My nephew received 2800 VBucks for fortnite for one of his christmas gifts this year, and he ended up spending almost all of it immediately on a Snoop Dogg skin. I asked why he bought that one cause I didn't really think that he was someone a younger kid would know that well and my nephew said that he didn't know who he was, just that he was going to leave the vbuck shop soon and didn't want to miss out. I'm not great at expressing my thoughts so I cant even begin to articulate how the current state of gaming for kids is making me feel, it just leaves me with a pit in my stomach when I think too hard about it.
@@cammo353 Fortnite players experience a different kind of issue: Collection addiction. Just like Pokémon or even Funko, they buy the most popular skins, use it for a while and then toss them out with the rest. They flaunt their “Marvel”, “DC”, “Disney” skins collection, getting that feeling of being “OG” for buying such content that “may” never return to new players. And many of them beg Epic Games (in a toxic manner) to bring back the skins, specifically the licensed ones (which Epic has not control over it).
Depending on the age of this nephew/future nieces and nephews if you can spend money to get them a retro handheld with a CURATED LIST OF GAMES YOU LIKE AND NOT 50000000 OF THEM FOR THE KID TO GET OVERWHELMED WITH this is a great way to combat the gambling and FOMO gotcha rot that modern gaming is trying to train kids in in the pursuit of ever-increasing profit margins. Even better if you can be semi-active in the kids life and talk to them about the games they're playing, other games like them, and helping them figure out their own videogame (and even broader media) interests to help them have a media diet that's actually *about something* instead of about the never-ending-gambling-profit-treadmill
I'm lucky that all of the people I know that are below 18 are players of video games that don't even touch games with stuff like that, but I feel that somehow. Maybe it's because of my similarly indescribable hatred for AI generated "art" and other stuff that feels lifeless that I've been through. I've never played Fortnite, or most other online games, but I've also been an avid Roblox player since like 2018, and maybe my feelings for basically anything on the Discover(oh wait, "Charts") page carries over to all of that other stuff. But seriously, screw in-game currency(I know I play Roblox any Robux I get is from Christmas gifts) and the game design that comes from them, play those Indie games you thought looked interesting, and respect your time more(or, in other words, pay attention to what you pay attention to). In case you're wondering what I actually do on Roblox if it's not the big name games, it's Juke's Towers of Hell and its connected games, Item Asylum, and whatever else I feel like playing.
I would think enough stories of children purchasing thousands of dollars worth of FIFA content would raise alarm bells long before this point, but it seems the train has just gone 100x faster since then
PEGI rates Balatro 18+ for being a single player game with playing cards in it (you don't even use them to gamble in the game), while they rate the big industry lootbox sports games 3+
@@Shangri-Lainen This is but an assumption. Odds are PEGI is cut from the same cloth as the ESRB, let me explain. After the US Congress hearings brought on by the violence in games like Mortal Kombat the industry was left with two choices, self-regulate or be government-regulated. As you'd imagine they were terrified of the latter, so all the big players banded together and established the ESA, which then created the ESRB. I assume PEGI was just the EU branch's later attempt
Im hoping that a real recession kills these games at some point. I dont think theyve ever faced a situation with a poor economy to see if it's sustainable or not. But gambling is gambling.
@@ZeromuS_ (In advance, just want to say: Apologies for a lengthy response!) I think it'd take more than just a 'poor economy' to really kill them off because if you look at why a lot of people spend time on 'free' games (or the 'free' internet), it's largely because we've been relegated to having low time/energy and nowhere to go in our free time that doesn't cost money (or doesn't feel like a hobby that's about to be turned into a job). Alongside the economy, we actually need to build a whole other kind of world that would support a wider range of activity that they'd actually have to really engage with (that I don't think they have to right now). Like, I also kind of enjoy playing some of what was mentioned in the video (and more), but if I could find a way to easily integrate into my community (as I'm an immigrant where I live, and there are very few services that serve to support immigrants in any capacity, language schools do not actually teach the aspects of a language you need that facilitate communication, and every possible hobby is gated behind exorbitant costs and language barriers)? It would actually decrease my temptation to waste my non-work hours on things like this. Though, I don't disagree with you that a recession and a poor economy would hit them, but I think they'd keep trying to bleed people dry... since that's what a lot of these companies already do. Traditional gambling didn't even disappear in times of depression/recession in the past... Hell, I remember the recession in the US in 2008 (that many people in power tried desperately to refuse to acknowledge). If many casinos weren't burned off then, I doubt this stuff will go away, either. (Again, it's the world shift that's probably necessary.)
Yakko, you raised a pretty scary point in the end and I'm not sure you realized it. About the next generation of gamers growing up with everything being hyper-monetized or predatory in its design. They'll think that this is all normal, how it's always been, and the really frightening part? They'll be the majority in another couple of years. That was the plan, and it seems like it's worked.
One of the things that I find more important is the fact that we can't get rid of this monetization, we can control it a little bit more, but not erase it. For me teaching the next generating self control and teaching them how to play this games without engaging in spending far greater that what it has to be is more important than trying and ignore an entire industry. This is the future of games we like it or not.
@@yoh9294 I mean, we can get rid of this monetization. Government's have regulated industries and certain practices out of industries for hundreds of years. Just enough of the population would have to be willing to demand action on this front. But, no majority seems to be interested in the betterment of society through regulation of toxic industries. So what we are left with is responsibility gospel that always fails on societal levels. Tobacco use has only gone down thanks to *incredibly* strict regulation to make it as apparent as possible how horrible and disgusting they are to the human experience, combined with having every generation go through yearly lessons on basically fear propaganda. Modern lungs are healthier off for it. We could do the same thing with battle passes and gacha games if we desired, we just don't.
@@karalyzel3177 the next generation will eventually learn the HARD WAY. Parents must teach their kids over this dangerous predicament, just like they taught us about other gaming addictions in the past, like WoW, or even Nintendo and arcades.
I think FOMO (aka Fear Of Missing Out) is such a huge driving force of gacha games that it's scary. A new flashy limited character or whatever appears in the store, and you get this feeling that you need to get it just because soon it will go away and not return in the near future. Everyone else got it - join us! What if it becomes meta? What if the next future character you like will require it for the better team composition? What if one day you will simply regret your decision bc suddenly you changed your mind and desire it now? Oh, and so before all of that happens you decide to do a few pulls bc "hey, I might get really lucky and get it early!". So, you fall into this loophole of failure and wasting your resources... But you're already started this, you have to keep going now... Or another example. You finally decide to drop the game but then you think about all of future cool events and updates the game will get... What if you decide to come back to one, but then you'll be missing out on all of the potential rewards during your inactivity... These thoughts also continuously make you login daily and participate in the events to collect as many of precious resources as possible! I'm currently playing Infinity Nikki and having fun with it. It's quite different from other gachas I tried. It's chill, relaxing, the open world is pretty, the music is really nice. I enjoy the different experience it offers. And I think you don't really need the gacha outfits to "complete" all of the current in-game content (since you get a lot of them through exploring and quests and just need to focus on upgrading). However, even then I've already seen people saying how they get FOMO for many of the store outfits since they honestly look more unique and special. Plus, the outfit banners are compiled of many pieces. You don't want to get only half of them, right? And this can lead to you spending real money to get more pulls... (thankfully I'm broke and have no issue with this lol) Fortunately, I have one simple rule when it comes down to gacha games: if you're not having fun playing the game and it feels like a chore - quit immediately and uninstall it. That's the reason I quickly quit several other gachas (why keep going if I almost avoid the real gameplay?). Nikki was fun for what it is. I finished almost all of the quests and now will wait for another big update that adds like a new map or gameplay features. Same goes for ZZZ (2nd gacha I play). I'm having fun with gameplay, it's satisfying. But if any of that becomes boring - yea, I'm quitting. At the end of this all there is one thought that always come to my mind - what if these companies actually made non-gacha games? Like I'm sure Mihoyo could make a very fun action or RPG game if they wanted to... But I know the answer to this myself: they won't because it's unfortunately not profitable.
There’s a couple of reasons why: 1: mobile is profitable due to how easily accessible as a gaming platform it is and if you’re already used to developing for such constrained hardware, porting your games to console and PC is a cakewalk by comparison 2: gaming regulations within China actually benefit gacha games much more heavily than other types of games, and many of the companies that make the biggest gacha games either have big Chinese audiences or are Chinese outright. 3: the long-standing culture of how people have interacted with mobile games is the reason gacha dominated the space so quickly. turns out when people don’t wanna pay the big bucks to fund a game, siphoning it away from them is an effective strategy, especially with the prevalence of whales
@@Astra7Light The problem with that idea is reruns being always tricky, look how fast HSR powercreeps stuff, what if by the time that rerun happens the character gets powercrept literally in the next patch by the newest unit?
@@muppetry1 The value of the next meta unit you got, you'll see only in the future and that's the problem...at least for HSR, Linghsa and Aventurine is the perfect example of this.
10:18 A common misconception! The name "gacha" comes from the Japanese "gachapon" (the name of those capsule toy dispensers where you insert some coins and get a random toy, because thats essentially what gacha mechanics are, and many gacha mechanics are indeed styled after gachapon machines) and has absolutely nothing to do with the English slang "gotcha," even though it both sounds the same and has a perfectly fitting meaning. The similarity is a complete coincidence. It's like how a lot of people assume "emoji" has something to do with the English word "emotion," as they're symbols that convey emotions - nope! Complete coincidence. "Emoji" is another loanword from Japanese, where it essentially just means "pictogram."
The term “gachapon” originates from Japanese onomatopoeia. “Gacha” mimics the sound of the machine’s hand crank turning, while “pon” represents the noise of the capsule dropping into the tray. They were introduced to Japan in 1960
i think my sentence phrasing there was awkward, i meant that the mechanic is so prevalent and central that we often refer to the games as "gacha" before their actual genre - i know it's from capsule machines :)
Huh, I always figured that emoji was just a silicon valley cuteification of emoticon. I mean, I still think it is, but that they took a word from an actual language that means something similar is kinda cool.
@softreyna Emojis were first popularized by Japanese phone companies which added them to their domestic mobile phones in the 80s and 90s. At that time the rest of us were still using emoticons (faces made with regular text characters, like :-) and such), but Japanese-style emojis caught on in the 2000s and 2010s. Emojis is what they were already called in Japan, and we just kept the name. It's got nothing to do with Silicon Valley at all! As I said, the similarity to "emotion" and "emoticon" is pure, utter coincidence.
@@lucasverde8817 Right, but web forums in the mid-2000s already had adapted emoji into emotes* (iirc we informally called them smilies). At some point, a localization team made the decision to take the Japanese word as-is rather than use the existing English translation, and my suspicion is that that decision was motivated by the late 2000s drive to make tech appear 'friendlier.' It is a coincidence that "emoji" and "emotion" look similar, but it's not a coincidence that the former was able to catch on with English speakers. *There is a technical distinction but the end result is largely the same
how did Genshin become the blueprint? 1. it was released on console quickly 2. easy controls and plenty of non-high combat gameplay, aka casual, relaxing content 3. you don't need to pay money to get characters unless, you have unrealistic expectations for what you can get every year 4. no other studio seriously tried to compete with them for 4 years...
3 you do need to pay to get characters because it's mathematically impossible to get all of them without paying on top of the fact that each of them need 6 extra copies to unlock their potential. It is a game where the gameplay is in its core to collect and raise the characters. It's not fighting not exploration it's the collection
@@CJ-wh7ik getting every character and 7 copies of a character is what they mean by unrealistic expectations lmao, you can clear all content in the game with only 4 star units. getting c6 5 stars is a luxury that is basically an auto complete button for content and it is entirely unnecessary
@@CJ-wh7ik getting 6 copies of a 5 star is overkill you're fine with the single copy and you definitely don't need every character to clear any content.
