NIKKE x Evangelion collaboration didn’t perform as well as expected, reveals Shift Up 

Despite the Neon Genesis Evangelion and Goddess of Victory: NIKKE collaboration causing the mobile game to rise up Japan’s app store charts last August, the in-game event didn’t meet Shift Up’s expectations. This is based on Shift Up’s third-quarter business performance results for the year 2024, which were published on November 12, 2024. 

According to Shift Up, global revenue from Goddess of Victory: NIKKE declined by approx. 4.3 billion South Korean Won (KRW) in the third quarter of 2024 (July 1 to September 30). To be more specific, its third-quarter global earnings of 34.2 billion KRW were below the second-quarter global earnings of 38.5 billion KRW. While 34.2 billion KRW is nothing to scoff at, that is still an 11% decrease from the previous quarter. 

Shift Up attributes the game’s losses to the Neon Genesis Evangelion collaboration event; more specifically to the fact that the collaboration characters Rei Ayanami, Asuka Langley Soryu, Mari Makinami Illustrious, and Misato Katsuragi didn’t fully resonate with players. This means that players didn’t spend as much money or time getting the limited-time characters and costumes – which stayed mostly true to their source material. Shift Up CEO Hyung-tae Kim stated that his initial in-game designs for the Evangelion characters were deemed “too erotic.” The more conservative appearances of the Evangelion cast compared to the usual revealing Nikke outfits could be one of the reasons that the collaboration’s financial performance fell short of Shift Up’s expectations.

Shift Up plans to take user feedback into consideration to improve next year’s collaboration events. Considering Goddess of Victory: NIKKE has had some great collaborations with franchises like Nier: Automata, Chainsaw Man, and Re:Zero, players likely have a lot to look forward to in 2025.