Pokemon Masters EX players worried it may get canceled after Nintendo axes Dragalia Lost

Nintendo’s cancellation of Dragalia Lost has some Pokemon fans worried that Masters EX and Cafe Remix could meet a similar fate. 

Originally launching in 2018, Dragalia Lost was Nintendo’s first jump into the Gacha mobile genre. Although it was a massive hit at first, the Japanese developer canceled the free-to-play mobile title after waning sales figures.

Players who invested thousands of dollars into the game were outraged by the sudden announcement. Now Pokemon Masters EX and Cafe players are worried those games might also get pulled in the future, leaving all their paid content in limbo. 

Nintendo / Cygames

In a March announcement, Nintendo revealed that they were dropping Dragalia Lost.

Pokemon fans worried after Nintendo cancels Dragalia Lost

Nintendo made the surprising announcement on the official Dragalia Lost’s Twitter account on March 22. In the post, the developer explained that they were ending the mobile title.

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“We’d like to share information about the future of Dragalia Lost. After the main campaign has ended, service for the game itself will end at a later date. Please see the message linked below for more details, and thank you for playing #DragaliaLost,” the tweet read.

Further details were clarified in a blog post listed on their website. “After the final set of new adventurers is added in a summon showcase scheduled for 03/30/2022 at 23:00, the game will not receive any new content updates aside from those for the main campaign and certain quests,” it read. The press release did not provide a date when the service would be ended.

Dragalia Lost players were devastated by Nintendo’s decision and took to social media to react to the announcement. Many of the criticisms came from users who spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on microtransactions only to now have their content to now be lost in the future.

“Gonna stop investing in these games. They love to cash grab and then just leave the fan base with nothing. No one paid all that money to get characters to eventually lose them because it’s not profitable to you anymore. You’re literally just renting artwork to people,” one player wrote.

The mobile title’s cancellation also caught the eye of Pokemon fans, who became worried about the future of Masters EX and Cafe Remix.

“Dragalia lost died, is Pokemon master next?” a fan tweeted out. Another wrote, “Dragalia Lost is shutting down. I imagine Pokémon Cafe Remix will meet the same fate and possible Pokémon Masters too…”

Insider Daniel Ahmad also reacted to the news and addressed why Pokemon mobile games such as Go were a different situation.

“For reference, Pokémon Go generated $1.2 billion+ in 2021 alone.  Nintendo does recognize earnings from that game, but not in its mobile + IP licensing segment above and the majority goes to Niantic and TPC,” he tweeted.

So while it doesn’t appear that Dragalia Lost’s fate is something that will likely happen to Pokemon mobile titles anytime soon, it’s at least sparked an interesting conversation about microtransactions in free-to-play games. 

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Some players are now realizing that the thousands of dollars they invest in GAAS (Games as a service) might not be worth it as they never know when they could shut down.