@@CJ-wh7ik in what world do you need all the characters, and c6 at that lmao. the end goal is the endgame aka spiral abyss and theater. now the theater is pushing for a wide roaster, but if you've played for a while your 4 stars will stack up and you'll be fine, the bosses themselves are pretty easy. Abyss is getting tannkier, but 4 stars (especially the 1.0 ones, that u can get in the shop with enough starglitter) are still very compatitive.
It's so cool of you to be open about STILL struggling with gacha temptation. Really speaks to how dangerous they are when someone whos done all this research and content about why they're bad can still get easily addicted. Love your content, this made my day
It's normal to be at risk of gambling, remember. That's the default for humans, we're intrinsically at risk unless we put a huge amount of effort into fighting our nature.
@@jsfyxzuf117 Playing games safely shouldn't require someone to not have "weak self discipline". If you enjoy gacha games that's great, but players shouldn't be blamed for being exploited by shitty business practices designed to exploit people.
@@jsfyxzuf117 these games are designed to get you to spend as much as possible, in very manipulative ways. the more of their tricks you learn about the more disgusting these games become. it's come to the point i don't start any new F2P gacha games. and avoid paid games with these types of elements like the plague too.
The best thing for me playing games was when I finally just accepted I'm never going to be a competitive player and accepting my mediocrity. Now I just do what I enjoy and if that doesn't include my "important dailies / weeklies" than oh well. I won't trade my enjoyment for better performance anymore.
@@iamjustkiwi I forced myself to play arknights for years despite hating the gameplay (I generally like tower defenders, but the mechanics in this one weren't of my liking) because I loved the story and characters, I started to gradually distance from the game until I told myself "fuck it, I'll just keep myself updated with youtube videos for the story". Also pressure from friends, the toxic side of the community and fear of missing out was a very big deal. I recently started playing gacha games like normal games, find one i like both in terms of story and gameplay, proceed at my own pace, and enjoy the game.
I think this is something all the companies chasing the Genshin fade don't realize, it's how few Gacha games you can play at the same time. Last year I got super addicted to Genshin Impact ... then added Honkai Star Rail to the mix and Zenless Zen Zero, and despite enjoying those games (though aware that they were a worse version of what they could have been without gacha mechanics) and somehow lost track of things, and interest in all of them over a few weeks. I had some overtime so less time for gaming, some holidays away from my laptop, missed some events and lost a couple of 50/50 which mean all the pulls I had saved until then got me ... a random character I didn't want instead of the one I had saved for weeks, and I had no desire to rebuild my savings for another attempt God knows when, or fork some money to reward the game for literally not giving me the advertised character ... so I stopped, and it's been month and FOMO turned into "what's the point by now"
If you missed out on it then a) you had already left and b) its existance didnt get you to come back. Its non existance convincing you to stay away isnt such an issue at that point.
@MonochromeLunacy Similar to me and Genshin although I used to love the gameplay as much as the story and characters but after not being interessted in any of the characters for a long time I found it unmotivating to play the events and had no characters left to build and thus nothing to do. In these games if you're not farming or pre-farming the game loses its luster, the characters _are_ the content and you can keep up with everything else on youtube. If only there was a better way to monetize quality gameplay.
It's absolutely completely unhinged that Balatro was given an 18+ rating in Europe for "gambling imagery" while all this garbage continues to proliferate unchecked.
@@RaidenKunii Balatro has pretty much no gambling. In order for it to be gambling there has to be risk. You lose pretty much nothing if you lose a run in Balatro.
Yeah, I didn't really get that either. I guess it's fine to have anime girls in very clearly "stylized" attire, but when any form of poker is mentioned, that's it. The former gets PEGI 12, the latter 18, obviously. The media works weird.
Every time you are considering to buy stuff like rolls in a gacha or dlc in some games, ask yourself: How many copies of terraria could I buy with this money?
I've only ever given a free-to-play game money once, and it was a couple bucks to Spiral Knights because I had fun with it, and I was young and just getting into the idea of being a modest patron of the arts with my newfound disposable income. I think I ended up recouping most of my small donation - that's ultimately what it was - by later trading my Spiral Knights currency for TF2 items and ultimately Steam funbucks. Not once have I considered giving one money because I wanted what you actually get for it. It's always a value proposition so poor as to be laughable, even when there isn't a gamble involved.
@Yami-mugoni613 There's a difference with the grind on a regular rpg or any other game and the grind in live service games. People who think otherwise are either ignoring the nuances or just outright oblivious to it.
It drives me nuts how so many people tacitly assume that gambling necessarily involves fiat currency as a prize. This makes lawmakers pay no attention to gacha mechanics, which in turn means little Johnny gets to play with actual slot machines in the comfort of his bedroom.
with infinite time and edits i probably would have revised the line "gacha games are not gambling" because i meant it in a VERY literal sense of "you cannot win money" and you can engage in the action of pulling on a banner without spending. realistically speaking, when you do spend, it is still gambling because you are paying money for an outcome of random chance
@@yakkocmn I do agree it's fair to point out these games aren't _quite_ the same as a real-life casino; I'm just wary of phrases like "gacha" and "lootboxes" being used to whitewash the actual reality of what these game mechanics entail. No more, no less.
They are definitely on the scale of gambling, however the main point that it's not as bad as real money gambling is absolutely valid. Real money gambling results in people chasing losses, which is a never-ending psychological trap that causes desolation to millions of people. But just because something is a three instead of a nine doesn't mean it's not on the scale.
@@yakkocmn Gambling has many different definitions in different countries, and only in some countries does the reward have to be monetary, most countries just have it as "of percievable value" which Gacha falls into, and causes legal issues in those countries.
I like playing gacha games, but they really should be regulated. The only reason there is a pity system in most modern gacha games is because people were spending thousands of dollars and not getting the PNG they wanted. Nowadays people only have to spend a few hundred if they directly buy pulls.
The reason they are not regulated is the country of their main spender do not enforce it . 90 % of Genshin revenue come from Asian country , if they do not release their game on EU or America they still make buck in Billion. Gacha mechanic is normal here and exist long before Genshin even exist .
i mean pity not even exist for everything. In most of these games if you want a specific 4* you can still theoretically spend thousands of dollars and not get it. It was the same for weapons in early genshin until they created a really terrible pity that everyone hates and then fixed it up in HSR (and i think ZZZ)
@@adv78It’s true that pity doesn’t exist for 4 star characters. They’re not what the vast majority of players are trying to get though, and the odds are high that you’ll simply end up getting them while trying to get a new 5 star character. Genshin’s weapon banners did suck, but fortunately they’ve recently improved them.
As someone who’s been in the gacha gaming sphere for nearly a decade, it always surprises me to hear about how cripplingly addicted people can be to these games. I’ve always been naturally frugal, so the temptation of “getting that next hit” is never a priority for me. Basically, if I’m not guaranteed the next character, I’m not running the risk. If anything, I treat them just like real games cause often times they have good production value or a story I’m actually interested in. But I have friends who spend what they can to see if they get lucky, and I never understood that feeling. Cause I guess I never got actually addicted to spinning the wheel. And to me, that feels like it would hurt the experience more than help since the feeling of losing is worse than winning. But that’s evidently not the case cause the next step is always swiping the card rather than just stopping.
TBH, I ended up deleting my Genshin account worth almost $350 a year ago in order to quit. Having the lack of self control (and OCD), I think it was the right move for my own sake.
@@FrazzleFlib This is like saying that you should have sold the cocaine instead of flushing it down the toilet. You know that, right? If it's bad for you, you should not be passing it on to someone else, especially not someone else who's willing to pay that much money for a game account.
It's funny that it's a criticism for most gatchas that end game content exists and then there is Limbus Company's playerbase practically on their knees begging for end game content because half the playerbase have everything unlocked but nothing to use all that stuff on.
I just got stuck on level 7-10 Inferno in a little game called "Fit RPG" which I've enjoyed since it's basically FF1 plugged into a pedometer to power up the team. But apparently..... they never released the last two levels. I''ve chucked them $20 since I started playing over the summer, but I think I'm done. The only remaining characters are pure pay to play or massive grinds.
@NecronHandlee I've seen this problem long ago that's why I leave the game a bit of quest I called it the emergency primo quest and just do the some mission when I truly need a character or getting bored
Thank god I’m smart enough to only spend money on predatory preorders and ‘deluxe’ editions that offer nothing of any value in return for jacking prices up to upwards of 150 dollars.
At least most non gacha games have the decency to only scam players once when they buy the game instead of scamming them each time they release a new banner.
The moment I watched Coffeezilla make his "Exposing Lootboxes in CS:GO" video I immediately thought: I wonder if people also realize how Gambling is also making its way to kids through GACHA I'm so glad someone made this topic so I can quickly educate non-gacha gamers on just how absurd this trend is...
I mean aren't TCGs the same thing? Not saying it isn't bad just kinda interesting how for gaming the idea is questioned but IRL things like buying TCG packs to get cards and the like.
@@Demortra Yes in the sense that you can spends hundreds to buy individual cards, sets, structure decks, etc. but the major difference is that those are real, physical items that you can put into decks, give to friends, and sell if its one of the expensive cards. Theres also the fact that outside of pulling cards and making meta decks, theres no fomo events and limited time items like in gacha games. And theres also the obvious fact that once a gacha game shuts your account and the money you spent on the game cease to exist vs the cards you bought still exist and might still have value if the tcg ceases production.
@@salad72057 "Theres also the fact that outside of pulling cards and making meta decks, theres no fomo events and limited time items like in gacha games." Limited cards do exist tho? Yes you can maybe find it from reseller later, but at steep price. I agree having physical things hold more monetary value longer, but account selling is a real thing too. I think the real problem is how easy to access the payment if they are digital goods. Parents would probably notice more if kids buying too much physical things, but digital good, you can hardly notice them until they broke the bank.
@@salad72057 "Theres also the fact that outside of pulling cards and making meta decks, theres no fomo events and limited time items like in gacha games." Limited cards and event items do exist tho? Yes you can maybe find it from reseller later, but at a steep price that you might just consider it as you missing out. I agree having physical things hold more monetary value longer, but account selling is a real thing too. I think the real problem is how easy to access the payment if they are digital goods. Parents would probably notice more if their kids getting so many packages from buying too many cards. But digital good, you can hardly notice them until they broke the bank.
@@kurniawandelimaI'd like to point out that the money you get from a casino is also a real object that you can put into decks and give to friends. You don't even need to sell it as it's already money 😅 If anything TCG are more like gambling than online games, because selling an account is against TOS and you can get banned for it, but nobody is stopping you from selling cards, there are auctions for the rare ones, I don't know what else to say.
True +14 is a joke for most of these hype sexualized free honey trap games, but that's how they target huge money sums afterall each month unfortunately
My thoughts throughout this video. I'd extend that to include any game that includes in app purchases for the game's premium currency(s), just to include Fortnite and its use of FOMO to get children to spend as much of their parent's money as possible.
@@gregorycarmichael6907 what about people who buy blind boxes from pop mart etc? technically those are gambling as well since you don't know which toy you get in them
I am an avid Gacha player, mainly playing Hoyo games, but I try out other titles and am looking forward to one on the horizon (Arknights: Endfield). I think one of the worst things I see in the gacha space is players comparing how "generous" each game is. "X game is more generous than Y game, so X game is clearly superior" as if we should rank games based on how often you get a jackpot at the casino... My personal experience is unusual: I am a mega saver in these games. I save for months to years to max out a character because that's fun to me. If a game is not fun when I don't engage with its Gacha system, I drop it-end of story. Zenless Zone Zero lets me play with the various characters during the story, so I feel 0 drive to use the gacha system. And I played for 2.5 years in Genshin Impact without ever pulling on the account. Not the beginner gacha banner, not the standard gacha banner, no gacha whatsoever for 2.5 years. Genshin Impact has interesting world-building and the lore keeps me coming back. I want to see how things turn out, and how the various threads come together as a whole. It inspires me to want to build worlds and to write. But if the game can't keep me interested without engaging with its Gacha system, it gets uninstalled.
