> Gacha games are named after the onomatopoeia describing vending machines in Japanese malls and arcades which dispense toys and trinkets for, typically, 100 to 200 yen (about $1-$2). The pool of trinkets is displayed prominently on the machine; which trinket you get is effectively randomized. If you had your heart set on a particular one, you might spend much more than $1 on getting it, and some children (and adults!) very much do. Many very successful games have a monetization strategy which descends from a variant of this.
I am sorry to say this as someone who usually agrees with 'patio11 on everything, but both gacha and the "monetization strategies" inspired by it (be they hawking in-game currency or trying to mine email addresses) sound like a terrible idea.
I don't want gacha, or any of these monetization strategies in my ideal consumption model. I want to look at a toy in the store and buy it while knowing what I am getting. This gacha model sounds like it's incentivizing gambling from a very young age.
Am I too close-minded? Idealistic? Missing some crucial part of the article? I'd like to hear, because nothing seems good about this at the moment.
One of the conclusions reached is that the amount of money a game like Genshin Impact can make over time can fund development far in excess of what a traditional shipped-and-finished game could afford (even with expansions/etc). This improves the experience for everyone, > 90% of whom don't pay for the game at all. It seems like a win to me. It just requires a change of mindset: enjoying the game while accepting that your in-game resources are limited and "completion" is impossible.
> the amount of money a game like Genshin Impact can make over time can fund development far in excess of what a traditional shipped-and-finished game could afford (even with expansions/etc). This improves the experience for everyone
This relies on 2 premises that I find very unlikely. That A) the additional funding is actually spent on improving the game and B) that this doesn't create a downward pressure on the games industry that essentially all games race to the bottom for whales, draining all possible investment funds and crowding out genuinely good games that would be designed by people who genuinely love games instead of being designed by addiction psychologists.
> the additional funding is actually spent on improving the game
Developers are actually incentivised to continue to add content to the game as much as possible, lest the whales get bored and move to something else. Genshin impact has seen many updates which add entire new regions to the map, complete with quests and new characters. This isn't something BoTW would ever be able to justify.
> all games race to the bottom for whales ... crowding out genuinely good games
I don't think these are mutually exclusive. Whales are also people and also enjoy playing good games. Genshin Impact is a good game by any measure. Its gameplay and core game loop were clearly designed by people who love games. The fact that characters and items are unlocked using a gacha system doesn't take away from this.
Content designed for people with gambling and hoarding addictions, not content designed to be good.
> Whales are also people and also enjoy playing good games.
There are really objectively shitty games with 4+ stars on the Play Store. "People enjoy casinos" seals the coffin in the gaming industry as far as I see it.
I wouldn't use star rating as a measure of game quality or popularity. Do you think Candy Crush is an objectively shitty game? How about Clash of Clans? Which games here https://sensortower.com/ios/rankings/top/iphone/us/games?dat... are objectively shitty?
My reading is that "successful" means "makes a lot of money for the developer". It sounds like your concern is about the effect on the consumer, which is covered in a separate footnote.
I am sorry to say this as someone who usually agrees with 'patio11 on everything, but both gacha and the "monetization strategies" inspired by it (be they hawking in-game currency or trying to mine email addresses) sound like a terrible idea.
I don't want gacha, or any of these monetization strategies in my ideal consumption model. I want to look at a toy in the store and buy it while knowing what I am getting. This gacha model sounds like it's incentivizing gambling from a very young age.
Am I too close-minded? Idealistic? Missing some crucial part of the article? I'd like to hear, because nothing seems good about this at the moment.