Games with casino style gambling to unlock characters or skins or whatever. Often times you’ll have like 1/100 chance to unlock a character you want when opening a “box”.

Hugly mobile popular games run like this with new more powerful characters releasing monthly

Another comment explained what it is but to explain where the name comes from, you remember those capsule machines where you had to collect all the toys? Those were called gachapon machines, often shortened to just gacha (i might be slightly wrong on a little bit of the words, but they are the capsule machines)

Almost as if capitalism was specifically designed to shuffle all wealth from the bottom to the top in a neverending ratchet of human degradation and exploitation

Unfortunately people needs to eat, to pay rent, etc.

When your only choice is to work for a shady company, you can’t be chooser.

The widespread deregulation of gambling in the US is heading that way too.

Funny thing is I know more women playing these games than I know dudes. Which of course does not reflect player statistics. I know that. But it‘s probably more popular with women than you would think based on character designs. I think it has a lot to do with cutesy Japanese pop culture that‘s appealing to a lot of people. There‘s a reason many Chinese and Korean games are copying it recently.

Yeah American is a victim blaming culture

It is as much their fault as it is any addict’s fault, which is to say, partially but not entirely

I mean…

The unfortunate reality is that both parties, the customer and the game company, are culpable and both share blame

I mean, he’s not wrong. it is something within their power to control, and only they can stop the cycle.

addiction is a hell of a drug though.

companies that prey on the vulnerabilities of humans like that should be regulated no different than drug, alcohol, or firearm companies.

It’s definitely a psychological issue where these games are designed to slowly bleed their players without them noticing. The most I’ve ever spent on a gacha was $40 over 6 years and I regret that so much. It takes a wakeup call and education to stop people from being suckered in.

I felt I was taking crazypills. In what world does this headline and article not scream "These games are ruining lives because of extremely manipulative marketing tactics.

I assume the people who took this article as a personal attack are part of the 19%, but doesn’t want to realise they have a very serious problem.

but I’d be surprised if gacha even made up half of the spending SMBC is reporting on here.

I wouldn‘t. Gacha is vastly more popular in Japan than PC gaming and it‘s not even close. It would seriously surprise me if mobile Gacha didn‘t make up the majority of spending in microtransactions.

The concept of Gacha predates lootboxes and started as physical real-world vending machines with surprise balls containing little toys or stickers, mainly aimed at kids

They noticed that the mystery drove sales and pretty much overwhelmed ‘normal’ toy vending machines in a few short years

While the concepts are similar, they had different origins.

Generally but not always.

Microtransactions = I want the blue shirt, I can buy the blue shirt. The blue shirt can be cosmetic or have power boost.

Loot boxes = I want the blue shirt, I can buy a lottery ticket to maybe get the blue shirt. The blue shirt is just cosmetic. Maybe there is a way to get the blue shirt if I don’t get one in X boxes.

Gacha = I want the blue shirt, I can buy a lottery ticket to maybe get the blue shirt. The blue shirt has power boosts. Quite often, if I don’t get the blue shirt in a X tickets, I get a guaranteed blue shirt. Also a bit more often the blue shirt needs to be leveled up, using more blue shirts and/or other stuff you get from the lottery.

This is generally how it works, they are exceptions too it of course.

But that is why gacha is its own category, the lottery is required to progress the game and you need a lot of it. There is also usually multiple lotteries with different and the same prices at different % some you can play without spending money, some you need to spend money and some you can play onec in a while without spending money, but the good stuff and higher % are basically always looked in the two latter ones.

The way it is usually used and how upgrading stuff works, is very different between what country makes the game. I don’t remember exactly but the three big different ones are, Japan, China and South Korea.

The easiest different to simply explain is usually if you need more blue shirt to upgrade or if you just need more shirts or if you need shirt coins that drop from the game to level up, the shirt or if the shirt can’t be leveld up and you need a new shirt instead.

Gacha and lootboxes (similar in concept) tend to be the worst of predatory microtransactions because they exploit gambling addictions.

“Classic” microtansactions, like freaking Oblivion horse armor, skins, etc, are bad, but you buy them once and you know exactly what you’re getting.

With gacha and lootboxes you buy a lottery ticket hoping to get something good. They use rush-inducing casino-style tricks to get you hooked. They obfuscate your real odds and how much you’re spending as much as they can.

I believe the difference is that gacha introduces an element of chance, so you spend an in game currency to buy a spin of a wheel where you may get different rewards. Microtransactions could be something like “spend $5 and get this new skin”, it’s a guarantee. Gacha will be like “spend $1 for a 10% chance at this legendary skin, spend $5 for a 70% chance, etc etc”

gacha have element of chance, but usually speaking, gacha especially in asian games tend to also be tied to some form of power and is not purely cosmetic.

ao its not just purely, i want this character/costume/weapon because it looks cool, but theyres stats attached to it.

western game loot boxes generally sit more often as coametic, so the desire to pay isnt as bad (but can still be bad) but of course this doesnt apply to all western games either. an example of gacha based power is ultimate teams for sports games, which its gacha has players stats tied to them for team building.

gacha and loot boxes are fundamentally the same, but connotatively, gacha usually implies power and lootbox implies cosmetics, but technically not incorrect to use it either way.

if you want a dumb comparison, gacha is seen like trading card games, where power of the card also has value.

lootbox is sorta like sports cards where its collective in nature and really is about rarity/how the card looks

I have spent thousands in gacha, though I’m more a ‘dolphin’ than a whale

Was #1 on server 10 and 11 in Memento Mori for a while, ran the top guilds there (NORTH and TRUE NORTH). It was really fun till one of our shift guild leaders usurped the guild and kicked half of the team on the night of our biggest Mass Combat push, losing us most of our territory. So I quit and got very, VERY bitter

That was 2 years ago and the only gacha I’ve played since is Pokemon Pocket tho as f2p this time (it is very generous)

If you want to know anything about dolphin/whale action in Memento Mori, Blue Archive or Reverse 1999 I’ll answer any questions

Personally I don’t play any game with microtransactions.

I’m only interested in games I can purchase outright and then own*. If there’s large scale DLC that’s fine, great even, but if there’s some in-game way to spend money that isn’t restricted to a DLC button/section, then I’m not interested.

I want to play games, not be inundated by constant sales opportunities.

*I’m aware I don’t “own” most game due to the stupidity of licensing, and while I don’t love that, I can acknowledge it’s still a different and better thing that games that constantly push microtransactions

There isn‘t much of a contradiction there, I think. People complaining about it are mostly from an entirely different culture than where Gacha slop is developed and most popular. The former being the western world and the latter being South East Asia and players who have a deep fascination for it.

I play a gacha game and have spent $0 on it. But I can imagine that sort of psychological insulation is not quite so common.

vulnerable people are paying more than they can afford to finance the game for everyone

Well said. I think a lot of things in the world work like this, unfortunately. Like, some people have to work long hours or hard jobs because they didn’t choose a career path that would allow them to work less and earn more. I mean, it sounds very different, but it’s also kinda similar in a way. There are people suffering for the benefit of other people. Saying they could choose another job is the same as saying vulnerable people could choose to not be vulnerable.

Legislation that effectively adds an upper limit to unlock the entire game with a sensible maximum monthly cost for new content, is needed in my opinion.

Agree, this is a great idea.

There‘s a bitter irony in demanding parents doing their jobs because that‘s exactly why they don‘t have time for parenting. The cost of living is too damn high.