A Thought Provoking Homecoming

I was visiting my family back in New York city when my little cousin asked what games I am playing. I say little, but all my little cousins are near 20 now. I usually give him a run down of everything I’m playing in great detail. This time however I was at a loss for words. I knew what game i was playing and I knew how to describe them but I also knew that whatever game I mentioned was a tacit endorsement for what ever game I was playing and in that moment i realized that I didn’t really feel comfortable recommending them a Gacha game.

Now what is a Gacha game? As popular as they are, it’s still a sort of Niche type of game. I say type of game and not genre, because the gotcha are not a genre of game. It’s actually any game that uses luck base mechanics for gaining something in the game with the option of using real world currency to pay for more chances. Add gaming said item. Or character, you can think of it as loot boxes in short, you pay 2 have a chance to win an item or character in the game.

You can use real world, money or you can use in game currency. But either way, you need one or sometimes both of these things to have a chance to win you’re desired Character or item now this system has been heavily criticized for having unfair and even predatory practices.

There are numerous cases of people spending thousands of dollars on these in game items. Only 2 come out with nothing in return. In fact, they had to change the laws to make it so That if you spent a certain amount of money, you were guaranteed the item. Yes, they had to put laws in place to protect people from these games

With all that said, why would anyone play one of these games was when they seem so Dangerous and possibly addictive? Well, income games like Genshin impact and Honkai Star Rail, and Wuthering waves these games without the gotcha mechanic are fun and great games.

I have actually spent hundreds of hours playing. I’ve gotcha games, and i only started playing within the last few years. I think this gives me enough experience to talk about why these games are so popular.

The Reasons That We Feel

The games are not popular because of the Gacha mechanic. The games are popular because they’re free and they’re actually good games with complex mechanics. Great character design, great music. And overall, just great games and therein lies the problem. When a game is so good, that you want to play it all the time, but but then you reach a point where you feel the urge, or even need to pay real money to advance further in the game reality and fiction can collide in disastrous ways

This is a dilemma that many gotcha players know all too well. And the way to avoid this is to promise yourself that you will be a free to play layer F2P, because what you’re saying, there is you will not spend real money to play this game. You will just enjoy the game. The way it is for free and try not to tip the scales in your favor by spending your hard-earned real money.

But imagine you were playing final fantasy, and uh, you got to a point to where the story is just flowing, you’re getting further endeared by the characters you’re understanding of the mechanics. The music is gripping. You, you’re getting into a routine of playing this game and all of a sudden you reach a point in the game where you feel. You cannot advance any further without a stronger character. Or a weapon type and the only way you can get it is by spending money. 

Most people at that point will be so into the game and they’ll say, you know what? This game was free. I’ll spend 5 bucks, so you put in your credit card information. Now they have you because by putting in your credit card information, you have now broken the first barrier spending freely in the game when you’re playing this game late at night and you have enough in game currency, to buy a chance to get the character and you know that after 90 chances or 90 “pulls” you are guaranteed to get chance to get that character and you have already done 79 pulls, you may be tempted to buy 10 more pulls just to get this new character and move on. 

Think about how much fun it is when a new character joints your party and how it can almost completely change the game. If the character is strong, it can make the game less stressful to play, if the character is fun to play, it can make grinding through missions and objectives in the game more digestible. If the character is visually appealing and looks cool then that may make you want to play the game more so you can see this well designed character do awesome things in the game world. If the character has all these things then you’re more than likely going to spend a few dollars trying get the character. 

The Beginning of the End

I got wrapped up in Genshin impact because kept hearing about the amazing Fontaine story line . I heard it was one of the best story lines to every grace a video games story board. Well i started playing Genshin in order to experience it and it was very good. They even had a Ace attorney style trial for you to play through and uncover the truth about the mystery that was taking place in the story.

It truly was a great story that left me more than a little teary eyed by the time was done.However, one thing that I and many others neglected to mention is that it will take you at least 20 hours to reach this section of the game and maybe 10 or more to actually finish it and that’s not including the time it will take to level your characters and grind for materials.

During that time character banners will come and go. You will be tempted and they will be advertised to you. You know that the game can be beaten with the characters you already have but why not take a chance and possibly get a new very powerful character and most of all it’s free. What’s the harm there? If your will is so strong that you can play this part of the game and not get emotionally involved, then I applaud you.

If you do have enough pulls to trigger the 50/50 that’s the 50 percent chance you have to get the character you actually see on the banner vs the 50 percent chance you have to get a usually much weaker character that is usually undesired by most of the player base, then you might get lucky. This could be the worst thing for you. If you win then you will know first hand how insanely strong the banner characters are vs you’re current band of heroes and you will want or need other characters to complete your team.

Yes, you can just mix and match this new and cool 5 star character with your free 4 star characters but why not go for more. You got lucky once, why wouldn’t it happen again. At that point you’re hooked into the system and I wish you the best of luck and an iron resolve.

