😡Gatcha Mechanics

Destroying lives 1 game at a time

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Introduction

Predatory practice when used in monetization

Gatcha game refers to a game that uses a randomized loot pool or similar mechanics to drive engagement.

Is gatcha gambling Yes The system depends on some investment, uses probability to determine reward. A gatcha mechanic is identical to a slot machine or similar pseudo-random gambling machine. Yes various regions have defined gatcha systems as gambling and regulate them as such.

In short its a slot machine. This comes in a few flavours described below … they are all horrible practices designed to prey on the consumer in basically the same way.

If your interested in more information on how a slot machine effects the human mind. A simple google search will return a staggering amount of results.

This model revolves around not allowing the player to simply buy what they want but forcing them to engage in a game of chance to get what they want e.g. randomized loot box, card draw, etc.

Complete Gacha

Players attempt to complete a set of common items at random in a particular loot pool in order to combine them into a rarer item. The first few items in a set can be rapidly acquired but as the number of missing items decreases it becomes increasingly unlikely the player can complete the set. This is particularly true if there are a large number of common items in the game.

This was found to be illegal by Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency in 2012

Box Gacha

Basically a way to hide the true price of something, the randomized loot pool is restricted and each pull reduces the items until every item is owned. So this lets the user think ... "ah that skin is 99c" ... course there are 100 items in the loot pool so worst case its 100$ best case its 99c ... in a fair system its true cost is 50$; however given variable weighting which most do its true value is probably more like 10$ or 20$ the first time you monetize and 60$ or 70$ for times there after.

Redraw Gacha

Randomized loot which can be re-rolled in hopes of a better result. This is akin to the "Free Spin" you see in US style slot machines. Its not usually really free but is a away to keep the monkey ... I mean player playing.

Trade Gacha

aka dup currency. That is you can trade unwanted items for a currency that either lets you buy things outright or get more tries at what you want.

Consecutive Gacha

aka batch gacha, this is those bundles you see ... 1.00 for 10 crystals ... 10.00 for 130 crystals 30% savings!

So a means to get you to spend more in bulk ... its diabolical! and saves you the developer on transaction fees and gets more money out of the suckers ... I mean gamers.

The way this causes more monetization is nothing costs that 30% more so the "saving" is useless unless you buy more.

Step-up Gacha

Or high-roller or whaling gacha. This model increases the chances of the more rare items with each roll. Thus people who can spend more will as it gives a since of increasing the stakes. Again US slot machines do this to in the "jackpot" systems.

Discount Gacha

In short use sales / discounts to make your over priced RNG boxes seem like a better deal. Its not really a discount if its always there.

This for note is illegal in the EU.