Let's Talk Gacha Games (X% IS A LIE)
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Tatsuya Kaname Mafia Scum
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Let's Talk Gacha Games (X% IS A LIE)
Gacha games are video games that implement the gacha (capsule-toy vending machine) mechanic. It is similar to loot box, in that it induces players to spend in-game currency to receive a random virtual item. Most of these games are free-to-play mobile games, where the gacha serves as an incentive to spend real-world money.
The gacha game model began to be widely used in the early 2010s, faring particularly well in Japan. Almost all of the highest-grossing mobile games in Japan use it, and it has become an integral part of Japanese mobile game culture. Outside Japan, the game mechanism is also gaining popularity and is included in various Chinese and Korean games.
Source: Wikipedia
What Gacha Games do you play? How much money have you spent on these money-grabbing games? Also let's discuss the games and probability and interesting stuffs, and feel free to share your best and worst Gacha results.Embark the journey to life-changing fortune in Para{dice} Trinity: The Quest for Spirits' Fortune, a luck-based casual arcade Mish Mash game by Tatsuya Kaname!
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vonflare doot
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I used to play F:GO until I realized it sucks and I'd rather play a PC game
Probably the only reason I played so long was my S-tier luck, I have tons of good SR and SSRsTHIS POST IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.-
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popsofctown SheSurvivorShe
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I think the gameplay of a game matters more than whether it is gacha/lootbox monetized.
I play Puzzles and Dragons and end up quitting every other gacha to return to Puzzles and Dragons due to gameplay just not being there (except for Alchemist Code which I quit because it's goals/pacesetting expected you to play ~3.5 hours per day which is too much, its gameplay was pretty good)."Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"-
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Tatsuya Kaname Mafia Scum
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I play Magia Record (obviously) and a few more Idol Rhythm games like Tokyo 7th Sisters and BanG Dream! Girls Band Party. I'm starting to burn out in Magia Record though after I used up all the currency I saved for 7 months on a single week of limited gacha. I'll still keep playing.
I think I never spend loads of money other than subscribing to monthly $4 membership in some games and save up for a good card. And since free currency is easy to gather in those games, I feel like with good luck, I can build up a good set of cards to get through the rankings.Embark the journey to life-changing fortune in Para{dice} Trinity: The Quest for Spirits' Fortune, a luck-based casual arcade Mish Mash game by Tatsuya Kaname!
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I want to shoot this post in the face with a flamethrower. - zakk-
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popsofctown SheSurvivorShe
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Most games are reasonable as f2p"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"-
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Bitmap He/HimJack of All TradesHe/Him
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Natirasha Jack of All Trades
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Natirasha Jack of All Trades
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Isis she/her, not theyBest in Classshe/her, not they
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Do you truly stay active in several at a time? I can't stay active at two longer than a month
any interesting collab/product placement observations?
it was super weird when I found out Shinrabansho collab's 5th outing was definitely the last one, and I was really upset about it because it had some key cards I hadn't gotten yet
and when I asked why "how can we be sure it's not coming back"
and the answer was "shinrabansho isn't actually an anime it's characters included in the packaging for a type of cookie you buy like in convenience stores in Japan and they're going to stop making the cookies cause they don't sell well anymore so there's no longer a point"
Very sad-
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Natirasha Jack of All Trades
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"Active" is a bit of a misnomer. I've reached nirvana in FGO and Arknights for lack of a better word where I have an abundance of resources, almost all my units maxed out, and just go on to do my dailies and bounce. Hell, in FGO I literally don't play unless there's an event or new chapter release going on because I have no reason to besides login rewards. Before I reached that point though, I was consistently playing two games at once--the two games always changed, although FGO has always been one. The second game has been at times Girls Frontline, Epic 7, Dragalia Lost, Aurora Legends, Destiny Child, Granblue Fantasy, Another Eden, Last Cloudia, Magia Record, Symphogear XDU and probably more I'm forgetting. Once Arknights came out though it sort of supplanted everything else and is in my stable roster.
Another Eden I gave another shot at the beginning of last month because they had a big new account campaign with 30 free rolls to start and a selector ticket so I decided to dive back in because I'm on furlough until movie theaters open up and had nothing better to do. It ended up being a good decision and it's definitely staying in my long-term pile once this ends. I'll cross time management once I have a job again, my work was pretty chill in the sense that I played mobile games on the job anyways but we'll see.
As a consequence with the games I've played, I've missed out on all the funny collab stuff. FGO doesn't do collabs with non-type-moon properties, Arknights is still too new, and Another Eden has done a Persona 5 collab and that's in. By and large I'm skeptical of games that lean too hard on collabs though, it speaks to me of a lack of confidence in the source material or a lack of ideas. One of the things that makes FGO cool is that the collabs are all canon in-universe because they are just other type-moon properties, which obviously can't happen with the bulk of collab events in these games(the only one I can think of is the FFXIV x Nier Automata one?). I heard the Final Fantasy gachas have fun collabs though, I think there was a like Taylor Swift one in DFFOO?
Oh yeah I also have bandori installed but I rarely play it and I don't roll the gacha(I think I have something like 30k stars?), I just treat the game as anime guitar hero when I want to do something mindless.Natirasha is just a vestige, it's Contessa now.-
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Isis she/her, not theyBest in Classshe/her, not they
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I prefer original characters to collabs also. I just get interested by what makes the cut and what doesn't.
