Popular gacha game Goddess of Victory: NIKKE have confirmed that they’ll be partnering with the San Diego Padres, putting baseball-themed costumes in the game and putting on a live event in-person with exclusive merch and activities.
Eastern culture has become increasingly prevalent in American sports over the past few years, with popular anime, manga, games, and even V-Tubers partnering with sports teams in some big ways.
The Lakers linked up with manga series One Piece, with them even having an animation made solely for the purpose of promoting the crossover and putting Luffy on the court. Hololive has also partnered with the LA Dodgers in the past to get VTubers on the big screen during the game.
Now Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, one of the most popular gacha games out there, is getting in on the action and doing a crossover of its own with the San Diego Padres.
Goddess of Victory: NIKKE steps up to plate with the Padres
The gacha market has expanded expontentially over the past few years. While Genshin Impact blew the lid open on the trend when it initially came out, developer mihoyo isn’t the only studio trying to cash in on the trend.
Though they’re still a huge player in the market, with Genshin, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero being big players in the space, Goddess of Victory: NIKKE stands on its own as a game that capitalizes on a completely different audience.
Stellar Blade developer ShiftUp created a post-apocalyptic game where you play as a commander and collect dozens of Nikkes, android super-soldiers who are built to combat the Raptures, a robot menace that has claimed the surface of Earth and driven humanity underground.
Nikkes are almost exclusively female, with most of the game’s cast being made up of scantily clad women with “physics” that are visible when they fire their weapons. The game has gotten so popular that they’re collabing with the San Diego Padres, a U.S. baseball team.
It’s a two-pronged crossover, one that’s putting baseball-themed costumes in Nikke and bringing merch to the match against the LA Dodgers on June 10.
The Dodgers have previously been backed by Hololive, making it very possible that they bring back some V-Tubers and make this a NIKKE vs. Hololive clash. Although, the fact that Gura is no longer with Hololive has lessened fan excitement on that front.
Other fans are concerned about the gratuitous nature of Goddess of Victory: NIKKE and aren’t sure how a game like this is going to go over at a family-friendly event.
“An ecchi game like Nikke being featured at a family friendly MLB game is crazy,” one user said on Twitter.
“Bruh how did this get approved? Do the Padres know what Nikke is?” another questioned.
“Imagine just trying to watch baseball while anis is throwing it back on the jumbotron,” one user joked.
It isn’t clear what kind of integration will be happening with Nikke. The Hololive Dodgers event had things like photo booths with characters, a made over stadium, drone light shows, and other spectacles.