I think most people eventually realize there is no such thing as generosity for a Gacha game. If a Gacha game was truly generous then it wouldn't have a Gacha monetization system to begin with. Everything is designed to incentivize people to get into the game and spend on it, that's the sole purpose of freebies, and that's also why comparisons between games that focus on the gacha system result in very shallow discussions
It is wild how hyperfocused the community is on rewards, I keep asking if they actually like the game itself. Genshin is such a chill game too, but then you go online and it's a wasteland of freemogem junkies
I'm just saying you people that accept how hoyo doing things is unironically destroying gaming and gacha gaming as a whole. You genuinely expect too much from a gambling Sim.
@@peacechan4500 How? Genuinely how? This is what's destroying video games, not mega corporations buying up and disbanding beloved studios. Not corporations patenting manipulation of matchmaking and shop discounts to reward players for buying skins. Not the culture of releasing games in a terrible and buggy state. But me playing a game that I enjoy is what's killing gaming.
When i tried Infinity Nikki earlier this month at every point i would ask out loud "Why Tf is this a Gacha?" (Of course the answer is greed but alas) the game has nice visuals and the loop of exploring the world to unlock new clothes for Nikki is legitimately fun enough that it could be good game. The experience is like you said made worse by the gacha aspect and it saddens me that it could have been just a cute dress up open world game that many would've enjoy instead of another gacha slop with the goal of preying on players
Honestly Nikki has refreshingly felt like the least predatory gacha I've ever played. I'm very cautiously optimistic with their roadmap and plans for the future of the game. But we'll see
The answer is not "of course" greed. The set of artists working on the game would not be empowered to do what they're doing at the scale they're doing it at without the Gacha business model funding them. Greed is involved, but you would never see a game of this genre and scale funded through traditional methods. Also, many are able to enjoy Infinity Nikki for free (legally), something that cannot be said about practically any of Nintendo's games. And then there's the fact that many enjoy gacha for gacha, accepting it for what it is and isn't.
@@DrGoldenLinkits kinda bad in that some currency is limited time and the gacha is expensive but… you get tons of clothes for free and many of them are great outfits. So I don’t feel the need to spend at all
Good point but you don’t Lose 100 HP every second. Enemies that have attacked and been attacked by Hoederer receive 200 True Damage every second. Attack Range +1 tile, Max HP +15%, ATK +30%, Attacks recover 5% HP and have 25% chance to Stun the target for 2 seconds.
Yes because I would rather gain Max HP +80%, ATK +260%. Immediately throws an anchor forward, stopping when hitting a target or reaching the max distance, dealing 160% of ATK as Physical damage to all nearby enemies and Stunning them for 6 seconds. If the anchor stops on a tile he can deploy on, Ulpianus will Move to that tile
@@Печенькасмаком-й3ъ ok but have you ever thought about immediately summons 2 Revenant's Shadow(s) in attack range (up to 3 at a time, they remain after skill expires). Attack Interval is greatly increased. ATK +180%. Attacks deal 220% ATK. Splash area is greatly increased. Talent 1 trigger chance is increased to 100%. Skill activation grants 6 ammo and the skill ends when all ammo are used (Can manually deactivate skill)
A common defense of gacha games is the dismissive claim that their negative effects are limited to "whales," conveniently ignoring the fact that these games are built on exploiting vulnerable players who are more susceptible to manipulative design, often leading to excessive time investment, data exploitation, and financially damaging spending.
And also that they have to be predatory towards everyone's time and attention to work. Yeah they need a % of the playerbase to pay, but they mostly need a lot of non paying custommers, because they're the ones keeping the game alive. In the end it doesn't matter that much that you pay or not, they need you there and nowhere else. That's why it's not good that "oh wow you can play the whole game for free", it's just as manipulative as the rest, it's just less looked at because you don't pay for it. But people should view their time as at least as important as their money, and those game 100% waste it in one way or another.
@@annaairahala9462 yeah and the point of starting the video with a mention of Addiction by Design is that there are A LOT of ways to build things that will make people think they enjoy what they're doing.
@@annaairahala9462 But how do you know the difference between enjoying the game and just being absorbed by the system? That’s the question this video is asking
I was just talking with a friend about something like this today in regards to Fire Emblem Heroes. I used to be a passive player. Work hard. Play hard. Pull for Hector and Reinhardt. I was there since the beginning as a boy just getting into a new game in Highschool. It was wonderful! It was like every new banner was pushing the boundaries! My beloved characters in Fates and Three Houses were coming to me and I got to be their tactician! The memes, the community, all so wonderful to experience! Then... came the FEH Pass. That damn pass was the beginning of the end. Powercreep, special outfits, more books, more events, more currency for those events I didn't like. And it got to the point that during the Summer and Winter Festival events, two of the BIGGEST EVENTS due to swimsuits, I remember nearly losing ALL of my money. I was jobless as a teen for some time and had saved around 8,000 dollars in the bank. I WENT DOWN TO 2,000. Not just with that, but I can recall a GOOD chunk going to Summer Freyja and Surtr. And I think to myself... "Was any of this worth it?" I stopped hard when I was past Covid. I said no more. And have not paid a SINGLE dollar more for them. But yeah, the point when he said I spent time and money on this game... it definitely struck a chord because I did do that. And now I'm bored of the game, bored of the story, bored of the same powercreep and losing interest. But I can't uninstall it. I spent too much time on it. Please be careful. Please teach others to control themselves. Show them games you pay a flat amount for, show them a full experience within ONE payment. Don't pull a blunder like I did and fall for this... I love Nintendo. I don't love what I did because of that love...
@@deucesommerfeld1248 sounds like the problem is with yourself and not the game. I can walk intona restuarant and they have the entire menu available to me and I can buy everything but that doesn't mean I'm going to.
@@evil_yellow_ranger8346 This is an entirely unhelpful comment that misses literally every single point made in the video and in the comment you replied to.
@@malchickoleander actually it's very helpful because all too often people like to blame the game when they're actually in denial that they have a problem. Literally the first step in most addition recovery groups is standing up before the room and admitting you're an addict.
@@evil_yellow_ranger8346 And like... Most gacha game players admit they have a problem already? Yeah, the game didn't literally MAKE them gamble, but it uses every opportunity to exploit someone's addictive behavior. It's not fair to blame the game, no, but it's also not fair to ignore the game's exploitation.
@@evil_yellow_ranger8346 i mean, sure, the first step to getting help is realizing you need help, but i would also say the blame should still probably fall on the people putting tons of money into researching *how to exploit people with addictions* and extract as much money as possible out of them
As someone that has a cheap phone,a psp and a laptop that can't run anything more demanding than genshin on low settings or it will explode, I've been playing mostly gacha games since I've starting living in a dorm because I was already playing anyway and my ps4 had to stay at home with my parents. Also, those games are free (a blessing for a broke student) and a lot of people I met in uni also played them so it was a way to socialize as well (i would've dropped genshin way sooner otherwise) so I invested a lot of my "gaming time" in that kind of games. A couple months ago I found a copy of Octopath Travel II for very cheap at a gamestop while I was visiting my parents and I bought it. I had only one week and other things to take care of so I couldn't even come close to finishing it that time and I still haven't unfortunately but the time I had with it was so wonderful that it made me realize once again that I could be having more fun and more meaningful experiences by playing much better games even with my limited hardware, by saving and waiting for sales or emulating older games. I still can see love and care put in the gacha games that I chose to keep playing but the reality is that no matter how good what keeps me genuinely engaged is, gacha mechanics and how they impact anything else in the game inevitably taint the experience. Also, the average price for buying a 10-pull is INSANE. When I think I could buy a nice meal in a restaurant for the same price or that there are full games that cost less than one 10-pull in genshin, I just can't justify that amount of money, especially if you might not even get anything good for it. I'd rather buy some cool merch instead.
What you get for the money you put into gacha games is really a complete scam when you think about it. For $15 CAD I got 3 games on my Steam wishlist recently thanks to the winter sale (Sunblaze, Voidigo & Axiom Verge 2). That would barely get you anything in virtually any gacha game.
Honestly believe that gacha games should NEVER be played by people who already have a gambling addiction or are very susceptible to them, and have policies that regulate them harder. I play them and I know the dangers of it and I get a lot from it without spending anything at all, but for others this could put them in debt. Ive had thousands of hours worth of content in Genshin ( story and lore, the TCG minigame, theory-crafting, doing challenge runs in abyss, and the building minigame in Genshin) and have yet to spend a dime in the game But then again most gacha games are absurdly expensive if you even think about buying with actual money. Im pretty sure with gacha games like FGO , straight up gambling is cheaper than that
like you i also prefer spending my money on merch than the game itselfs, serves as a decoration and as a reminder of past experience for when i eventually quit the game for whatever reason, and it can stay on my desk for as long as i wanted to keep it also i got to keep the relatable experience for being a f2p
Never buy rack-rate gems. It's not worth it. Roll using F2P gems, or at most get the Welkin, which is a reasonable value. If they would let you stack two Welkins at once, I would do it, but you're right that if you buy the gems directly it just seems like a waste.
It's so surreal to be old enough to remember a time when games consoles could barely connect to the internet and the closest thing to a loot box was horse armor. Remember when Dungeon Keeper mobile made headlines for charging two dollars to break a single block? Clearly I must have imagined the whole thing because statistically speaking you probably don't even know what a Bullfrog is or what it has to do with personal computers. I weep for current and future generations growing up with a gaming landscape where renting a game disk from a library to beat in a single weekend purely for the joy of experiencing art, all without it asking you to bankrupt your parents and ruin your school attendance record is an alien concept. Forgotten and sunk in a toxic sewer of a world where wages stagnate and the human cost of making games grows ever larger under shockingly abusive management that would rather give out space brownies at employee meetups than paid sick leave. But let's not kid ourselves. Rose-tinted glasses aside, this snowball has been rolling for a while. It will continue to grow until lawmakers step up to the plate and tell the corporations responsible that this too shall pass.
It feels as if half the comments section didn't even fully watch the video that they're commenting on. It doesn't matter that your gacha is highly "F2P friendly" or that "You can experience all the content without paying a single cent", Yakko quite litterally brings that up a fifth way into the video. The point isn't that its technically possible to clear a gacha game's content with the lowest rarity/free units you get. The point is that gacha games inevitably will push you towards interacting with the gacha system as a whole, and that corrupts the rest of the industry to push towards this style of unregulated and predatory monetization system that leads to people being abused. I'm an avid FGO and Limbus player, been here for 8 years in FGO's case. While i can tell you Avalon Le Fae is possibly one of the best written works of fiction that's ever been produced and how Limbus Company has broken the mold with how they're handling their game, it doesn't matter in the end, we love these game not *because* of the gacha system, but *in spite* of it. And that's the long and short of it all.
which is why many people disagreed with him in the comments, f2p friendly comments or not, because predatory practices aren't even something that you TRULY need to concern yourself with as a consumer unless you are one of those people who must complain about everything scummy or you are their actual business rival which I bet you are not, mind you that there are people who just want to enjoy things as it is so there's no need to act so high and mighty by telling that companies suck because this is 2020+, most people know companies suck and they still consume their products anyway, so it's always better to stay neutral instead of trying to repeat the usual song and dance of "oh no, companies have predatory practice, you should know this fact yada yada yada", waste of time and even I wasted my time watching the video along with typing this to a random person on the internet just to bring a tiny bit of common sense
Predatory animals aren't something you TRULY need to concern yourself as prey unless you're one of those people who must complain every time a hawk tries to eat them or are their actual competitor like a fox.
@@oniplus4545 If everyone thought like that, we'd still be in the Gacha Dark Ages by current year. Predatory practices *are* to be called out on, they ARE something you should care about, because if you don't, you wouldn't have displayed gacha odds, you wouldn't have hard pity hard capping how much you'll need to spend on a unit, and you wouldn't have just the idea of transparency and fairness as a whole. That's the point of these discussions, to call out the bad things and hopefully they can be improved into better things. Do note, im not trying to accuse you of being complicit in this or something ridiculous like that, but im saying that there's no reason to just tell everyone to just mindlessly consume product and then get excited for next product. Its extremely reductive to just say "you shouldn't care about this unless you're whining or you're financially benefitting from tearing down the opposition". Im just a player who sees the flaws in the games i play, and while i enjoy them, i don't fault people for calling out said flaws in said games.
