IDEAS

THE MOST FUN AN ADDICT CAN HAVE

the Gacha game conundrum

By Keith Tran 

More fun than gambling?

I have no scientific evidence to back this up, but I’m fairly certain that as soon as there were people, there were games. Sometimes the games were and are innocent, the way children can play in wonderfully nonsensical ways, but oftentimes games have a savage edge to them. Even something as innocuous as “Capture the Flag” or “Monopoly” have a nasty undercurrent. After all, the former mimics war between nations and the latter is a tuneup for rapacious capitalists. So, when we’re playing games, we’re also playing at the sometimes violent nature of society, and that’s fun. We like our games to play close to the edge and often that means pain, stress, and loss, real loss. If that weren’t true, horse racing would just be a pastime for rich girls who like silly looking pants. And gacha games, the whole gacha genre or enterprise, rely on this kind of tension between play and the reality of actual failure.

The term “gacha” is a shortened name of the Japanese toy vending machine gachapon, in which players spend a quarter or two to win a toy in a capsule. Gacha games are virtual versions of that simple money/gift exchange. First released around the early 2010s with Konami’s Dragon Collection, these first iterations weren’t credited as gacha games until later. The actual system itself was introduced in 2004 with the Japanese version of MapleStory, a South Korean MMORPG, that introduced “Gachapon ticket”. Whether or not MapleStory or Konami’s Dragon Collection introduced it first, there’s no doubt that its mechanism and its ability to blend in with other genres are what kickstarted the new genre, in the mid-2010s.

Complex? A trap? Fun?

Gacha games are usually made in Japan, sometimes they’re offshoots of popular existing franchises, such as Fate and Naruto. While successful, a number of overseas players aren’t used to the Japanese role-playing genre. China, South Korea, and the United States took interest in making their own gacha games, some adding darker subject matter and other genres to appeal to a wider audience. What’s more, the games are free-to-play and don’t require players to make accounts though it’s recommended. Not all games are like this. There are popular games that technically implement the gacha mechanism and require an account registration, like Apex Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The term “loot box system” is used to describe these games because keys are purchased rather than in-game currency.

Do you feel like making a purchase?

However, there’s been widespread controversies about gacha games from players and critics. One of the most infamous ones is the “complete gacha”, a system in which players have to purchase sets of common items to get a rarer item. Unsurprisingly, their chances decrease as they keep playing and there’s no known probability. The Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper company, published an article comparing the unfair gacha system to gambling. Because gambling is illegal in Japan, the Japanese Consumer Affairs Agency banned the “complete gacha” model on July 1, 2012. Since the government crackdown, gacha games must include a known probability rate and develop a “pity” system, where players are guaranteed of receiving a rare subject. Overseas countries have not experienced similar government crackdowns, but because the ban was imposed early, they have likely never seen a complete gacha model.

Even after the crackdown and the release of subsequent variants of the genre, gacha games haven’t changed their connection to gambling. Two of the most common factors are lower than average chances and customers continuously purchasing currency to get what they want. Gacha game companies primarily earn their revenue through a very small population of players who spend a lot of money for drops with extremely low rates. It’s disturbingly similar to how casinos profit off gamblers. They code the rates so that players spend more money on in-game currency. To the addicted ones, the rates can be extreme. People have spent over $500 USD, [sometimes $1,000 to get a specific drop; one person spent over $70,000 USD on just for one character. The virtual gambling culture can be worse in some countries like the United States, where it’s inherent and more apparent. This shows how gacha games can quickly lead players into financial ruin and addiction.

A nice little Gacha store

Gacha games are controversial, and it’s understandable why. But, they’re still games; a legitimate source of entertainment. Yes, gacha games are similar to gambling and marketed to young people. This might be a bit unethical, but there’s no denying that they’re still fun to play.

The games might be bad, but that’s what makes them thrilling. The anticipation of getting a character, item, or card that you want is always exciting; it’s even more exciting when some games give you a guaranteed pull of an incredibly rare subject. And yes, it has the exact same allure as gambling, only with better graphics. And yes, the games straddle the line between fun and addiction. In some ways, gacha games are trickier than real gambling, maybe even more addictive, but that as I said before is the thrill of them. The opportunities for real feeling and artistry are great when the stakes are high and what happens during the games are amazing. They provoke tremendous feelings that could almost be described as a love-hate relationship with randomness.

Arknights is a good example. This tower defense game captures your interest, and being a gacha game, it will punch you in the face by giving you low-star characters a thousand times over. But, with the balance of its gameplay and gacha mechanism, it’s arguably one of the fairer gacha games out there. Unlike most gacha games, the reruns are more frequent and the rates of certain “Operators” are boosted every two to three weeks. In addition, Arknights purposefully designed its gameplay to be played with mostly common characters, giving players less incentive to spend money on tickets and currency for new characters. Yet it’s still a gamble because the five and six-star characters are sometimes better and their rates are incredibly low (2% for six-stars, 8% for five-stars). And for fellow players, yes, the limited banners of a couple of characters are one of the most frustrating things in the games. Even if sites say there’s a lack of pressure to spend actual money for in-game currency, those banners put pressure on players.

What does fate have in store for you?

Compare that to say, Fate/Grand Order. It’s addictive and a kick in the nuts as its system has some of the worst rates in the gacha world. It’s 1% for a five star compared to the 2% and the rate ups Arknights provides! You’d have to be the luckiest person to pull 5-star characters in the first ten rolls in the game or else the game will pressure you to buy more currency to roll. Remember, one person spent over $70,000 USD on this game just to get one character. I would argue it’s right on the line between video games and gambling – maybe leaning towards gambling. Yet, it’s a fun game because it’s overlapped by its turn-based strategy, deep lore, and JRPG-style gameplay. It’s one of those games that might be worse than actual gambling, but more fun than ever imagined.

As companies continue to release gacha games, the trend would be up for quite a while. Gacha games are a welcoming genre for people to relax and, while addicting and frustrating, they’re fun with its gambling-like system and other genres that it blended into. That being said, it’s not a genre to get super addicted to; don’t be the extremely small number of players that drains their bank accounts faster than they could deposit because luck is not on your side. For my fellow gacha gamers, I advise to grind for currency rather than spend. But if you feel risky and want to bet your chances, I wish the best of luck to you.

©Keith Tran and the CCA Arts Review