On March 31, publisher Marvelous announced that its latest mobile game endeavor Sakura Ignoramus, the follow-up to Shinobi Nightmare is shutting down on April 28, just 2 months after the game’s launch on February 27.
An announcement message from Jun Imaizumi, the producer of Sakura Ignoramus, was posted on the official Twitter account. The letter stated that they had decided to shut the game down despite it having undergone three years of development. Imaizumi stated how the team believes that Sakura Ignoramus was unable to provide a satisfactory experience to its players due to multi-faceted factors.
According to Marvelous Inc.’s most recent earning report forecast, sales of Sakura Ignoramus have been far below expectations, forcing the company to determine that the possibility of recovering the game’s operational cost and initial development costs in the future is very low. Therefore, to stop further losses as soon as possible, the company decided to promptly consider the continuation of future services, alongside writing off the balance of the game’s assets in a lump sum.
*Update: The game announced it will be shutting down on April 28.
▍Refund Process for Sakura Ignoramus
The announcement also added that as recompense for the sudden termination of the game service, players are eligible for a full refund, regardless of how much was spent within the in-game store. Details on the refund process and the exact date of closure will be announced in the future.
While the actual process has not been divulged as of this writing, the announcement notified players to not uninstall the application or re-login to the game on a new device, to avoid any complication in verifying and/or identifying the transactions.
You can apply for a refund starting from April 28, 14:59 [JST] to July 27.
▍About Sakura Ignoramus
Serving as a spiritual successor to Marvelous’ Shinobi Nightmare (which shut down on August 31, 2018), Sakura Ignoramus is a Simulation RPG set in the same world as its predecessor. The title notably brought industry veterans Jun Imaizumi, who previously worked on mobile titles such as Phantom of the Kill, The Alchemist Code, and the aforementioned Shinobi Nightmare. For world-building and the game’s story writing, the game brought in Ōji Hiroi, who is famous for his work on the Sakura Wars franchise and more recently, the Takt Op. mixed-media project.
In the game, players control a squad of up to 6 characters fighting against monsters known as the Kegare. Players take control of these characters and move them along a grid, battling enemies they encounter with basic attacks, skills, and super abilities.
Players can train their characters in specific stats and parameters to cater to their playstyle, and each character comes with a different element and role. The game segments itself into character raising and battling in a tactical RPG style with samurais characters turned into chibis.
Sakura Ignoramus has a rating of 2.9 on the QooApp Game Store.
