttons without looking in the real money store of any game.
It's broken up into 3 relatively cheap costs because they want you to begin spending. "it's just 0.29 USD!" THIS IS HOW MICROTRANSACTIONS GET YOU IF YOU HAVE NEVER PAID BEFORE. The motivation is this: convert free to play or low spenders into whales. How do you do that? Get them to buy anything. One thing. One small, tiny thing that barely costs anything. Then maybe since they've already spent on the game, they'll be tempted to buy something else. And since they already spent on the game, it becomes easier for them to justify buying anything else. AND IT ADDS UP.
"It's just 0.29...It's just 0.99...It's just 4.99." And then you throw in Monthly Gifts, which is another 4.99. And then you throw in Distant Anthem because that's so worth it! And that's 9.99. That was a total of 21.25 USD.
Microtransactions exist as they are to make you lose perspective of what you are spending.
The "Harvest Gifts" wording, specifically "Gifts" is 100% there as a trick. None of this is a gift. It's not free! But the game DOES have free gifts every once in a while...and that's where word association comes in.
"Heartfelt/Housewarming Gifts are free! And so generous of Infold to give! Monthly Gift has been worth it! Why wouldn't Harvest Gift also be generous and worth it?"
Be aware of wording like this.
Every label, every name for something you can buy, is very very carefully worded to induce positive associations between it and pressing that BUY button.
Now, again, this is not a post of judgement. Spend on things you enjoy that make you happy and entertain you. BUT BE AWARE. Know what you are getting when you buy. I'm not saying that if you buy things in a gacha game you'll instantly become addicted and spend everything, but no one is above getting caught up in the predatory practices of gacha games, especially ones produced by a company as large as Infold.
Let me remind you again that Infold is not some indie company, but a corporation that made almost a billion dollars in 2024.
