‘ was a wild west, truth be told, prior to Hoyoverse’s Genshin Impact,’ says Gacha Gamer, a YouTube channel dedicated to covering news and guides in the gacha gaming space. Konami’s Dragon Collection (2010) and Epic Seven (2018) are noted as some of the first mobile games built around gacha, and are a trading card game and turned-based RPG, respectively. Maple Story, an MMORPG from 2003 is often cited as one of the first games to incorporate gacha, where an in-game currency literally called ‘gachapon ticket’ could be purchased with real money and exchanged within the game for a random reward. However, in parts of Asia such as Japan, China and Korea, gacha gaming has been a mainstay, due to the regions being pro-mobile gaming markets, and the fact that most gacha games are also mobile games.
Typically, gacha takes the form of ‘banners’ which display featured characters, items, or weapons, and they rotate on a set schedule.įor many of us in the Western world, our first proper introduction to the gacha genre was the arrival of Genshin Impact in September 2020. Within video games, the form, the type of in-game currency, how it can be earned, as well as the ‘drop rate’ (the likelihood of receiving the limited character or item) are all variables depending on the gacha game you’re playing. The genre gets the gacha name from ‘ gachapon’, a type of vending machine popularised in Japan that dispenses capsule toys in a randomised manner. In an Uppsala Universitet thesis, ‘ What Aspects of Gacha Games Keep the Players Engaged’, authors Rentia and Karaseva describe gacha as ‘a monetisation model that emerged in video games, containing randomised virtual in-game rewards with varying rarities.’ Gachapon vending machines at Yodobashi-Hakata in Fukuoka, Japan. In essence, the mechanic encourages players to spend in-game currency for a chance to get a high-rarity item or character. A gacha game is a specific type of video game whereby ‘gacha’ represents a core game mechanic.
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