For me, I managed to remain free to play in Genshin until I was at 71 pulls and I knew that I only had to get about 10 more pulls to trigger the 50/50. After all, the internet said that at 74 pulls you entered something called pity and that your chances wining went up considerably and you are pretty much guaranteed to trigger your the 50/50 within a few more pulls. So, I bought enough in game currency to do a 10 pull and quickly pulled before the banner ended and my opportunity to get the character is wanted went with it.

A Clearer Picture

I bought , I pulled, I didn’t not get the character. I lost the 50/50 to a character named Jean who I later greatly appreciated but at that time I 1 didn’t know who this character was and 2 did not know anything about the 50/50. I was shocked I didn’t know it existed. I played all those hours without really understanding what it was. I had to Google what was happening to find out why I didn’t get the character that was posted on the banner.

I’m going to say this the way that i wish it was explained to me when i started the game. You are collecting in game currency by doing missions and events. You are doing this so you can avoid having to use real money to pay for this in game currency,which you need to buy chances to win a strong character. Then you use it to pay for the chances. Every 90 chances (in Genshin) or pulls you are guaranteed 1 strong 5 star character but there is a 50/50 chance it will not be the character that you want. Essentially you are hoping for a chance to win a chance to win.

The reason I wish it was explained to me like that is because I would have realized at the beginning how ridiculous it is to try to get these 5 star characters on a regular bases and i would have just focused all my energy on leveling up my core characters that were given to me for free and i may have halved the time i spent playing the game. I don’t regret playing these games but i do see how much time they want you to spend in their game world as a negative

Is It Worth It? Let Me Worth it

When I try comparing Gacha games like Genshin to the games that i have payed a full price to obtain, Games that for $40, $60 or $70 I get everything I need to play and finish the game, games that will take me approximately 40 to 80 hours to finish, depending on my level of engagement and how much of the content i wish to experience, it seems almost foolish to spend all that time and money to play Gacha.

So where are the “real” games? why is it that in this day and age where gaming companies are reporting major losses and there are mass layoffs, Gacha games are reporting millions of dollars in profit a month? The Truth is, they are everywhere. most game companies however don’t have the budget or luxury to devote so much time to advertising and most importantly building a community.

You Cry,I Cry We Cry Together

Yes Gacha games like Genshin and Honkai Star Rail have methods built into the game to keep you playing as long as possible, but there is a level of F.O.M.O ( Fear of Missing Out) and hype that can not be achieved without a community to spur those feelings for every one involved. New and veteran players alike cant help but fall victim to the tidal wave of pressure and hype around getting new characters and weapons in these games.

Someone could say that based on what ive already said, it makes more sense to just Ignore the Gacha system and the community and then it will be fine. you can enjoy the game with none of the problems. well to be honest, that would change the experience of the game.

Upon finishing the Fontaine story in Genshin, i quickly dried my eyes and spent the next few hours watching other peoples reaction to its conclusion and reading comments. It was certainly cathartic to listen to the story analysis and see other emotional recounts of the story.

In these games, part of the fun is engaging with the community. As long as the interaction is not a negative one, then there will be a lot to enjoy. everything from going to YouTube or Twitch and watching videos, reading the comments and engaging with the community there or actually going to an in person event and meeting other fans. All of this creates a sense of belonging in the community of the game and after favorite character and story arc questions are answered, best teams and world level question can create a sense of hierarchy whether real or perceived that can encourage things like spending an extra few hours playing to finish a quest before everyone starts talking about it online and potentially spoiling it for you or worse, splurging on a few extra pulls to get that popular new character to to finish that amazing team that you randomly already have already collected and all you need is this one character to complete the ensemble.

After all of this i can say i had fun playing these games. i enjoyed getting cool characters. in every game i played i managed to get arguably the best or second best character in the game and max them out. I did this with minimal financial investment and enjoyed the majority of my interactions with he community. I could talk about some other problems i had with some themes or character designs also but i think that’s going to be in a separate post.

As for my feelings on Gacha games after writing this post and thinking about it they have definitely changed. i actually uninstalled most of games that i was playing. It seems like governments are getting more involved in rule making for these games and they are slowly becoming more transparent with everything that happens in these games,but its just not for me anymore.

I feel like I’ve experienced enough to form my own opinion on them and understand why some people have problems with them and why others love them so much. if you feel you have the self control to play these games with out overspending and you feel you have enough free time to comfortably collect everything you need to be successful at the game and have fun then more power to you, but don’t go into one of these games expecting it to be a free or cheap alternative to buying a new triple A game, Otherwise the Gacha is gonna Getcha. Sorry i couldn’t resist.

Do you play these games? Most importantly would you recommend them to your friends and family? let me know by commenting down here or sending me a message on one of these platforms. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.