That "loving it in spite of the gacha" really rings true for me with Limbus. I play it due to being a fan of the devs since their first game, and Limbus, while imo being their worst game besides its presentation, is the current project. I get why they did it, having a stable source of income is a big boon to such a small and (back then) rather niche studio, but it is spooky to me, that it needed a *gacha* to reach these numbers. Being part of this """genre""" actually elevates the game for some people for some reason.
Lowkey with how the gaming space is nowadays, gacha games really aren't even the worst offenders. Every single one of the big mainstream multiplayer games have some sort of engagement based matchmaking, some sort of way to push you a microtransaction, and all to manipulate you into playing the game more and more. With every new release you gotta ask yourself if the developers are just trying to please shareholders or if there's actual passion behind the game.
Exactly. As a Call of Duty Mobile player, I've dropped some cash on battle passes and legendary guns. But hey, the game's free, so it didn't feel too painful. That being said, I've got friends who've taken it to the next level - we're talking over $1,500 spent on the game! It's crazy to think about, but it's not just gacha games that can get us hooked. Many games are designed to make us want to spend on skins, guns, vehicles, and more. Recently, I dipped my toes into my first gacha game(zzz), and I'm surprised by how much I enjoy it. There's this one skin I'm obsessed with getting, but here's the thing: the game actually lets me earn in-game currency for free by completing tasks and events. It's a nice change of pace from Call of Duty Mobile, where I have to buy cod points. For me, it's all about self-control. Games are designed to keep us engaged, but at the end of the day, it's up to us to decide how much we want to spend. If I don't need something, I won't buy it - no matter how hard the game tries to convince me otherwise. Edit: Remember, it's not just about spending money. It's about having self control, don't let what you consume consume you.
Yakko: Explains that he has a problem with gachas and finds them difficult to resist despite knowing the negative effects they have on him. Limbus fans: Come on man it's just one hit, it'll be fine. Edit: This was a condemnation you animals. I like the game too but read the room yeesh.
While I can agree that these practices do exist, I feel like people like to spin the idea that people DON'T enjoy the game they are playing and are forced to be there by the transactions. Personally, I'm willing to spend on these games if they put in the effort and care to improve the player experience (Nikke/Wuwa being my 2 big gachas atm)
That's also my main criticism of this video, he talks about gacha games the same way D.A.R.E in middle school told me about the dangers of smoking. Not to mention, a LOT of the things mentioned are not predatory features, I am not convinced for one on how daily missions can be predatory as he makes little to no actual case for it. If someone is gonna play the game everyday why is it OVERALL predatory, he doesn't even get into case by case. Doing the WuWa dailies and doing the Hsr dailies are two entirely different topics and yet it was stamped as an overall predatory feature.
@@junebugo3384 The thing is they are predatory features. What makes something like daily missions a predatory feature is that they exist not primarily as more content for you to consume but as a means to take up more of your time. The very nature of live service games is prioritization of your time, and a lot of it. These systems all are centered around keeping you around longer and longer because the longer you stick around, the more likely you are to spend money. Whether it be due to investment or the gradual wearing down of those barriers you have in place to prevent such spending. And the big issue with that is that while you and most players either don't engage with or engage on a minimal level with spending in these games, there aren't any guardrails in these games to prevent the unhealthy amount of spending that they're looking for to generate their profits. Tldr. These features are predatory because they all funnel towards taking a lot of your time and/or money.
@@junebugo3384 Doing daily tasks is habit building, which is what I'm sure he refers to, but I do think that there's this weird assumption in the video that players would and should be playing other games if not for these addictive tendencies. For example I actually like doing daily quests in some of the gacha games I play. Not every day sure, some days I skip them, but I legitimately enjoy having a little simple task to do that doesn't take to long, and I don't think I need to feel bad about getting enjoyment from that.
@ I agree! He definitely does mention it building habits but I just mean to say its not a convincing argument on being predatory yk? So what if someone is like oh poop “I need to log on really quick to do my dailies” I just feel like it’s not as big an issue which can muddy the point of the video when we’re also talking about serious things like putting all your money into gacha games and becoming addicted [agree with u completely just explaining why i said what i did in previous comment]
@@junebugo3384 Turn players into cultists. Turn company into religion. Turn impulse into dependence. Turn preference into blind faith. Turn announcements into gospel. Or something like that idk, the habits really do break you as a person though Expenditure isn't the only limit for a game to be predatory, it also has to make sure you will end up preferring one game more so than others which you can look at as the game preying on your conscience as a customer, hence that whole spiel from me. Gacha games just so happen to be the most egregious and loudest (online) case of this. Adjacent examples being Fortnite skins and Counter-Strike crates.
Back in 2021, I had been addicted to Cookie Run Kingdom for nearly a year, and I had spent likely 1000 in total over that year. I logged in daily, grinded for hours, and even asked for apple gift cards during birthdays just so I could get another hit. I finally had started to pull away, and your older gacha essays helped me break free from my sunk cost falllacy, and I'm grateful every day that I got out of that.
@ the thing is, the game has a ton of beautiful artwork, good voiveacting, and great spectacle that draws people in. Sometimes people don't know that it's a gacha before downloading it, and by the time its revealed they've already enjoyed some of the game. Then they spend money to get the pretty and game breaking new characters, or spend long hours slaving away for another ten pull. Then the sunk cost fallacy takkes root, and it becomes really hard to pull away. Word of mouth, gorgeous ads, and thriving communities all contribute to that first step. Take me for example, I heard about cookie run through word of mouth at my school, and I downloaded it cause I wanted to show up my friend and get better units than him (which quickened the spending). Then, after I had gotten through the story, I grew bored, and there is where I would normally quit. Buuut, I had already spent so much money and time on the game, and I didn't want it to be left unfinished! So I slaved away until then next update, then the next, then the next. It was practically a gambling addiction. Gamblers get extra jobs, borrow money, and do everything they can to get enough money to win a jackpot, and I slaved away, put hours into mindless gameplay, and spent hundreds of dollars trying to get the best unit for that update. Its a vicious cycle. So, sure, you've never fallen for it, you've ignored the ads be use you were educated enough to see through them. B ut lots of people are NOT educated, like I was, and they get trapped in a really deep sunk fallacy cycle. Even if you are educated, communities can boost up their game saying "blank is so generous, they give out so many freebies!" And that draws you in all over again. Or maybe a new gacha released, and you join that one so you're not behind the updates or missing any characters. Why do you think phrases like, "praising the gacha gods" or " stuck in gacha hell" exist? These people know their stuck, but the allure of community and sunk cost fallacy keep them stuck in a shared suffering. TLDR, gachas can be very enticing to people uneducated on their tactics, and even educated people can be drawn or redrawn in via sneaky marketing and loyal communities of other victims. Don't be so quick to dismiss everyone who's fallen for this, if it was so easy to avoid, gachas, and likely casinos as well, would all go out of business. That 2 billion speaks volumes. This is all shown in the video btw
@@Constelliar For me what got me into gacha games was mostly just they're often the only half decent looking games on mobile at all, that and youtubers I liked promoted them and showed off what a ton of pulls could do and I wanted to be "cool" like them, I'm glad I pulled out of the hole myself a few years ago, I deleted all gacha games and only kept the only one I really enjoyed without spending, partially because I'd already spent so much on it that I basically had everything. What got me out was rationalizing the money spent and being like for every time I felt like spending $100+ on a banner to maybe get something that might be fun I could just buy a full priced game I was interested in that would respect my time and money and that was it for me.
I agree with you. CRK was the closest I’ve felt to “yknow it a hobby so why not spend a bit of money on it” ive ever felt and Ive always stubbornly stayed f2p
Super great video, one that I largely agree with despite personally me having so much love and praise to the developers and artists working at mihoyo putting together these massive worlds and stories, i think it’s genuinely really unfortunate that a lot of their work often comes at odds with their monetization. One thing i always like to bring up in the context of the discussion is the fact that a lot of these games come from mainland china, which is a nation which historically has never had a true “organic” development of the games’ industry the same way we found it in the west and japan, mostly in part due to government overreach leading to the outlaw of games consoles between the early 2000s up until around 2014 or so (with the PS4 being the first official game console truly ‘pushed’ onto a chinese market). in my opinion, when discussing the rise of gacha games it’s an important point to consider as it sort of frames the discussion around the presence of live service gaming domestically-without the rise of games consoles, ‘gaming’ as a past time was largely forced to grow on PC and mobile, and the east asian sociocultural expectations behind gaming typically mean that these are experiences designed to be ‘accessible’ in a way where you can just log in and do a few actions in between a commute to work or school. It does come to the reality that really there IS no real ‘viable alternative’ to gaming in the mainland and really hasn’t been until REALLY recently. Black Myth Wukong is one of the first major non-live service games to have come out of the mainland to a relatively large amount of global success, and personally i believe it’s a game that will hopefully shake things up a bit and prove that the chinese gaming industry has the ability to find success beyond executive mandated, parasitic and predatory design. of course, i say all of this but i still genuinely have so much love and respect for games like Genshin Impact for their artistic merits-the visuals, music, and the cultural integration of east asian traditions allowing people from all over the world to experience them where they would otherwise likely remain ignorant.
A lot of modern mainstream gachas come from China because the older ones coming from Japan usually suck ass. Yes, as simple as that: Japanese gachas are just plain worse both visually and in terms of actual gacha rules. Which is why Chinese ones get so much attention worldwide: the sell actual 3D characters with movesets, not a bunch of 2D PNGs, and often can guarantee you one in a certain number of attempts. Another reason why those games are so popular is new content however. How many story DLC will you get out of a regular RPG like Witcher 3? Will even one of them be free? Will they release them every 1-1.5 months? The answers are usually "no".
@@ОсликИа-я2ы They're popular because they're designed to be addictive, not because people actually WANT this non-stop drip feed of mid content. They're just hooked on the skinner box and FOMO manipulation techniques.
Thank you for making this video, as someone who has played gacha games on and off for the past 8-ish years of my life, much of what you said rang true for me. For me, I find enjoyment from these games comes from keeping up with the game through minimal spending. I liken it to an MMO like Runespace or FF14, where the results of your labor are not exactly “difficult”, but the journey to get there with your account is still rewarding in its own right. Keeping up with endgame content, dealing with powercreep, and making new and shiny meta teams IS the game for me, and not spending money is the core of it. Its on the side of the game developers to make that cycle interesting and rewarding, and games like Fire Emblem Heroes lost me over time due to it being too stressful to really enjoy. But when it is built well, gradually obtaining new tools on your account that leads to creative new ways to tackle endgame content is a satisfying content loop that I haven’t seen other genres properly emulate. Of course, the amount of predatory business practices that you have to ignore in order to look at these games in that way is pretty staggering, which is why I think its important for videos like these to exist. Understanding what you are getting into with these kinds of games, and being able to admit to yourself whether or not you are the type of person who should play these games even with that understanding, is the only real way to enjoy these games healthily in my eyes. But a lot of the profit that these games make is from people who fail at either of those two steps. So my final takeaway is that as Gachas continue to explode in popularity and production quality, these types of videos should be an industry standard, rather than those ign reviews that you showed that treated the gambling aspects as some sort of side content.
100% agree!!! i'm also a gacha degenerate, and despite hating the industry, the endless game loop of always getting stronger is not something anything else quite captures. disgaea is a game that kinda scratches that itch, but getting stronger in it feels pointless, as once you get to a certain point theres just no reason to strengthen your team other than... strengthening it. this loop is what makes me play those games, and i think its why i didnt quite latch on to genshin and stuff. they try to present themselves as "real games" but when put in that field they just fail.