Gungho in-house collabs also, they have their own hearthstone rip-off and some other thing they pull from a lot.
Arknights look like it probably doesn't suck from an ad I saw, but I'm scared of time sinks and already feel bad about how my PAD collection suffered from trying to play dragalia, which in hindsight was never ever going to actually be good-
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Sometimes I miss The Alchemist Code being a turn based gacha.
It seems a tricky balancing act for something turn based to be fun. FE heroes is always a little dry, a little bit almost there.
Turn based is kinda tricky because it can devolve to "you levelled up unit X /it's rare and you rolled it, therefore the attack does enough damage to beat unit Y. Congrats here are your drops". As opposed to a console jrpg or strategy game that can be designed to kill you if you make dumb choice and let you win of you do Smart choice-
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vonflare doot
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Not sure about that. turn based games are done extremely well in some instances; see Darkest Dungeon, for an example of amazing turn-based combat.In post 11, Isis wrote: It seems a tricky balancing act for something turn based to be fun.
It's just that gacha games aren't about the gameplay, they're about the loot/rolls/collectable jpegs, so they sacrifice depthTHIS POST IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.-
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Natirasha Jack of All Trades
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tbh I think people shit on classic jrpg gameplay far too much. It's timeless even if it isn't as flashy or super complicated. In fact I'd say its ubiquity is one of its strengths at this point. I'm a big fan of elegance in game design and one of the reasons I think I trended towards mobile rpgs over big budget ones nowadays is because they are largely more simple and elegant in design. Depth isn't always a good thing, especially in the phone format where you're going to be playing the games while at work or on your commute or whatever where you can't give it 100% attention all the time.Natirasha is just a vestige, it's Contessa now.-
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Isis she/her, not theyBest in Classshe/her, not they
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I specifically meant a turn based gachas. Darkest Dungeon would be an example of a "console jrpg game that can be designed to kill you if you make the wrong choice" and if you could in-app purchase even just a little more HP for your crusader the tension would be lost. I'm not quite sure how you seem to misunderstand my post then violently agree.-
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Natirasha Jack of All Trades
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Is that something gachas broadly do though? I mean, buying new characters obviously gives you more options but broadly speaking most games don't go for the pure "buy power" style because its really chintzy. You could say its similar to like buying new champions in League of Legends or something and I'd agree that having more options leads to more powerful plays and whatnot but its a different type of power than straight stat boosts.Natirasha is just a vestige, it's Contessa now.-
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Yeah when I said I liked Alchemist Code I was hinting at least one game seems to do it more or less right. I stopped playing that game for different reasons.
Maybe most games figure it out, maybe I have bad luck and picked the games from people who didn't design so well.
I do not think FE Heroes felt like "have more options", FE Heroes felt like "oh this campaign quest is real hard, maybe I should arrange my dudes like this?" then "oh i rolled Hector he attacks twice per round instead of once per round it doesn't really matter what goes where this campaign quest is easy now".-
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Natirasha Jack of All Trades
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Natirasha Jack of All Trades
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vonflare doot
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I think the main problem with gacha games is their predatory business model, preying on those who have gambling problems/dont understand statistics/etc
it's an industry I don't feel comfortable supportingTHIS POST IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.-
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Natirasha Jack of All Trades
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Oh yeah I agree with this, it's incredibly scummy and terrible consumer-wise. The sad thing is that most AAA games do gacha stuff too nowadays, outside of the very specific indie and AA spaces the entire gaming industry is just glorified gambling. And like yeah, that sucks and is indicative of late-stage capitalism. But at the same time, I do enjoy them even outside of the gacha component although I will admit that the nice little dopamine hit you get when you get an SSR is great. So in the end I just shrug and say "no ethical consumption..." and move on. I've never said I'm a saint.In post 21, vonflare wrote:I think the main problem with gacha games is their predatory business model, preying on those who have gambling problems/dont understand statistics/etc
it's an industry I don't feel comfortable supportingNatirasha is just a vestige, it's Contessa now.-
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Fumuki Mafia Scum
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I'm resurrecting a thread a bit but I kinda wanted to talk about gacha games
First I think I'm kinda on Isis's camp on the fact I respect the opinion of it being a "predatory model" but don't really share it, personally (and it may be different for Isis), I think the system can be predatory but it's not predatory by itself. As in, the cases where it's predatory happens when someone that already has an issue with over-investing or getting too attached to things comes around. It's not even something from gacha specifically but any game that doesn't have a "hard cap" of spending (you can't possibly spend more than a set amount of money on buy-once games for example).
If the problem of those "predatory" cases were really gacha itself, you wouldn't see similar or even worse cases in some F2P games that don't have lootboxes but only "energy refills" or direct purchase of units by topping up in the game currency, skins, etc. In my opinion the game are enabling some people bad behaviors/unhealthy mentality, not causing them. Also, there's just people have much more wealth than the average, so even though what they spend on those games may look like a lot to us, it's not a big deal for them.
I think my biggest issues with gacha games are:
Spoiler:
However I also think there's positive things on the gacha model:
Spoiler:
I don't think the gacha model itself is necessarily bad although it does have potential to enable bad behavior from both companies and players. It's just not inherently bad in my opinion and it could even be a good alternative to the current models of some games/genres if done properly.Last edited by Fumuki on Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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