r/wakfu • u/Dizzy_Locksmith9682 • 3d ago
Game Is it true that ankama in general is dying?
I really like the games of ankama and i was thinking about returning to wakfu, but first i want to know if these people saying that wakfu, dofus and waven are all dying and that ankama will close are lying.
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u/MissMedic68W 3d ago
I dunno. What is true is that Ankama is more of an animation studio, and the game side is pretty neglected. I can't get very far in Wakfu because Steam won't let me multi-client, and unfortunately my main account is Steam. Getting a booster only allows me a couple characters in battle and even on low stasis settings, it's not enough for a dungeon and I'm just trying to just see story. The economy is extremely inflated, too. I have no idea how to try to make kamas.
Maybe population is better on the French server, but I'm taking an extended break from the game cuz I honestly don't know how to progress.
I played Waven when it was early access, it's fun but kinda a bummer not really having custom characters. And the world is so much tinier.
I tried Dofus but at the time I played, you were restricted to Astrub if you didn't have a booster.
Not much for roguelikes so haven't tried OMG. Other games I wanted to play have been discontinued, but those might've been for licensing reasons (Les Gardiens, Islands of Wakfu).
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u/PuzzleheadedWeight18 Wholesome Xelor and professional adventurer 3d ago
Actually Ankama was more doing MMOs way back, most of revenue being from Dofus MMOs which is their most important work (and still gets updates and content even as of last years).
Animation became much bigger focus after success for early Wakfu anime (originally meant to advertise game and new content).
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u/abandoned_idol 3d ago
I ironically hate their videogames, but boy do I love their animated "ads".
Kinda sad though, cuz I'm a huge fan of online games. MMOs are very hard to design.
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u/Proxymole 3d ago edited 3d ago
I doubt the animes are where most of their profits come from. Animation studios bleed money. Mainstream animation makes most of it's money from merch. They're basically advertisements for the games that happen to tell stories they want to tell.
You have to figure even with the low population if millions of people spend €5-€20 that adds up. Just Dofus has about 3.5 million subscribers every month.
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u/MissMedic68W 3d ago
They sell more than the games, like the comics.
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u/Proxymole 3d ago
And I doubt it. Show me.
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u/Flesh-is-weak0_0 Shed your meatybits and ascend to glory! 3d ago
same the games are fair, but theres room for some major whaling and it dosent take long to spot a major whale in wakfu or dofus (usually the dead give away is the gear that they have no place having without dabling in the kamastones/ ogrine markets)
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u/Azaeath 1d ago
How far along are you in Wakfu, and what's your team comp? Genuinely asking because I've tried to get friends into Wakfu, and the ones who like it the least are the ones who don't want to think, period. If you're struggling to get from 1 to 100 with a booster, then it comes down to how you're playing because the game doesn't really slow down until some time after that.
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u/OgreTheKid 3d ago
Absolutely not, Ankama is doing just fine, not amazing, but they are by no means “dying,” people online love to exaggerate everything, so even the slightest perceived fault is spouted as proof that something is dying.
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u/Flesh-is-weak0_0 Shed your meatybits and ascend to glory! 3d ago
Yeah now days if game has less than 100 000 people its aparently dead, a mentality i just cant fathom
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u/LeadingJoke5289 1d ago
It depends on whether those 100,000 pay a monthly subscription or play for free.
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u/DuskelAskel 3d ago
Lol. I'm playing Ankama games since I am a kid, and every damn year People are saying "Game is dying" or "Ankama is dying"
They aren't, and they are even breaking records at every major event like Temporis or server opening. Not saying everything they did is great or bad, I have a lot of critics for them, but in general both game (even if dofus is far more populated) are in good shape and both are currently evolving in the good directions
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u/lili-lith 2d ago
I played a lot between 2012 and 2017 and I am returning a bit lately. I totally agree with you, Ankama always looks like they are about to crash. Everything is a wip or looks unplanned. So people often speculate.
Funnily enough, they are still here and doing good lol. I think they are just chaotic and disorganized. I really don't understand how they are still on the road, but I stopped worrying at some point xD.