I would say spending is sometimes counter productive, watching some streamers annihilate bosses in 2 attacks in star rail feels awful, because the bosses in that game are amazing, and the cool part of fighting they is struggling, its the doubt of "can i really beat this guy with my team?" But that is throw out the window when you one hit kill everything. Playing a game you cant lose gets old very very quickly
Battle Cats is a pretty extreme example of this. The standard pool never changes, you're expected to literally juice out every single Unit in that pool, and the level difficulty even when you build decks to hard-counter stages is ABSURD. You can't whale it very well; it just doesn't work when it takes so much skill to beat a stage.
Yeah as a former WoW player and current FF14 player I think Gacha games scratch the same itch as mmos. They have a similar goal in game where you are always on the grind looking for better gear and upgrades for your character. Sometimes you just want a daily mindless grind to play as you destress. I'm a light spender in HSR, but I figure throwing some money at the devs is fine for a game I'm playing ftp otherwise. I'm used to paying a sub for mmos so getting a monthly pass for $5 bucks is nothing really to me. The biggest thing is to have self control when you play gacha games. Sure you could shell out more money now to get the character but its never really worth it. Honestly most of the time I just stop when I lose the 50/50 and most of the time I don't even bother to get the characters on a rerun... there are some exceptions but its hard to tell what characters will be meta and what won't be.
Man this really sums it up. Though honestly, some gacha games would be a masterpiece if they didn't a have a gamble system in this first place, more like a paid game with most of the in game items being free instead of a free to play game with paid in game items and infinite mindless farming that takes alot of time, heck it may turn into a full time iob if one got so addicted.. if only this was true man, i hate such system.
How much did you spend and what did you get? I'm currently trying to figure out if it's worth paying for anything. I really only care about the dresses, all of the accessories are a nice-to-have so I'm not a completionist. There's a couple outfits that can be bought outright so I've been eyeing those, but the others locked behind the resonance system seems to be a waste of money due to the random draws.
@@kylelyk500 I always get the $1 outfits (60 stellarites one, I get the 60 gems from the treasure where you get the extra energy) I also got the $5 one with the gems because I really wanted to complete the pink fairy outfit from the first banner. After that I collected my pink gems for a future outfit I'd really like. Right now, I'm just saving them up to pull on the 4-star outfits which come in banners every 4 weeks because they are much easier to get (an item guaranteed every 5 pulls instead of 10 pulls for the banner with a 5 star outfit). I think I rambled too much, but the money I spent were based on thinking how to get some extra outfits with paying the least amount of money. Currently I saved a ton of pink gems just by doing extra missions. I didn't pay for pulls because I just kept playing the game and got enough by just doing missions. I watched a bunch of other youtubers explain the system first and what they suggested, which mainly is keeping your gems for some outfit you really want if you want to stay free to play and not pay for pulls.
@@Mehieddin7 Hoyo makes gacha games that are actually good. They are still predatory, but the base games are good. I think that's one of the most secrely evil things actually - the good gacha games hook you in with engaging gameplay loops, and then tempt you with spending to get even stronger.
@@TheChilaxicle no LMAO Hoyo makes one of THE WORST GACHAS out there LMFAO They don't have gameplay, they don't have story, they don't have anything They are literally glorified azur lanes except they are worse in almost egery aspect
@@TheChilaxicle wake up Hoyo's games are nothing but copies of games and are stripped COMPLETELY from what made the copied game a "game" and replaced with a poor attempt at replicating azur lane.
As a "gacha gamer" myself (only Hoyo games), I think this video makes valid points. I'm all for more regulations on gacha games that protect consumers from overspending their time and money. I believe it's perfectly possible for game companies to provide quality live-service-games and make a profit, without relying on predatory mechanics. Furthermore, I think consumers carry some of the responsibility as well, which is why more education on gambling, spending money, addiction, FOMO, and sunk-cost-fallacy is so important. That being said, I think it's also necessary for gacha games to have effective age restrictions, since obviously these concepts are hard for young minds to grasp. Personally, I don't play these games for the gacha elements. It saddens me that sometimes these type of games get villainized so much - don't get me wrong, I understand where it comes from, but it's just not that black-and-white. At least for me, it is the fun experiences, events, gameplay, music, art, voice-acting and lore that has hooked me on these games. I really like fictional characters, just in general, and it's fun to experience a lot of meaningful stories. Furthermore, as someone who loves routine and structure, I get a lot of satisfaction from doing dailies, which only take up a small portion of my day. No game is perfect of course, but if it wasn't fun, I wouldn't be playing it in the first place. I know a lot of "gacha gamers" who are the same. That being said, I do participate in the gacha elements. I think it's fine to spend money on live-service-games, even if they have gambling elements, as long as it is within your means. For example, I give myself a leisure budget each month that I'm not allowed to cross. I place a lot of importance on saving and financial stability, but life is short and you never know what happens, so it is okay to treat ourselves too. While some may spend it on clubbing, other hobbies, shopping, etcetera, I like to spend some of it on games. In moderation, of course, which is entirely possible. I have no regrets supporting a game that gives me a lot of joy, and that I feel continues to enhance my experience of playing the game. If it stops being fun, I will stop playing, and not worry about "sunk costs", because I will know that at the time I spent my time and money on something that brought me joy. Gacha is just one of the possible ways for companies to monetize their games. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing - after all, developping and maintaining a free game costs money too. I also don't think it instantly makes a game bad - if anything, there is often a lot of pressure for these companies to ensure quality content, because there are people that actively spend on the game and the competition is increasing. Not saying that all gacha games are of good quality, there are some real shitty ones out there. But there are other gacha games that the devs really put their hearts and souls into, and that continue to improve. This includes quality content for F2P players too, who are just as important for a company. After all, without enough players, a game will die. This is why I believe loyal F2P-players, subscription-only, and low-spenders that truly enjoy the game, are more valuable for a game long-term, than some whales that will quickly drop the game for a new one. Plenty of people I know really enjoy the same games F2P. Once again, I do wholeheartedly agree that proper regulations of these types of games are important. In my experience gacha often relies on the competative aspects of gacha games - which is something you can also manage your own expectations and goals in. For example, I don't feel a need to flex and have never pulled for meta-reasons. This might mean I will not get all the rewards from the competative portion of the game, but I'm fine with that as I can still get most of the rewards, and I also need less rewards if I'm pulling less and saving more. Even for those that do care about competative content and pulling for meta-reasons, there are plenty of gacha games that are quite forgiving, reward building an account over time, and don't have a strong powercreep. For this, having patience, knowing you can't always get what you want, and learning to deal with FOMO is important, and it's something that will help you in life in general. I think that like me - there are plenty of players who manage their money, time and sanity perfectly fine. At the same time, I too get annoyed by the gacha communities sometimes. While there are valid criticisms sometimes, there can also be a lot of (imo) unnecessary negativity, and sometimes I wonder why some of these people still play at all, when they don't seem to be getting much joy out of it. But on the other hand, it is not up to me to dictate how and when someone else should play a game. Furthermore, any online space that is big just deals with toxicity unfortunately, and within those spaces you will also find a lot of lovely individuals who are building amazing communities. I guess in short, balance is important. With that in mind, bringing more awareness to the dangers of gacha games is a good thing, and once again I think this is a great video. I also think that anyone who is currently playing a gacha game and is not having fun or experiencing negative effects on their wellbeing, should consider quiting sooner rather than later. At the same time, I believe gacha games can provide people with valuable experiences, and everyone should spend their money and time however they wish, without immediate assumptions being made. I'm very passionate about this topic, sorry for the super long text haha, but maybe this provided some interesting perspectives. Not sure if anyone will take the time to read this lol, but if you have, thank you and I hope you have a lovely day
Yeah gacha is just another buzzword, feel like we getting the COD treatment where they churn out skins for literally bucket of money for an already paid game ect. We have our criticism, but in the end we just another target that gonna go off the radar again if someone else make outrageous monetizations, like paying irl money for digital ammo like that. Some day some devs gonna do that and the public attention will just switch to that, like this happened before to loot boxes, digital market (TF2, counterstrike), most of them fall out of the radar nowadays, today the AAA gaming scene with preorder, deluxe edition tactic is even more outrageous in my opinion. Things changed but it change slowly, unlike internet public attention span, that go away after like 2 weeks to something else to rage about and make buzzwords about.
Genshin isn't even effectively monetized at a basic minimal-effort level. Can I pay real money for past event weapons that I missed? No, they're not available. Can I pay to increase my artifact storage space, like dock space in Azur Lane? No. Can I pay to add/remove simple items on the characters, like glasses or Mavuika's helmet? No. There are characters I would have pulled in this game if it had basic customization options with hair and outfit, but outside the extremely rare skins it doesn't, so I skipped them. A lot of factors make it very easy to skip most of the cast and never feel pressured to buy crystal packs. Obviously some can't do that, and it preys on them, but honestly I wish it would try harder to prey on me.
I can't believe I agree with everything in this comment. Plus, I am someone who balances himself and doesn't get mad losing 50/50 or grinding shitty useless artifacts. I enjoy them (hoyo games mostly) a lot for lore, characters and world design. Peace!
I dont try hard arti play for character and story artifact if have to build someone try building jjst usable if unit love tbat when grjnd for passion nothing else even thoi got some good init dont build cause it not unjt want to
Stopped at around 6:04. (in a literal sense) only exists because the definitions of gambling haven't caught up to the modern day gacha ecosystem, whether it's through lawmakers just not understanding or companies lobbying. Bringing up the distinction at all feels disingenuous and I can't watch the rest of the video in good conscience.
Gaming in general born out of a by-product of gambling : Arcade in the 80’s was the “Genshin” equivalent of addiction: Flashing, obstrusive and starliting to “pull” quarters on the machine. Companies like Midway, Atari and Sega, got investors from gambling companies to kickstart gaming as a whole. Even remember when China ban consoles over that issue, which is ironic, cause this would lead into the rise of mobile games and gatcha in the region (as a loophole).
@@Inverted10Hdude actually posted some informative stuff, and you respond with a "Okay nErD" comment, in 2024? You must be the "Amirite?" guy at the party.
Yes, and gachapon was a direct result of the arcades as well, it's just come full circle now. Gacha isn't anything new here, in reality it's what gaming has been from the start
to be completely honest though, the hoyoslop formula has become so widespread at this point everyone copies at least a little bit of their system, its annoying
Does it have the same energy, though? it literally looks the same, even down to the big city hub area. Its not really the same as comparing Pokémon to FMA or MHA or whatever.
I get the argument regarding kids, but honestly, that is on the Parent's, I'm frankly kind of sick of Parent's getting off the hook for being lazy and terrible. My mother might not have fully understood the games I was playing (not being a gamer) but she looked into things before letting me anywhere near any money with the ability to buy a game. (for the young ones, back in the day buying a game online also didn't exist to a large extent, and even when it did I knew I'd actually get in trouble if I stole my mother's card like some of the parent's claim whenever it comes up that X kid emptyed a bank account) So the idea that it's not on the parent to... you know parent, shouldn't be a government's job to fix (though is the reason quite a lot of governments are forcibly going that way, so start parenting your kids properly please) and that argument mostly falls on deaf ears for me.
I do understand the inherent scumminess of the daily login system for gachas, but as someone who's dealing with pretty heavy depression that just has me lying in bed doing nothing or doomscrolling, they actually have a positive impact by forcing me to get up to jumpstart my day lol. Like I get up to do my Star Rail dailies, then since im up, might as well do some work, or draw, or write, or dm and interact with people. It's probably not the intended outcome, but I am grateful for that little push even if its from something sinister. Just an interesting perspective.
im glad they can be a motivator for you, I currently play hsr, (and previously genshin before quiting partway through 3.x) but honestly some days I dont even get up... not for like... 6 hours past when I woke up... they dont motivate me to get up :/ ig I can say that my desire/addiction to pull for characters at least makes me want to work to some extent for money so I can spend it on game? is that healthy? no, probably not, but it was a motivating factor for existing for a bit there
That's a band aid at best. You might need friends and maybe even start excercizing. Small victories do count. Especially if you never give up. The solution should not come from something designed to manipulate. Be dependent on it for as little time as possibly could.. And get well soon.
