Why I left (and came back) to Infinity Nikki
A game made by satan but with all the right fixings
When Infinity Nikki was first announced I mentally dubbed this my 'forever game'. I had loved all the nikki games that came before and I was searching for an MMO I was willing to commit to full time. Like do dailies nonstop, track my progression, find friendships. Basically building a second home online. I was yearning for the noestalgia of playing love live in the hallways of cons only for someone to pass by asking 'is that beat in angel?'. I missed watching live streams of deal or no deal reinacted on animal crossing. I wanted to find a game that not only appealed to me an my cozy sensibilities, but also had lore, community, and creativity at the forefront. I would commit my hard earned money to a consistent battlepass with a company I thought I could trust, the key word I ignored here was 'company'.
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Love or Hate Nikki - Humble Beginnings
Growing up in the flash game era of the internet, I’ve always been a fan of dress up games. There’s nothing quite like putting on your favorite playlist and imagining costumes for different characters and scenarios. But there’s been limitations. Certain games only offer limited styles, lack of detail, woefully clipped pngs slopped together for freakish monstrosities. I always wondered why we could get detailed graphics of sweaty nba players drinking gatorade but us dress up gamers were still using tech from the 90s. Nikki was one of the first games out there to create a game where dressing up and character customization was the objective, not an add on. Our creativity, our collecting skills, and our relentless clicking and exiting out of “sharing to facebook for free gems” skills were finally recognized as ‘real gamer’ skills.
Original Nikki was not without it’s flaws - I could do a really deep dive into the game’s weird af race and cultural appropriation from the troublingly named waste land or the lazy pay to win style themes or the insanely overpriced sets that turned fashion into a full on monet painting often times with literal frame to match. But LN did a lot of things right which were instrumental in them earning my trust. Their loyalty rewards for purchases were cumulative, so even just purchasing things one time gave you long term benefits. They encouraged online communities and creation of styling challenges like “use only 1 stars” or “pieces that start with the letter D”. They were irrevrent and self-admonishing about the absurdity of a world run by fashion styling, but cared enough to give us an emotionally gripping plot (looking at you chapter 15).
It was a magical world to get sucked into - I was suckered by the time that first trailer hit.
Entering Miraland
This boy was in miraland on ground zero - well the second beta test to be more specific. Back in the days when twitter was still called twitter. I feel in love instantly. I was locked and loaded from the beginning. I kept massive journals of my game play, created stories from tiny furniture set ups in the home, and used the official corporate hashtag in every post.
What I liked most about my initial play
- Each world felt lived in, I genuinely wanted to get to know the NPCs and every house in each village
- Emotional and gripping stories - like damn okay ig there’s racism in miraland now
- Deep deep deep world building lore - Holidays, monuments, fairytales, names of brands all have meanings
- Nikki’s English VA, it’s the acting and tone of voice that’s so soothing and comforting, I love being able to hear her talk and say such kind supportive things to the other characters
- Beauty in every shot, there is literally no ugly areas except the areas meant to be ugly which are still beautiful in their own way
- Fashion for the girls, everything is 100% things I wish I could dress up in
And then the 1.5 Update Patch…
Yep, I was there kids. On the front lines of the battle vs. infold I attended the 1.5 livestream. I counted down the hours until the patch. I saved my gems. Only for what - the greatest buggiest lackluster disappointment to hit girly gamers since ACNH not offering an official brewsters coffee shop. The biggest kick in the gut since the my pet stuff launched on sims 4. But this was more than just a flawed content release - it highlighted the largest issues InFold still struggles to address with their player base. I don’t care who is the actual individuals responsible for this mess or what their intentions were. I’m criticizing the issues as a whole.
- Flat event storytelling - the scrubby bubble land was a perfect example of weird disconnected storytelling and the inconsistency. While I did rave that the mainline story was incredible, several event stories afterwards were very hit or miss. Some were believable and some felt heavy handed. The bubble world is a perfect example of how disjointed and piecemail (haha pun) these were becoming
- the predatory marketing tactics
- lack of customer care and support for those who paid real money and weren’t given the items they were promised. It’s one thing to value your whales over your f2p players, but it’s another to be shitty to your dolphins.
- The lack of playability given to the sea of stars. The seasaw, the animal area… sure there were some pretty places to pose by but what were you really getting from that area besides a new currency to grind for.
- The DYE CURRENCY literally making it cost an arm and a leg for me to find out the navy blue that looked great in the color maker was shit when I went back into the real world. This one may have actually made me the most mad.
In general a huge issue I have with modern games is that sense of incompleteness. Many would argue they want a game that they can play “forever” with endless updates. They want a game that’s “free” and doesn’t block out players from participating. But compared to the quality and polish I’ve seen in standard games or even subscription based MMOs it’s clear that many of these games don’t really care about the total game experience so long as they have something new and shiny to show off. And in general I started feeling like this game was becoming more a photo taking/digital mall simulator than an actual game.
So I fucked off…
And I tried to find similar experiences in other girly games. I kept an eye on Nikki, looking at reddit posts from time to time to see how our girlcott was doing. I saw the google play store go from 4.8 to 1.2 to 3.4 and wondered how the actual game was fairing. I missed my old diary entires and making stories. I missed my ootds and getting lost in the world. I didn’t miss the annoyance of dailies and skimming through meaningless dialogue. But I was really stuck between a glamorous rock and a hard place.
I tried FFXIV, but it was really hard to find the kind of playerbase I was looking for. I tried heartopia but it felt vapid and empty. I tried going back to sims, ACNL, anything to get that girly whimsy vibe, but nothing quite stacked up for me.
I had to ask myself, was I willing to accept this game with it’s corporate warts and all? Or would i have to give it up for good?
I’m back… for now
2025 was a big year for me of trying to cut out as many possible large brands from my life in favor of supporting small businesses. And in that time of making those adjustments I learned that you can’t try to change the whole world at once. There is no one stop flip of a switch to make all your purchases ethical, to change the entire industry at large and put companies in their place. But at the same time there is no reason feel like every choice we make needs to ideologically reflect everything we believe in. Yes Nikki has problems and yes Infold is pretty shitty for some of the choices they’ve made. But this game really brings me joy. And in the grand scheme of things I’m willing to find joy where I can in order to prevent burning out for fighting for the other trillion issues we have at home right now. And at least Infold isn’t currently supporting ICE as far as I know…
Let’s just see if I hang in there past the welcome back bonuses. For now, I’m just happy to be back in miraland with my besties.
