Why would anyone ever play a gacha game? And what's wrong with them in the first place?

Gacha monetisation is predatory at best, if not outright evil...

More thoughts & explorations:    • Why creators experience games differently,...  

...the companies which make these games range from problematic to incredibly anti-consumer.

So why would anyone ever play a gacha game?

Up until a few years ago, I would have never considered giving them a try. After all, there are so many other games to play, ones where you pay a reasonable price up front and then play to your heart’s content. My impression was that gachas were low quality cash grabs, which preyed on people who were essentially gambling addicts, and cost exponentially more than any game ever should.

And to be clear, to this day I still dislike gacha monetisation. Yet I now count a couple of gachas amongst my favourite games of the last few years.

Have I gone mad?

Or, just maybe, might some gacha developers have struck a balance which makes the whole idea just about acceptable? And could there even be some hidden upsides to these games that people who have carefully avoided them are unaware of?

Let’s talk about it.

00:00 Intro
00:54 What is a gacha?
01:35 Why accept it?
01:51 Why accept it? • Game first, gacha second
02:38 Why accept it? • The total price
05:04 Why accept it? • The grand scope
06:59 Why accept it? • Conclusion
07:14 The almost-good
07:50 The almost-good • Pity systems
08:58 The almost-good • Pay to play
10:27 The almost-good • Pay to win
11:06 The almost-good • Difficulty spikes
11:51 The almost-good • Pay what you want
12:26 The almost-good • Consistent comfort
13:19 The bad • Acclimatisation
14:00 The bad • Appeal
14:42 The bad • Powercreep
15:38 The bad • Completionism
17:05 The bad • Social pressure
18:31 The ugly • Conditioning
19:15 The ugly • Normalisation
19:59 The ugly • Artificial scarcity
20:34 The ugly • Obfuscation
21:33 How to play gachas without losing your mind
23:06 Conclusion

I'm always happy to talk Genshin, WuWa, and other games, streams 3pm UK every Wed/Sat/Sun
  / saurusness  

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