This is true for me in genshin. I wake up, do my dailies or events while drinking coffee. Lol it's my equivalent to reading a newspaper. Better this than mindlessly swiping up and down on facebook or insta
It's good that it's working, but maybe if it wasn't for this it's be something else! There has to be similar cases where a gacha or similar game is replacing something that could be a lot more personally rewarding. Because in the end those games (and a lot of other games tbh) are kinda "empty", they don't really help long term with those situations. For an extreme example, some people have this with sports, but sport addiction (because it does the brain chemical thing too) isn't as bad because it apparently had benefits 🕵 What I'm saying is anything can be part of a daily routine, and once the routine is set, you don't need as much motivation to start doing the thing, and it becomes a motivation in itself. That's kind of the issue with addictions in general (not saying that's what's happening to you with the gacha, but I'm sure it is for some), they rewire the brain and the reward/motivations are completely twisted, by having such a "easy" way to get those brain chemicals, the normal stuff is a lot more bland. I guess the worry is that with something that's preying on their consumer's engagement, "helping" risks becoming the motivation in itself, and that's a dangerous place to be especially if there's nothing else around that's a bigger pull. Anyways like other have said, I wouldn't count of this too much long term, but yeah it's also probably better than the random social media engagement farming!
Ok, you can talk about gacha game this and gacha game that, but I just need you to stop bringing up Dragalia Lost. Can't believe it's already been 2 years man...
In case yall havent heard, there are a couple of fan servers so we can relive Dragalia. Just look up Dragalia Lost fan server and you should find guides on how to download them.
I conflicted because I have not loved a game like I've loved zzz in a long time. I love action games and ones that I'm interested in come out surprisingly infrequently, so one that comes out with regular updates and new content to complete is literally my dream. Now the gacha stuff doesn't phase me much, I have only spent money on the battle passes which run about 10 bucks every month and a half, because I have no problems making spending plans to guarantee the things I want. I even like doing the mindless dailies because I like the gameplay so much! This is not the case with my friends. They're constantly pulling for every single character and spending money to complete their collections. This is on top of the monthly passes that reward premium currency when you log in daily. I even hesitate to stream the game because they often try to pressure me into spending what I have saved just so they can watch me gamble. It's unnerving to say the least.
If you're a healthy individual you should be fine. If you have problems with spending and are easily swayed then probably put it away. It's okay to enjoy hobbies, but when done unhealthily, it should be reconsidered. No difference than for me with MonHun, as a teen I was soooo addicted to the grind I had to learn to not sacrifice sleep because it was affecting my school 😅.
Now imagine that in sane world ZZZ would be just a normal rpg you could get on steam. But yeah mh needs to exploit their player base and get them $$ from gambling
Dude, witnessing how your editing and production has developed over like... half a decade is deeply making me feel like time passes. TH-camrs (parasocial, yes) also grow and improve their craft; shit. This think-piece format and atmosphere is great from this one particular video feom you; more academic than literary, huge for me.
I know what you mean, first finding him he was pretty good but very similar to other people I've seen. Now it feels like he's really found his style, figured out what he's really good at
I think a lot of the problem comes from the perspective of being able to spend and spending on the game. Casuals who just play and enjoy the game and roll here and there dont seem to have this problem. This is not applicable to everyone but a lot of the people i know who used to play gacha never spent on it, at most they just bought monthly passes and that wasnt even regular.
The more i read the more i feel like he pinpointing the addicted ones, the ones who let temptation make them spend cash which fine he can. But he wording make me feel like he envelopes all of the user who played these gacha as those people who isn’t all that if at all.
@@phuct4980 His wording does envelope all of the users since all of the people that play these games are subjected to manipulative tactics, regardless of the level of addiction or lack of addiction entirely. Because everyone is subject to manipulative tactics, its impossible to tell if/how much purchases made by people were due to actual enjoyment/value, or manipulation. I'd imagine its a combination of both. In this way, its not a great idea to see people as "not addicted" and "addicted" since people can be manipulated into purchasing things or spending a lot of time without being addicted. Even if people are casual players and spend no or little money, they are still subjecting themselves to manipulative tactics, which, at best is annoying, at worst can lead to addiction, and somewhere in the middle leads to people making purchases and time investments they later realize they should not have done. This is why these mechanics are bad for consumers regardless of what type of player you are.
@@phuct4980Yeah, in a lot of videos like these, they often focus on the people who got carried away. They can end up making it seem like that is the norm for players, which it isn’t.
Friends, the point Yakko makes by "focusing on the people who get carried away" is that *these people are manipulated to be carried away in the first place* These games are *designed* to facilitate its userbase's absurd spending. Yakko specifically makes the point in this video that of course you can enjoy the game without getting to that extreme, but the fact that you need to advertise to your friends the need for exceptional self control in order to healthily enjoy these games is "fucking bleak" (or some other similar expression he uses). The fact that you and I can control that impulse doesn't excuse the fact that the game is throwing reminders and psychologically optimized propaganda to syphon you of as much of your money as they can, all the time, during its own gameplay. That's what predatory means.
I'm not young, and probably considered extremely disciplined in personal finance (have almost maximum credit score, no revolving debts, and have financial assets). Yet I play a couple of these games, lol. I mostly just buy monthly pass ($5). I think of it as a subscription fee really. I actually enjoy saving (habit from real life, I guess) in the game, and be selective about characters I want. There's satisfaction in that. Usually when I get everything in a game, I am done and drop it. Now, I think these kind of vids are more welcome than gacha pulling videos. Players really tend to joke about going bankrupt for gacha characters, and some newer players might feel justified that spending willy-nilly is normal. Being educated about how gacha might get you is key. The thing is game is indeed can be played for free. Say, you have no money, no credit card, well, you can still play it. Something about most western studios is that they really want to both charge you for the game, and also sell stuff in-game.
@@TheHopperUKtime, interaction in the community and spreading the words through word of mouth. That the price just like everyone playing a game they like, they will spread it to their friend ect. That basic human interaction.
What annoys me, is that even if reviewers explain how gacha system works, they often skip comparison between gacha system and regular microtransactions seen in all sort of games. All you said about FOMO and holding player in the game's ecosystem can be said about many non gacha games. Dailies and weeklies, battlepasses, overpriced item-stores even in games with subscription models, overpriced expansions locking people out of content. By that metric are gachas that evil? I'm not genshin fan but if you ask me to choose between monetization like Destiny's (which is worst offender of current monetization) and Genshin, I'll choose Genshin's every time.
gachas *are* that evil, and so are other predatory monetization systems - it's just that the metaphorical frog has been so thoroughly boiled people are just fine with it now
@@fiona9891 i do feel crazy sometimes as someone who grew up with gen 5 and 6 gaming and avoid these sort of games like the plague, and yet watch everyone around me embrace them so heartily.
I'm gonna be honest here, I really don't understand the "everything draw you to put on money" thing. tbh, my first experience in gaming like out of the classics like subway surfer candy crush and all was genshin impact and since then I've consumed other gacha games like hsr and infinity Nikkie but not even once have I had the urge to put money (even tho I don't have any) and had always been f2p. And I think (not sure tho) the principal reason is that I have an immersion problem. No matter how much I find a story interesting, attached to a character, my brain just automatically draw the line between reality and fiction without letting me fully experience it making it so I play the games but don't want that much character, the moment I have a minimum amount of damage that makes me not spend more than 5 minutes in a fight I just chill out. If I lose my 5050, I either keep grinding until I get it or the banner is over and move on or wait next rerun so...yeah it's difficult to relate to anything for me
What pisses me off about these games the most is that when I was still a factory worker, I was consistently around labour workers that earn paycheck to paycheck (what that means is that it's either just enough or hell, even not enough to survive every month, so like around 800 a month etc. a lot of them work overtime for extra money for this reason). And during break time, or the few minutes before our shift, I would see them playing these games, collect their dailies, spend money on digital goods, etc. I myself have spending problems, I get that, I'm trying to work on that myself, it probably came from unearthed childhood trauma. But to slap YOU JUST DON'T HAVE ENOUGH SELF CONTROL excuse to people who are living from paycheck to paycheck and they of ALL people know they don't have the luxury to save money, much less spend it, is literally avoiding the problem or pushing the blame to someone else instead of actually doing something about it. (Also before anyone asks why there are people earning less than minimum wage, I live in Asia, there's no such thing as a minimum wage here. Love your content btw yakko, burn the fucking anime girl cardboard let's gooo)
Its funny. I have emulator on my phone and people were asking me how my games dont have adds. People are stupid and companys abuse this. Yeah playing black and white 2 on phone, while the sucker next to me gets interupted by a add every 30 sec its funny to watch.
@@timogul These people would've never spend it on alcohol in the first place though, or cigarettes, or any other type of addiction for that matter. Because as I've said, they already DON'T HAVE THE MONEY to even try to indulge in these things. That's the whole problem I have with these types of games, it is showing hell, sometimes even giving a new type of addiction to people who wouldn't have been exposed to it or got into any other types of addiction in the first place It's not shown or regulated enough for it to be appeared as bad, hell it's even normalized and in a positive light
@@lumination0923 That's a false theory though. There are no people who "otherwise wouldn't have gotten an addiction." Addicts will find an addiction, the only way they won't is by deliberately choosing not to. Anyone who spends more money than they could afford on a game is not going to save that money by the game not existing, it only means that they would find some other venue to spend that same money. And there are far more harmful options out there. It's only "normalized" because for 99.9999% of people who play it, it Is perfectly normal and harmless. Even water can be dangerous if you drink too much of it, that doesn't mean we should restrict access to water for everyone.
@@lumination0923 That's a false theory though. There are no people who "otherwise wouldn't have gotten an addiction." Addicts will find an addiction, the only way they won't is by deliberately choosing not to. Anyone who spends more money than they could afford on a game is not going to save that money by the game not existing, it only means that they would find some other venue to spend that same money. And there are far more harmful options out there. It's only "normalized" because for 99.9999% of people who play it, it Is perfectly normal and harmless. Even water can be dangerous if you drink too much of it, that doesn't mean we should restrict access to water for everyone.
This is why consumer protections are important, we really shouldn't be allowing, let alone tolerating exploitation of addictive tendencies to rob people of their life's savings, at the very least we need to an 18+ rating on all of these because we've known for centuries that addiction severely fucks up developing brains.
The issue with regulation is that it just takes too long. Even if entities like the EU actually implement consumer protection, they usually take years and by then the games industry has found the next highly unethical cashcow, or finds some loop hole around the new regulation
@@adams3560 "but actually its not real gambling because you're not losing money" miss me with this bs. It is very real gambling aimed at young developing minds. It's very additive, everyone loses all the time in those games that give you useless crap when you pull majority of the time. It's funny how in gi you get absolutely useless 3* weapons you can't do anything with then you use gatcha mechanic. And ppl are ok with that.
