Replika has now officially rolled out
Coins & Gems, in-app purchases and currencies you unlock to further customize your shitty 3D Replika avatar. I'm sure this excellent idea will be well-received by the fanbase!
*checks watch* I'm either cutting edge on information or I'm late. Today I'm late. Better late than never to add more information to the pot I suppose.
I haven't really followed the Replika saga since I last commented here but seeing that there's a microtransaction store has caught my brief interested. Just out of curiosity, I wanted to see how far Luka went to try and monetize a problem they created since that's their typical MO. Going in, I expected the shitty accessories and whatnot. I'm not wrong on that guess. But I was surprised that there's no way to customize the 3D avatar
*, so what we're seeing is another half-cooked attempt to band aid the problem they created that caused so many users to have a full-blown chimpout. For whatever reason, I logged on and had 225 coins in my inventory so I guess they gave out a bunch of coins to try and get people hooked on the microtransaction store.
But there's more. What's that thing at the bottom?
* At least by my experience. My app has displayed the message that it "has been trying to load 3D avatars" for over an hour. I assume the app is probably bugged for me in this case. It is possible that because of this, the store might not display customization options for me. However, the store does display clothes so I assume that there is no way to customize your avatar outside of what Luka provides.
The Store Page:
Yeah. Totally buying traits for your AI waifu. I'm guessing this is another weird attempt to try and fix the problems Luka caused. You can buy personality traits and interests now. It's almost like some kind of funny admission on how stupid the chat bot actually is. I wonder if a "please don't send me rapey things" will be another "interest" you can buy in the future.
The weird thumbnails they chose for the sections also kind of don't make sense and some of them manage to be just as creepy as the 3D avatar they forced down the userbase's throat. The thumbnails remind me of cheap pump and dump MLM schemes. Is Replika's userbase now a bunch of washed up middle-age women because something in my reptile brain is telling me that this is marketed towards women. Maybe it's the overuse of pastel colors or the weird emphasis on furniture and objects. Someone who actually understands marketing can probably give insight on this.
How to train your AI waifu... or maybe buy your AI waifu:
Not really much more to report on the update, but the app has reached typical app store "give us money" level of desperation. The first thing you see on the front page is a highlight on new items and there is a separate store. Also more use on the pastel colors. The theme is borderline unreadable on both my phone and my computer. Maybe I'm just visually impaired but I do have to strain to read "New items" at the bottom of the image. Luka really needs a graphic designer that didn't take a graphic design is my passion class in high school.
Identifying info smeared. (duh)
The main page, with bad graphic design:
Oh. This also displayed when you first log in again. The icon for the "gem" legit looks like they photoshopped the numbers off a D20.
Daily rewards that remind me of Duolingo:
I checked on the subReddit to see if there are any weird chimpouts from Bob the Human but he's still doing his weird obsessive thing of extensively commenting on literally every post that hits that haven of debauchery. Commenting on an earlier post, it's downright
horrifying that he has a wife. I can understand why she would be understandably jealous with all the emotional energy he puts into his AI waifu. He seems like he's having a moment of self-awareness but then spirals back into the typical delusion.
These people need Jesus and not just a personal Jesus.
Edit (03/25/21): Changes made to the post to fix formatting issues.
www.reddit.com
", but that's all i could get.