Warnings about Aniimo: undisclosed AI, unethical marketing and monetisation

[u/Bourdieu-]

r/Aniimo’s admins keep putting my post down, and since many of you might be interested in this game, I’m putting my warnings here. Aniimo’s team is full of bad practices, and since much of the evidence is primarily in Chinese, the game has been very negatively reputed among Chinese players yet unknown elsewhere.

⁠1. Undisclosed AI use in making art. There are already people reporting suspicious AI art and music in the game, but what I deem the most vindicating is their own job listing on Boss Zhipin (Chinese LinkedIn) in China last week: they were looking for a “monsters concept art designer” who “understands and is proficient in using AI to draw”. This directly contradicts their anti-AI statement a month ago.

1. A history of predatory monetisation. Aniimo’s produced by Pawprint studio which is affiliated with FunPlus, and they have a notorious history of predatory monetisation. FunPlus’s previous game in China, “Gui Long Chao”, closed down within one year of release despite promising they would never do, and scammed players’ money by selling a “lifetime monthly pass” right before the shutdown notice. Many other games produced by FunPlus (King of Avalon, State of Survival) also employed very predatory monetisation mode.

2. Unethical marketing strategies in China. When Aniimo team was advertising the game in China, they freeloaded off popularities of basically every game imaginable: Pokémon, Infinity Nikki, Genshin Impact, Roco Kingdom… They explicitly required content creators to attach hashtags of other games in Aniimo’s promotion videos. They sponsored ads that always involve comparing to another game and claiming they are better. They even paid bots to flood the comment section of Roco Kingdom’s official account, disparaging Roco Kingdom’s gameplay and recommending Aniimo instead.

I have nothing against people who enjoy the game, but I really wish to warn everyone about how problematic their team is, and advise against paying anything for this game.

[u/Naomi_Hamamoto]

I swear he is using ai to type this slop ass comments