Sports RPG Tribe Nine is an anticipated gacha that features an apocalyptic world that thrived on Extreme Baseball (XB). Despite Kazutaka Kodaka’s intriguing concept, the anime action thriller fell short. Publisher Akatsuki Games later announced on May 15th that the game will be shut down at the end of November and will halt all future updates. Kodaka, however, will not rest until Tribe Nine’s story reaches a proper end and is dedicated to writing a free doujin. Let’s see why the gacha became the fastest failing gacha.

Untested Launch Issues

At its Feb. 19th launch, Tribe Nine suffered from numerous issues with its free-to-play gacha elements. First-day players noticed that they couldn’t obtain the premium currency, Enigma Entities, could not be found in-game. Daily missions, delivery quests, and puzzle chests were the main sources of earning them without purchases.

Synchro drop rates had an unfair chance of appearing with 94.3% being 1-Star Tension Cards. 2-Star and 3-Star Tension and Character Cards were impossible with their Synchro rate ranging from 0.6% to 5.1%. Too Kyo Games later balanced it on Mar. 4th after listening to the community’s complaints. 1-Star drops decreased to 90%, 2-Star increased to 8%, and 3-Star increased to 2%.

The developers also changed the 100% 3-Star guarantee. Players could earn a Character Card after 100 pulls are made. They lowered the count to 80 to lessen the difficulty. Due to these issues, Tribe Nine’s revenue faltered from $800,000 to $90,000 globally.

Last but not least, pre-registered streaming and mobile users suffered from an unknown error on the game launcher. There were two ways to get Tribe Nine’s execution file functioning. The easiest method was to uninstall and reinstall the game. Those who have McAfee installed had the game file mistaken for a computer virus. Too Kyo Games shared instructions later on launch day on a fix.

Not Enough Marketing Appeal

Tribe Nine’s marketing tactics did what they could as a PC & mobile gacha RPG. The developers sent out early access to gacha and visual novel and allowed players to compete in a pre-launch global playtest. Selected app stores featured mobile ads for the game after launch. While Tribe Nine was praised for its high-octane gameplay and character stats customization, it was not enough to grab the attention of newcomers.

TikToker Crowned Cryptid wished that Akatsuki Games had involved Kodaka in the marketing. He led the project’s death game sports concept and visualized the 2022 anime. Tribe Nine’s art style is also reminiscent of Danganronpa, which could have drawn in the developer’s fanbase. This is the case for Kodaka’s other IPs, The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy and Master Detectives Archive: Rain Code.

Another strategy that should have been utilized is compiled gameplay footage for trailers. Most of the mechanics advertised were seen in character showcases and chapter previews. None of them included the XB segments, for they featured Danganronpa’s core debate mechanics in the form of mixed martial arts baseball. Compared to Rain Code’s marketing, Detective Yuma Kokohead was left to fight words with a dark blade.

When is Tribe Nine Shutting Down?

Tribe Nine will be closing its services on Nov. 27th JST this year. Even though Game Director Soejima did his best to keep the game alive, Akatsuki Games did not want to risk their finances as they were focusing on Kaiju No. 8’s turn-based RPG. For those who made purchases, all refunds have been processed from Jul. 10th to Oct. 9th.

Chapters 0-3 are still playable with enough chests and missions to collect Synchro Medals. They can be used for the regular pulls for the remaining 3-Star characters, like Enoki Yukigaya. Thankfully, Kodaka will be rescuing the remainder of the story. He made Neoneon Tribe and will work alongside former producer Shuhei Yamaguchi and writer Katsunori Suginaka.

Automaton interviewed the team back in August on Kodaka’s motivation to finish Tribe Nine in an unofficial doujin series. The Danganronpa creator told them, “The project was handled by Akatsuki Games, so I had little involvement. I made sure to avoid promoting the game since I would overshadow the development team.

Tribe Nine looked really entertaining, and I planned to whale on it after finishing The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. But then came the shutdown notice, which I felt was a shame. […] I didn’t want to leave fans with disappointment from an incomplete story.

So, with Too Kyo Games being a smaller studio with more freedom and leeway, we decided to take Akatsuki Games’ scenario and see it through completion. As president of the company, I felt it would be interesting to work on something like this for free.”