NIKKE x Re:Zero Collab Revenue Craters — Rem's Banner Drops 50% on Day 2, Total Revenue May Not Even Hit Half of the 2B Collaboration

A collab character banner that loses 50% of its revenue on Day 2 — and no, this isn't some obscure indie gacha dying in obscurity. This is NIKKE: Goddess of Victory, once a mobile gaming revenue juggernaut, now delivering a masterclass in how to fumble a crossover event. For context, the previous NieR:Automata (2B) collaboration raked in a staggering 1.5 billion JPY. The Re:Zero collab? Projections put it at barely 700 million. Yikes.

The OP breaks down the numbers with surgical precision. The 2B collab ran for a full month, and even after subtracting the separately counted 'Teacher' character (roughly 500 million JPY), 2B alone generated approximately 1.5 billion JPY. The current Re:Zero collab? As of March 31 midnight, total revenue stood at 469 million JPY. Rem's banner debuted at 80 million on Day 1, then immediately cratered to 40 million on Day 2 — a brutal 50% drop.

The OP also compared this to the earlier EMT event, which pulled 98 million on Day 1 and still held 74 million on Day 2 (boosted by a gacha wheel skin), only dropping to 40 million on Day 3 and settling around 20 million daily afterward. If Rem follows the same trajectory over the remaining 12 days, total collab revenue lands at roughly 700 million JPY — less than half of what 2B brought in.

The community's reaction has been absolutely savage. One commenter quipped, 'With quality THIS bad and it still makes this much money? If I were Shift Up I'd be over the moon' — the implication being that a developer who profits from mediocrity has zero incentive to improve. Another was even blunter: 'They can sell literal garbage and still make bank, so expect them to double down.'

So why did this collab turn out so poorly? Several theories floated through the comments. First, the timing is terrible: the Re:Zero event is jammed right before the 1.5 anniversary, whereas previous collabs (2B and the 1st anniversary) had at least four event banners as buffer. Players suspect the original schedule was different — the collab's free wallpaper appears in the rewards list BEFORE a character event called 'D-Wife,' suggesting it was supposed to launch earlier but got delayed for unknown reasons.

One commenter pointed out: 'If the delay was really caused by the copyright holder interfering, the criticism is still justified.' This ties into the broader theory that the Re:Zero IP holder has been overly strict about character designs, which might explain why NIKKE's Re:Zero characters are conspicuously more covered-up compared to other games' Re:Zero collabs — games that somehow managed to deliver wedding dresses and swimsuit skins without issue.

But the art quality complaints go far beyond just conservative designs. The OP noted that even 10 days after launch, the official 'fixes' to character illustrations only addressed minor issues while leaving the egregious errors untouched. One commenter zeroed in on a specific blunder: 'EMT's feet are literally drawn backwards during her shooting animation — who's going to whale for that?' Another was baffled that 'the mini-games and music are perfectly fine — it's ONLY the illustrations that are embarrassingly bad,' suggesting the art team simply stopped caring.

Perhaps the most devastating take came from the commenter who observed: 'Even AI-generated art like this can earn tens of millions — NIKKE players are in for a treat going forward.' The logic is painfully simple: if the bar is this low and revenue still flows, why would Shift Up ever raise it?

On the question of whether Shift Up even cares about NIKKE anymore, one player nailed it: 'Stellar Blade (星刃) is Shift Up's true passion project. NIKKE? As long as it's not dead, they're fine. If spending dips, they'll just add another zero to the next character's power creep.' Another commenter delivered a long satirical monologue imagining NIKKE's dystopian future — all characters paired with NPCs, the Commander reduced to a spectator camera, forced diversity characters everywhere — dripping with the bitter sarcasm of a longtime fan who's watched the game's direction deteriorate.

Some players have already voted with their wallets. 'I've already quit. Do whatever you want, Shift Up — my wallet stays with me,' wrote one defector. And for anyone still holding out hope that the developer might self-reflect, one final commenter delivered the cold truth: 'Expecting a corporation to have a conscience? You'd have better luck getting hit by a truck.'

For now, the Re:Zero collab's commercial performance probably won't trigger any soul-searching at Shift Up. After all, 700 million JPY is still an astronomical sum for most games. The real losers are the veteran players who once poured their passion (and money) into NIKKE, only to watch it slowly transform into a milking machine with diminishing returns on quality. Their patience isn't just running thin — it's already run out.