Nintendo to smartphone game makers: You can only gouge our players so much

Enlarge / If CyberAgent Inc had its way, this game would have tried to squeeze more money from its players. (credit: Nintendo / CyberAgent Inc.)

Here at Ars Technica, we've scrutinized Nintendo's smartphone games with a frank conclusion: they're often brutal about microtransactions. "Free-to-play" games like Fire Emblem Heroes, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and Dragalia Lost all revolve around a variety of in-game currencies, and they don't take long to poke players with paid shortcuts to either save time or unlock more loot boxes.

But as it turns out, those games could have been worse-at least, according to one Japanese smartphone game maker who blames Nintendo for reduced revenue.

Wall Street Journal reporter Takashi Mochizuki took a Wednesday opportunity to review one game maker's financial reports: CyberAgent Inc, maker of smartphone games like the Nintendo-published Dragalia Lost. This report, published at the end of January, made vague allusions to a single smartphone game dragging the company down. Quoting from the company's own English-language press release:

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