Gacha Games

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Gacha is a monetization model for video games. The term is derived from gachapon (sometimes spelled "gashapon") vending machines: just like how these machines dispense a capsule containing a random toy when you put money into it (the term "gachapon" itself is an onomatopoeia for the sound of turning the crank on the machine, followed by the toy capsule dropping into the collection tray), a gacha game revolves around spending currency to obtain a randomized reward. The general idea behind the concept is that if you want a specific item, you'll have to keep playing (or paying) until you finally get the desired item after a certain amount of pulls.

They tend to be Allegedly Free Games (usually, but not limited to Mobile Phone Games), where specific content is gated behind a banner of some kind to entice the players to pay up. One of the most common themes in gacha games is the acquisition of playable characters, which are a popular choice among developers and players because of their unique appearances, personalities and play styles. Characters will be tiered based on their effectiveness in gameplay, thus affecting their chances for players to roll them. Low-tier characters are common and readily available anytime, while high-tier characters are rare and usually limited to temporary events. There may also be characters who are only made available in specific seasonal events and not added to the pool of standard summonables, like SNK Boss characters or Beach Episode units.

Other common themes are Premium Currency used to invest in these banners, which often take the form of crystals, gemstones, essences, and even in-universe Applied Phlebotinum to justify its inclusion in the plot; and Freemium Timers to limit how much you can play (and farm resources) at once.

The rate of gacha drops varies depending on a game's direction the developers had in mind. Some games offer pity mechanics where you're guaranteed an automatic item of a particular type after a certain amount of pulls, while some are not so forgiving and lack such a feature, encouraging players to keep pulling on a dice roll.

In the gacha community, there are nicknames given to the types of players on how much they spend: Whales are players who spend large amounts of money to either get a single character, ALL characters in a given game or generally have an advantage over non-spending players, Dolphins are ones that occasionally spend money (and thus 'dip' in and out of the gacha) and F2P (Free-To-Play) Players are those who spend minimal or no money in the gacha.

Generally, Whales (and the act of whaling) are the biggest cash inflow for games with gacha mechanics, which often add in-game encouragements for Whales like bonuses for getting duplicate characters or gacha events/banners that guarantee rare stuff, but have to be paid for with real money only.

See also Microtransactions and Loot Boxes. The concepts between Loot Boxes and gacha mechanics are functionally the same, but tend to have very different aesthetics and mechanics, and gacha tends to be less random and more forgiving than Loot Boxes due to the inclusion of pity rolls. Due to the highly-controversial nature of this practice in video games, gacha mechanics are often brought into discussions regarding Gambler's Fallacy and Revenue-Enhancing Devices.

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Gacha Games

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