Genshin was my first "real" gacha and I instantly fell in love with it. I wanted to play Zelda BotW, because it looked super casual and colorful, but then I learned it's a Switch exclusive (I had no idea about that at the time, I don't follow console stuff, I didn't even know it's made by Nintendo), so I was super bummed. And then, out of nowhere, I found Genshin, which was like a dream come true, it was EXACTLY what I wanted to play. I was instantly hit with extremely high quality and unseen level of polish. I used to play a lot of F2P games, so I had some comparison, and let me tell you, Genshin did NOT feel like a crappy F2P made to just milk you for money, but more like an indie from a very experienced and passionate developer (like The Witness). The stylized visuals were amazing, the animations - super smooth, the controls - responsive. Usually, in F2P games controls feel very... blocky, clumsy, just weird in general, it just doesn't feel right. But here It was as smooth as Guild Wars 2, which I used to play for some time, when it was still a B2P. I was totally captivated by Genshin's world, how pretty it was and how relaxed I felt when I was exploring. The BGM was the first indicator that I'm dealing with something serious. You don't hear that kind of quality of music in F2P games. What I mean is, you know, I like dubstep and I like orchestra. Skrillex sounds great to me, but he can't hold a candle to Mozart, you know what I mean? It's both great, but the classical music is just something else, man. And the more you're listening to it, the more you realize how complex are these compositions. If you have any idea about music, you'll know what I'm taking about, it's just a different caliber of music. Same with old-school big band jazz - like, man, I really do love modern electronic music, but no one in their right mind would claim that it's superior to big band jazz. EDM can be VERY catchy, but it's also VERY simple. Take Deadmau5 for example, I really do love his beats, but when you compare it to classical scores, it's just a different league. Developers just don't bother, usually, to put that much effort into score, especially in F2P games. So that got my attention right away, because it's a clear indicator of quality. And then I saw a few in-game cutscenes made in form of animated drawings, and that was so cool as well. I very quickly started to appreciate the artistic value of Genshin. It's not just a game, it's an experience. It's basically an interactive anime that allows players to play their part in the events, and it's so incredibly cool. Not to mention the open world that gives you so much freedom. Wherever you look and see something interesting, you can actually go there. You can go there right away, right after starting the game. There are very few areas that can be seen but can't be reached at the beginning. And then you start to discover everything and you learn that there's even more to see! There are caves, undergrounds, and even entire separate regions that lie outside the overworld map. As I wrote all that, I realized I kinda lost the plot and I'm not sure what I really wanted to say. I just love Genshin. It helped me fight my inner demons, it gives me a peaceful place where I can always return to, and Mondstadt feels like home to me. But what I'm most grateful for is the fact that Genshin motivated me, indirectly, to start pursuing artistic career. I started to learn to draw because of Genshin. More precisely, because of Honkai Impact 3rd, which I discovered only because I played Genshin. And for that, I'll be forever praising Genshin. It unlocks creativity in people. I see so many talented individuals doing Genshin fan arts, playing Genshin music on various instruments, doing Genshin cosplays, doing Genshin animations, cooking Genshin food... It's such an incredibly inspiring piece of work. I don't believe there will be another game like that in our lifetime. Some may come close, but Genshin will be remembered as World of Warcraft of gacha games. It's revolutionary.
Wow, your love for Genshin Impact really shines through in your writing! It’s clear the game has had a huge positive impact on your life, and it’s inspiring to hear how it motivated you to pursue art. I think it’s amazing how much creativity and joy it’s brought to so many people, yourself included. For my part, I enjoyed Genshin for a few months too, but I eventually felt the gameplay leaned a bit too heavily on gathering primogems, and over time, it started to feel a bit shallow to me. Still, it’s great to see how much it’s meant to you and others!
@@HanzoTookTheWrongShuriken Thanks for reading it all, haven't thought anyone would actually bother to go through all that wall of text xD It's true, it had a huge impact on my life. I recommend you to come back when you can find a moment to spare. Try to ignore the gacha aspect and just play through the stories, and see all the new regions and listen to the new music. There's so much to see and admire, it's mind-boggling. If someone told me a few years ago that this is the quality we'll get in a free game, I'd have called them some funny names for sure, because it would've sounded too good to be true.
7:59 As someone who sunk 450 hours into Limbus Company, let me say this. Yes, its one of the best gachas available in terms of the "hidden costs" that is to say, its geared towards low spenders, and the game was made with gameplay and player friendliness in mind first and foremost. I have unlocked like 35+ something IDs (alternative character forms that come from alternative universes) and 20+ something special powers without spending a single dime on them across 1.7 years now, and the only money I spent (a total of 60$ from June 2023 to December 2024) was on season passes because I want to support the devs for making one of my favorite franchises (The Project Moon verse as we call it) atm. Hell, last week was pure comedy where I pulled THREE 3% special power drops back to back while trying to pull for a character (mission failed successfully?) before finally pulling it off. They give you ample amounts of free currency from weekly maintenance compensations, celebrations, special banner starts, and your dungeon runs. The amount of in game resources is very minimal, with only 2 being relevant for upgrades, and unlocking new characters is possible from beating the pass and grinding the dungeon, as well as the occasional pulls you do. The gameplay is also one of the most unique turn based RPGs you will ever play, with its gameplay designed for people who are psychopaths who enjoy reading (such as myself), with one of the most unique settings ever put in a videogame, an AWESOME storyline genuinely, and a REALLY distinct artstyle that stands out in the sea of similiarties that is gacha gaming artstyles (Seriously, could you even tell Ananta or whatever it was called is a different game from Everness to Neverness, and that both WEREN'T made by MiHoYo?) And I'm speaking here as a gacha game hater who refuses to play these games out of principle. I refuse to engage with their predatory mechanics and other things these games love to do (even if ironically gacha games have gotten fairer about it compared to non gacha microtransaction riddled hellholes), same as I do with any free to play game that wants me to pay up or suffer. I will never promote or pay for such shitty systems. Hell, like I said earlier, I never spent money on the games gacha, I spent it on the season passes. So why am I typing all this out? To say that, there WAS a cost in all of this. My time. Remember this, these games operate on live services, and to this day, no joke, not a SINGLE gacha game ever "concluded" properly if you get what I mean. They never finished their stories, and always have ended on getting cancelled before making it to the finish line. Limbus Company has a set plan of going for *EIGHT MORE YEARS* before hitting their end goal. That is ambitious but I dont know if they can ever get that far. For all of its fairness in all of its systems, that time investment is the real cost. As a fan of the developers and their games and comics, that time is a real investment. I WANT to see what happens, I WANT to know how it goes, what they do. That is my choice and my grave to dig. If you got this far in reading, thank you for your time, and please consider your choices carefully when engaging with these games. There is ALWAYS some cost.
Rather than digging you own grave, you could say you are digging up an already burried grave? Joke aside, I do have the same feeling of giving money and my time because I actually enjoy the story rather wishing for a reward. I think my bigggest investment was spending on books that the character are inspired by than in the game. I hope no further bad development decisions are made over the course of these years because I enjoy hearing new players reaching last chapters in no time.
Genuine question, what is the source on Limbus wanting to run for another 8 years? I'm a very avid Project Moon cultist myself, and tend to read whatever communication PM puts out, but I haven't seen anything definitive on how long Limbus will run for.
@@meeszijlstra5426the CEO does livestreams where he announces future plans. In that, he’s said that Limbus is modeled after the Dante trilogy (Dante’s Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso). Right now we’re in inferno- there are 12 main characters for limbus and each of them are going to get 1 focus chapter before moving onto purgatorio, then paradiso. Each focus chapter (“season”) takes 4-6 months to produce. 6 months x 12 characters x 3 books = 6ish years. Right now we’re only just now coming up on season 6 by the way, of 36 total. Also, the CEO revealed in a live stream that he has his own personal account that he puts his own money into, which I think is part of why it’s gacha system is one of the most ethical ones on the market right now.
Something a lot of gachas do, that Limbus Company dodges through its narrative design, is that they lock access to characters behind the gacha. This is an easy way to make people want to gamble on cool/attractive characters, but it also shoots their story telling capacity in the foot. Limbus Company on the other hand has a cast of characters that's pre-set from the start, and the gacha only gives alternative powersets/variants for those characters. (Think a cosmetic + an alternate move set.) This is combined with a system where any of these variants can be bought with a non-premium currency, without engaging with the gacha at all and regardless of whether they are currently offered in a banner or not. (I reckon about one in three variants is gained this way instead of the gacha.) The overall result is a far lower degree of FOMO, and the kind of player that would have the compulsive drive to get a certain character has paths that don't involve endlessly spinning the wheel. However, even with that accounted for it's far from perfect. Comparing it to a non-gacha game from the same developer (Library of Ruina) that has some similarity in mechanics, it definitely suffers some from the genre. An example is the inability for the dev to have a clear expectation of what IDs the player has available at any particular point.
@@adams3560 Literally the best decision they made. Don Quixote, Heathcliff, Yi Sang or any other Sinner's development would hit NOWHERE near as hard (Be it their Canto or individual progression between Cantos) if they simply choose to subdivide their allocated screen time between a limbillion other characters as is common in other Gachas. What good would come from having so many characters with none of them being anywhere as comprehensive or well-explored as Don or Heathcliff?
@@adams3560 Actually don't think that's accurate. There are still characters outside the core cast that turn up, and if you think about it, those are not that different from how other gachas have a character turn up a bit for the story that advertises them, only to disappear again after because the dev can't expect every player to have them. Like, just for one there are the characters from each sinners past that play a role in their canto's story. It's not unprecedented for gachas to have a smaller core cast that does get consistent appearances and repeated appearances, but usually that is a rather small number. LC has ~14 such characters, which allows for more interpersonal dynamics and a consistent pace of characters getting development without one single character going through the wringer all the time. (Which isn't to say that they couldn't do better with what they have, but it's not bad.)
Honkai Impact 3rd used to do that a lot in the past, not so much anymore, sadly. Back in the old days, it was Mei, Kiana, Bronya, Theresa, Fu Hua, Himeko, and that was pretty much it for the most part; they were simply getting new battlesuits as the game progressed - all in accordance to the events in the story. When a character got a power up in the story, some awakening or something, it then appeared as a new, separate character in gacha, even though the character itself was the same, just with different moves in combat and new outfit. I liked that a lot; it's what allowed the original HI3rd cast to remain relevant for so long, and made people attached to them. The whole story was centered around Mei, Kiana, and Bronya.
Title should be change to "The real cost Modern Monetization" and then this video as a whole will be more valid topic. Modern games in general are created with monetization being a core pillar.
You know it's kind of wild that people spend possibly 10x the price of a regular game for things that would just be there by default in any game from the PS2 and back.
I could be off base but I imagine it's due to most people that cough up the money do it in small doses that slowly adds up over time Like if you see a full priced game you might be skeptical about it being worth the money Then you come across a free game and it's surprisingly enjoyable Maybe I'll spend a couple dollars here and there and then one day without realizing you end up wracking a huge bill In the comments there are people that admit they spend close to 1k or people in high school spending like 600 on one game Personally the max I've ever spent on a gacha was like 5 dollars several years ago due to having a little extra left on a gift card
You could argue they spend 10x on one game. Football gamers will spend that amount money yearly on multiple iteration of the game. Tbf I spend lesser in gacha games than console games.
@@lanadelsultana yeah but the argument is the cost. I could play Elden Ring for hundreds (my currency.) or play Genshin for free. And football gamers bought the game and still gacha in it which is worst.
Sunk cost really keeps people playing. I've put so much time (not so much money though) into genshin it feels like a waste to get rid of the game to me. These types of games can be very hard to let go.
@@Beard789It has changed and progressed over the past 5 years though. There’s so many cool characters now, many regions to explore, new mechanics, new mini games, and the story is approaching its climax. I’m enjoying it more than ever.
I don't know, I've quit games I've put a lot of time and money into before, MMOs and mobile games, and that's because they reached a point where they just weren't fun anymore. With games like Genshin, I keep playing them because I'm still having fun, because I expect to continue to have fun for the forseeable future, and while the daily/weekly mechanics might give me a specific incentive to log in _each_ day instead of sporadically, I actually like that, because it keeps me from dropping off like I often do with games that release DLCs months after launch.
Boy, I feel all the pains you shared. To this day I feel I'm missing some big event for not interacting with gacha games. But the moment I try one and present me with the gacha mechanic and the shop, I have Vietnam flashbacks and uninstall the game. And is a shame that so many good stories, characters and (sometimes) gameplay is lost because of that. Most recently I wanted to try Heaven Burns Red, but at a point I felt rushed to end the main story and just disengaged completely. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, I want that Mym figure. Please tell me where you bought it. I miss Dragalia Lost ;-;
Honestly, once you get past the smoke and mirrors you would realize that like what people have said, you're missing out on basically nothing at all. It's like midnight releases back in the days of Halo and Call of Duty, or the promotional campaigns for Blizzard games during Blizzcon back in the 2000-2010s era. All of it rely on you already being a fan of them, and if you're not a fan, then it basically amounts to nothing for you at the end of the day.
