In what was expected news (given that Gamigo’s publishing contract was very time limited when they took over Trion’s assets, and it was expected that Kakao would not be renewing that contract since they took controlling interest in XLGAMES; the actual developer of ArcheAge), Kakao Games will be taking over the publishing of ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained.
The recent tipoff that something was amiss was the lack of updates for the ArchePass in Unchained (re-runs were enabled in August). The pass is a key part of the monetization and the lack of a new pass for several months was a huge red flag.
There is currently no specific information regarding the switch like the actual date (except it will take place in December), or how many servers will exist for each game after the publisher change. While Gamigo did note all items will transfer over (customary), there is no information regarding things like in-game virtual currency (I expect credits will not transfer over and that players will need to spend it before the actual migration takes place).
This will actually be a semi-mess given we’re already in November, and players will only have several weeks to prepare like having to pack up everything (since it is better to store what is possible versus all of the issues that can result if just leaving your stuff like what happened in the server evolution last year), and then whenever the land rush will take place.
Personally, I don’t believe anything will get better; Gamigo has been bad but I’m also not a fan of how Kakao manages their games due to their penchant for blatant p2w mechanics; I expect that to get a tad bit worse for Unchained). Regardless, it will be like a semi new start (though I’m not looking forward to the land rush post-migration).
UPDATE: Kakao Games has a basic frontend with little details as well except a short blurb about having one global build for the two versions (ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained), along with a slight ding regarding being able to “deliver the ArcheAge Unchained experience that players have vocally desired from the beginning). That’s sort of a veiled indictment of how Unchained ended up devolving over the past two years. I will only believe this (Kakao addressing the issues with both versions) so long as no one from the team that has been handling ArcheAge since the Trion days (where many were retained by Gamigo), is brought over to Kakao (especially Khrolan).
They’ve also setup their own Discord while Gamigo has put their ArcheAge Discord into read-only mode (which is seriously out of touch when they are still in control of the game for at least the next month).
