It looks like Smilegate might have been gradually refraining from showing appreciation or providing support for Epic Seven fanartists.

In the past, we had:

• A few art contests a year (e.g. Anniversary, New Year, Christmas), each held by Epic Seven / Smilegate alone, some of them with in-game voting
• Epic Seven official Twitter/X account liking, responding to, or even retweeting fanartists' work
• Fan-art board in official Discord server properly moderated by community manager(s)

Now, we only have:

• Pixiv art contest once in a year

We understand that the Pixiv art contest, co-run by Smilegate and Pixiv, is an attempt to attract professional artists / character designers to submit top-tier artworks/designs for in-game use. This attracts attention from non-Epic Seven players as well. However, solely holding one Pixiv art contest a year would give a strong impression that current Epic Seven fanartists', most of them loyal to the game, artworks are not being appreciated, or their works are not up-to-par and do not deserve any awards (even in-game ones). Heirs unable to vote in-game for what they like, just like the way we had before, is also a sign of the Epic Seven Heir/fanartist community not being acknowledged. We are not afraid to lose the Pixiv contests, but we are disappointed that loyal heirs do not have sufficient opportunities to shine.

Lack of official attention across social media is also considerable discouragement for the current Epic Seven fanartist community. In the past, a fanartist would be super excited when Challenger Dominiel (Epic Seven's official Twitter account) retweets his/her artwork. Now the Challenger Dominiel is no longer the one we loved in the past.

I think the fanartist community has long been bringing considerable attention to the game. However, as everyone noticed, we have been losing tons of Epic Seven fanartists over these couple of years.

I hope their continuous support and effort would be sufficiently acknowledged.

Thank you for your consideration.