Path to Nowhere in 2023: The Unfortunate State and Shocking Decline

Allow me to preface this by stating that even if a video game is good – even if a video game is fair with its business model – much like Path to Nowhere – it can still be performing poorly financially.
Which, unfortunately, goes to show not only us as players, but also companies one very important thing: The key to a successful Gacha game, is to be as predatory as possible and treat your players as if they’re money printers.
Because at the end of the day, a fraction of a playerbase whaling tens of thousands of dollars is likely going to equate to a significantly higher return than a large percentage of players spending a few dollars. This is something the studio behind Path to Nowhere is learning the hard way, I think.

But how popular is the game exactly? Has the game been growing, or is the game in a perpetual state of decline since its release several months ago? That’s what we’re here today to take a look at. To see how Path to Nowhere is currently doing in 2023.

Path to Nowhere is a strategy RPG – with a focus on deploying a small number of units, and engaging waves of enemies.
The game launched on October 27th, 2022, and went down as one of the highest quality, more fair Gacha game releases of the entire year. Featuring incredible quality voice acting, a deep, complex story, 3 dimensional characters, a decent gameplay loop. Albeit a bit of a lack of content at endgame.
But it’s a new release, over time there’ll be plenty of opportunities to expand.
As the game released in the final week of October, it’s impossible to get an accurate gauge of its earnings. There were only a few days left of October after it’s release after all. However, November is where we can get a full idea of how the game did.

Beginning with the month of November 2022, Path to Nowhere’s first event, Lighthouse Morningstar was held through November 24th, followed by the Chessmaster’s Conquest event on November 24th.
Path to Nowhere made approximately $7 million dollars Globally, and $1 million dollars within China. These earnings are across both Android and iOS devices.
Admittedly, those numbers aren’t bad. Path to Nowhere is a much more niche game than larger, open-world titles like Genshin, Tower of Fantasy or the upcoming Wuthering Waves Gacha’s. Yet just shy of $10 million dollars with that handicap is impressive.
It also managed to achieve over a million downloads within 3 days of its release – an accomplishment that is by no means an easy feat to achieve.

December 2022 saw quite the decline in earnings over November 2022, which was to be expected, given typically Gacha games immediately begin to earn less each month after release.
The reason for the decline was likely in part due to the limited events that ran through December, specifically, the Dreamy Bubble Beach Illusions event that began December 13th and ran through December 20th, along with a whole lot of gorgeous Waifu’s to pull for.
Earnings came in at $3 million dollars Globally, and $1 million dollars within China. China really hasn’t been pulling its weight – when a game of this caliber is barely noticed within the country.
It also saw several hundred thousand new downloads.

January 2023 was the largest blow to the game, with Memento Mori, NIKKE, Arknights and Blue Archive all improving from 4-10 million dollars per game in the month of January, Path to Nowhere saw a decline from $7 million two months prior, to a mere $1.6 million Globally, and $2 million within China.
These numbers were of large disappointment to many players, with fans thinking their game was doing incredibly well financially. And while $1.6 million, or $3.6 million combined total is nothing to scoff at, comparatively, it’s quite the drastic decline over such a short period of time, revealing quite the bleak future for the game.
The Echoes of Phantasm Time event began on January 3rd and ran through January 17th, with January seeing multiple new Waifu’s to recruit, and various sets of attire to purchase for characters.
January only saw a couple hundred thousand new downloads, once more showing the continued decrease in interest in the game.

February 2023 has the same type of event as previous months, including new Waifu recruits and new outfits to purchase, but will likely continue to see the game further decline in total players and earnings.
Again, this decline isn’t specifically due to the fact that the game is bad. Path to Nowhere is not a bad game. This is one of my favorite Gacha games of 2022, and by far one of the highest quality Gacha games I’ve actually ever played.
I just don’t believe Path to Nowhere is necessarily as predatory as its competition. They care more about the user experience than they do larger numbers. And I can’t fault them for that. That’s one of the reasons I like Punishing Gray Raven, Azur Lane and Arknights.
They’re all fair Gacha games that sacrifice maximizing their earnings in favor of presenting their players a chance at earning what they want in-game. And I wish more studios did this.