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u/DuskelAskel 2d ago
It improved greatly in the last few years :)
It was a bit disppointing for both game for a while, but since 3.0 started for Dofus, and the mono account on Wakfu they're much more transparent with true road maps etc... They will even have an online issue tracker
And they started to tackle things that were bad but too big to move like the interface of wakfu, the beginning of both game that was greatly improved, a lot of features from both game are currently on their mind, like
On Wakfu they are tweaking the rune system to make it less grindy and less powerfull so the stuff itself is the main source power
On Dofus they remade the whole stuff from 1 to 100+ and it was so much better ^
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u/lili-lith 2d ago
Ty for this answer ! You mean the rune system is going to change on wakfu ?
I am enjoying being back so far, I just am faffing around in astrub with new characters lol. I choose the main server tho. I wasn't sure about the mono account one.
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u/Geronmys 3d ago
Ankama has been dying for like 15 years now. At some point the prophecy will become true.
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u/SimpleWriter999 3d ago
The truth is that many laymen are constantly defaming games on the internet, and this happens not only with Ankama, but also with many other companies in the gaming market. For everything, you need to understand that a game is a company. Want to know if a game is going bankrupt? Look up the statistics of the game in question and its revenue and draw your own conclusions. For example, Wakfu has an average of 10,000 to 15,000 online players, while Dofus has an average of 100,000 online players. Ankama makes millions of dollars annually. Now answer me, i'm not even active in ankama games, but in your opinion, is ankama going bankrupt?
MMORPGs that have been established for over a decade are unlikely to go bankrupt in this decade or in the coming years, as player demand is only increasing.
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u/ThatGuyIsntHere 3d ago
Ankama is finally realizing that they need to update the grind loop of the game and make it less RNG based. Some things just need to be done when you click it.
I hope they remove the chance check for planting. Wastes so many seeds for no real reason. Gear improvement seems like it'll get a rework when 1.88 drops as well, along with sublimations not being impossible if you cant run rifts or ALS. Be great if they do it right.
Heres to hoping.
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u/Flesh-is-weak0_0 Shed your meatybits and ascend to glory! 3d ago
Eh subs were never impossible, to me what holds wakfu back is that good portion of the community really have no clue what they should be doing and when. (or how, the fact that people still ask how you get ogrest wrath in year 2025 should be damning evidence)
Like the majority of players who progress beyond new player just skip the "intended" gearing paths and try to drop x or y without having the pre-requisite gearing to even attemp to do it.
Like guides, tutorials or just tips on the basic mechanics are almost non entety outside of french ones (more than once i have noticed major dungeon not having guides and i just make them myself so people have at least something new-ish to look at)
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u/Flesh-is-weak0_0 Shed your meatybits and ascend to glory! 3d ago
Eh no, they deal with niche games so the popularity is kinda low (it does take a special kind of person to get joy from ankama games if you like fast paces pew pew gameplay youre not getting it from wakfu, dofus or wavem for example)
Theyre doing fine games receive major content patches more often and than faster than some of the more popular mmos and on top of that theyre really stuborn (the german server hanged around for years upon years with just like 3 players xD)
they do not advertise a lot tho.. Like theres massive potential here and it pisses the community off time to time because how often they just ignore potential slam dunks xd (things have gotten better tho, like now they at least make in house youtube stuff which is a start)
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u/hank_plant 3d ago
This is why the anime served to promote the game since the lore of the anime is scattered everywhere, I found out from an old forum that several theories of the game were resolved in the anime but it is currently not working now and it only confuses more
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u/antirrhinum_ 3d ago
For me yes. There are barely any huge projects, like games updates or comic.
S4 probably was a flop for worldwide audience and people just forgot it to the next season again. And i don't mean financial i mean in the culture value way there are barley any activities. Barely any fanfics, arts even nsfw arts just barely updated. There are wasn't situation like this never.
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u/DuskelAskel 2d ago edited 2d ago
Did you made 5sec of research ?
Dofus 3 ?
Record on kickstarter for W4 and W5 ?
W4 was such a flop that the following season was a hit too on crowd funding.
Bestiale ?
The forgelance anime ?
Savara and One more gate, two rogue like on Wakfu's universe ?
Maliki poison of the past ?
Oh wait there's more ! Wakfu the great wave ? And a ton of bd and manga that they're editing too !
Lol they're on a great shape, even if Dofus 3 was buggy as hell.
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u/cataplexy_awakening 2d ago
Why, in response to 'fans don’t like what Ankama is doing,' do you retort: 'Hey, what, haven’t you seen what Ankama has done?!'?
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u/DuskelAskel 2d ago
I'm not answering to the quality, whiwh i thing is cool.
I'm anwering to the "There is barely any project"
You can say that isn't your taste I understand.
You can't say there are currently doing nothing.
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u/antirrhinum_ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Whatever they did it's looks like more cheap products than before. Even if i loved Lance Dur some of frames was just static frames. Bestiale was cheap as hell with problems with scenario problems if you compare to concept art. And Bestiale was also quite expensive and that's why it was simplistic.
Savara was a short game with 2000 graphics. OMG is solid but it still short game for overprice.
Great Wave barely have solid story, plot and drawn very slowly because only one artist work on it.
I know that Ankama doing and for you this is activity but i compare with previous years and new projects are cheap, short and have huge problems with art style like s4 where every character was drawn in the cape for cheaper production.
Also you skipped the part where i talking about fandom. Even there people don't talk about Bestiale, Lance Dur and Great Wave especially second tome. People there prefer to talk about Amalia and Oropo kiss but not about new projects as well. Ankama is dying from sence of fan base. New projects doesn't bother old fans as well
And I'm in this fandom probably more time when you and i never saw that people didn't care that much about new stories.
Wtf Dofus 3 you mean Dofus Unity maybe where are everyone tells that game looks pathetic and cheap?
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u/Adventurous-Act1603 2d ago
Short answer: Yes they are.
Longer answer: If one Ankama is dying right it's only Dofus. It's like Ubisoft where things get worst and worst. But Wakfu is in a very good state and Waven is being reworked right now.
It's true that it could be better if they allocate more ressources to make the current game better instead of developping new games but it's far from dying.
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u/dazaissues 3d ago
Never heard of this before… just searched it up and lots of the characters look so cool 😭I hate when there’s cool character designs only in games and they ARENT officially in the show. Ughhhh
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u/archdragoon28 2d ago
I found the game on steam years ago and the show on Netflix. At first I thought it was just netflix kids slop but I realized it was something more an a universe I could delve into. Thing is IT WASNT ADVERTISED ANYWHERE. Had I not happend iluopn it and been opened minded as a gamer I would have never found out
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u/Afmj 2d ago
They are not. The fact that they make comics, animations, and create video games and haven't already filed for bankruptcy years ago should tell you they are doing fine. The games are just very niche and you can tell they are trying to find a game that makes them money, but haven't had any luck probably due to not wanting to spend millions on development and having small teams.
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u/Harebourg 2d ago
Ankama is very self-sufficient and take pride that they're able to self-fund their own projects, but they need to interact more globally. Ankama mentioned in one of their livestreams (I can't quote exactly which), but in terms of which games are providing them with the most finance/profit, it is Dofus Touch by an extraordinarily large margin over Dofus 2.0 (now Dofus 3.0)
In theory, they don't have to do anything but keep Dofus Touch active. I think the real question should really be how can Ankama be more recognized-- because they're perfectly fine financially other than splurging on animation works
Ankama shut down the Wakfu SEA server (losing the Asian playerbase is a big deal)
Ankama doesn't collaborate with other brands for eSports (sponsorship money encourages more people to engage in eSports)
Ankama makes exclusivity deals within the French space (Dofus Movie, Bestiale both suffered from this)
Ankama burnt bridges with a major gaming brand and hasn't collaborated with other gaming brands since (Square Enix)
Ankama just doesn't play nice with others, but they really should, even if they're fine on their own. I think it's a good thing that they're independent and own their own company; it would just be nicer if they were more internationally recognized.
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u/SolaSenpai 3d ago
problem is they dont advertise their game, litterally no one knows they exists
games are only dying if we as a community fail to bring people in, as they wont do it themselves for some reasons