7:53 The Limbus Company community jokes that the devs have no idea how to make a gacha game, and that we *definitely shouldn't tell them*. If they learn, they might start to be horrible manipulative bastards like all the other gacha devs. They're used to being an indie studio from their work on their previous two games, and I honestly worry that if they begin to understand the power in their hands, they'll crush us all.
To be honest, they are well aware of how devoted their community is. A lot of choices are made to reference players discussed elements and even memes; I mean, we got Mili to make music solely thanks to sone dude's amv of Lobco. In past, they struggled with multiple situations bringing them to nigh bankruptcy... and not once did they use those as excuse to rise prices. Last year they made it so you can only buy BP for lunacy - to prevent people from exploiting system, and immediately introduced exact lunacy pack, so you don't spend a single dime more than before. They removed VA from intervallos to speed up production, suggesting they might redub them in future - and there we are, their promises kept. I have been with PMoon long before even Ruina was announced. My worship is cultlike as not only their practices, but also stories in their games are what I genuinely believe a cure to gaming industry.
Eh.. I played Limbus Company during in-between my time of playing Reverse1999 and Zenless Zone Zero. And honestly, as a Free-To-Play player that doesn't buy anything in any gacha game ever, its experience in terms of pace and progression is not too different compared to the "horrible manipulative bastards" that you're referring to. Besides, the developers already developed a superior version of Limbus Company in almost every single way. It's called Library of Ruina, and it just needs you to pay once, unlike Limbus that demands you to login daily, and buy the Battle Pass monthly for the optimal experience. TLDR: Limbus Company is overrated af. It's still a gacha game at the end of the day.
@crowraterohale Library of Ruina was alright, but it didn't do any of the most interesting things that Limbus excels at - it has much less story, worse graphics, an unpolished combat system, etc. Which is to be expected, since it was a finite project by a small indie studio instead of something that could be added to and improved infinitely. Live service games have that going for them, it's the same reason that a game like Warframe has some of the best story out there - years of iteration and resources. I don't necessarily think it's the right way to do things, in fact I would argue that it opens a game up to more pitfalls than ever, but if those pitfalls are avoided, it can do wonders. As for the progression, I've gotta say I don't see what you see at all. The differences are insane. Like, I've played most gachas out there, and they always have some horrid system that makes your units never perfect - you always need to either limit break them by pulling them multiple times, attach statistically impossible rerolled 'relic' items to them, you need to level their skills separately so even when maxed they aren't really maxed, etc. Thus you never feel like you're actually experiencing the game properly unless you're a whale spending thousands of dollars and hours. Limbus, uniquely as far as I've seen, just makes your units be their objectively perfect selves after you level them up and Uptie them. No skill leveling, no limit breaks, no nothing. It just works similarly to a normal video game. That couldn't be more different from a regular gacha game, and if they ever changed that, I'd leave, as just one example. I definitely don't think Limbus is perfect, and hell, I'd drop it in a heartbeat if we magically found a way to stop all even slightly abusive game design tactics and that had to include shutting down Limbus. It definitely isn't on the same level as the other gachas, though.
@@A6by I see that we have different perspectives when it comes to progression. Progression for me, is how able you are to clear and beat all the content in the game, regardless of whether your unit is "complete" or not. While games like Limbus Company, Arknights, Fate Grand Order, and Dragalia Lost do offer little to no minimal progression gains when you get duplicates/copies of characters, the Hoyo-style games with major-effect duplicates (Genshin, HSR, ZZZ, Reverse1999, Girls Frontline 2) make it so that all content is clearable with little vertical investment, as long as you know what you're doing. Between playing Reverse1999, Snowbreak Containment Zone, and Limbus Company, it took me roughly 2 months as a F2P player to clear their endgame contents. One uses a unique business model, and the other two uses a Hoyo-lite model. Anyway, I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just that for me, my experience in progression pace was not that different. All of them are still subject to timegating/gacha mechanics.
There is nothing "fleeting" about live service games. They can very well be playable at the end of their lives if the publishers release the server binary, yet they choose not to because "fuck consumer rights"
In ZZZ you missed that there is batteries that speed up your progress. + there is usually some shit got for a story and so on. + for 3 times bosses - you can grind them with stamina too. 3 in a week - it's for free. and you can do it in a easy way for 40 sec to just got a item.
Thank you for making this in depth vid!!! These games are so intense and when you took those papers and the book "addiction by design" to further break them down this vid will be one of my most recommended. Video games should be fun! I wish they didn't try to manipulate people. This video alongside People Make Games - Roblox is worth the watch.
When comparing Infinity Nikki to all the other games mentioned in the video, it really seems to have ditched some of the most toxic elements of gacha games. It doesn't lock abilities behind "characters", and even the clothing that you can get from paid banners only have different visual effects and serve no ingame function. Also Nikki has no lewd content or characters and does not cater to that audience. You will unlock all abilities through gameplay, and the gameplay is more animal crossing adjacent and combat focuses on matching different clothes, where ofc higher star rate makes game easier, but you can level up any clothes to get further in the game. From my experience as a player, it has also been quite generous with f2p and gives a lot of prenium currency (in my experience with 1 month played, I have been given atleast 200 free pulls) which you can use to unlock higher star rated clothes from banners. The currency system is very confusing, but I feel like the game let's you plan what you want and how much you want to work or pay for it. I just wanted to leave my comment as I really valued the information in the video, but there wasn't much information on Infinity Nikki's system, which is understandable as it's a new game and maybe not in the interest of the creator. As a player who has "drunk the cool-aid" of Nikki, it really seems that Nikki devs have found their niche in the gacha gaming that was unfullfilled.
With how rapidly these systems are systems are evolving and how little pushback there seems to be for these kinds of things nowadays, the news headline "Fortnite Itemshop Gacha introduced" could drop tomorrow and I wouldn't even flinch at this point. Hate to get all boomer but what the hell happened to the sentiment of "10$ golden horse armor" being ridiculed to hell and back, feels like people just genuinely arent having discussion like this anymore which is shame.
i mean is fortnite really that much better when a skin you want could pop up in tomorrow's shop and if you don't have enough vbucks you're pushed to buy more to get the skin in case it doesn't appear in the shop for months or years at a time
A lot of creators at the moment say Infinity Nikki is just cosmetics. But the clothes have stats and you need to level them with currency, so far mainly available through energy and the battlepass. And of course the endgame styling contests give you a good amount of diamonds so you can pull more. But the current gacha outfits have an advantage in those limited time contests, making you save time/energy leveling if you get them. So far the abilities attached to the outfits have been only cosmetic. But in a game that is all about aesthetics, you could argue that is sort of pay to win.
thats because nikki IS pay2win series, because its ALL about "cosmetics" to use in various activities within the game. take a look for example pso2 - 95% of its gacha system is also cosmetic, but those cosmetics are just that - simply cosmetics. no stats or anything, just flexing a new bling to people.
Infinity Nikki is not cosmetics only because in this case the "cosmetics" actually do affect the story and end game and is the whole point. It's different from buying skins for characters like in League of Legends, it's similar to gacha in Genshin Impact where the premium character have more ease of completing exploration, in the case of Infinity Nikki it's better to complete the Mira Crown and Styling Challenges. But Infinity Nikki series in general always started as gacha for fancy costume, that being said they are giving the miracle outfits which are the free 5* costumes that everyone can get.
My Friend has a child that is around 10 Years old and grew up on Fortnite and such.... I was playing Animal Crossing on the Switch with my Child (3 Years) and we had to get some Milage Points (Points you get for doing things like "chops 10 trees" or "visit x Friends") and he asked why we do not just pay for them. I first did not understand what he meant and then he was in total shock that you can not buy those points in Animal Crossing. It is really scary how gaming will turn out in 10+ years and i do not the games and more the players.
Great video. The biggest thing I'm surprised you didn't mention though (if you did whoops I missed it) is that End of Service generally means a total erasure of any purchases. While some games do get permanent versions with all content available at EoS, this is rare and very much not normalised. As a big Granblue player and general gacha-enjoyer, the main thing that's kept me from spending a penny on things aside from just not wanting to commit to any 'gambling' is that any investment I make in a game like this can be taken away from me without a single thing I can do about it.
Investment? I think you are seeing it the wrong way. It's an expenditure for entertainment, not an investment. Do you ever go to the cinema? Maybe a bar? a theme park? These sort of things in which you are spending money for entertainment have an expiry date. After the movie is done you only keep the memories. After you get wasted and the bar closes you only keep the memories. After the theme park closes and you are rushed out you only keep the memories. Buying a physical game and playing it is an entertainment expenditure in which you could make some money back, but you are still mostly spending.
Surprise, but you dont own any game. You are indefinitely leasing a license to play. Any game you have in your library can be shut down any second and you will lose it. Never see any money you spend in or on a game as an investment. You dont own anything and you are not legally allowed to sell it or even have the files on your PC after your license is revoked. It is very similar to renting a console. You spend money for your fun for a certain period. That's all there is to it.
I mean that's technically the same for every game on steam too... you pay for the license to play, not for the game itself. At any moment steam can "EoS" and you lose your library. The time of physically owned copies that aren't just licenses is actually a one small period of time in the middle of gaming history. Imo it's best just not to worry about it too much, pay for the immediate experience rather than any permanent aspect that will outlast you, focusing on your present. That way you'll always be satisfied with your purchases, never feel pressured to spend, and enjoy everything you can to its max potential
Spending money in a game isn't an investment. That World of Warcraft subscription fee ($15) and buying a $15 of pulls in a gacha game are gone just like watching a movie for $15.
@@annaairahala9462 This is a genuinely awful take. What you’re basically saying is that “you don’t own anything and you will be happy, also don’t think about the gambling part too much 🥰”, especially when the license to play bs got Steam users upset anyways. If paying is not owning you may as well just pirate. (Not like companies could do anything about piracy either. There’s always another Russian/Brazilian torrenting site.)
I don't think the goal is to get every character. There is great joy to be had from saving up for future characters and then being quaranteed to get the ones you really want. Also what these games give the most is excitement for future chapters, with bursts of gameplay and story along the year. Steady updates like this were not feasable on previous MMOs I've played.
2 interesting cases: 1) when a live update type game simply doesn't take off, it's actually sad. I love the gameplay behind Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt, which is a bit like overwatch but with goth fashion add ons and vampire abilities. But it simply was too niche for mainstream, so it couldn't survive as a live updating game. This is honestly devastating for the niche who did enjoy it, as the devs were forced to stop making new content. What does it mean for the future of games when good games aren't able to make it because they Don't manipulate the mainstream enough? 2) animal crossing pocket camp recent came to the "end" of its live update life. The amount of furniture in that game surpasses the amount in New Horizons by leaps and bounds- but the issue was always that it was locked behind gacha and events. But because they were ending live updates, they recently released "Pocket Camp Complete" which for $12 changes the gacha system from one based on real currency to one you obtain in game through quests exclusively and unlocks all of the premium features. Because animal crossing has always been a kind of "daily play" style game, it doesn't feel terrible to have to check in and participate in seasonal events to get seasonal furniture. That's part of the charm. So I wonder if this kind of End Game will be something other developers also implement. But it's also hard to keep a live update game going without constant revenue, like in the case of Bloodhunt, which I suspect is only barely paying the server fees. So maybe not :(
What I've noticed with hoyoverse recently, is that they love just straight up copying stuff from DMC, e.g. that one character that looks like Dante's dmc3 devil trigger and that one character that literally just has Bury the light as their theme but in an entirely different language. 8:24 - 8:30 is literally just a copy of a red queen combo from dmc4/dmc5. 8:53 is just judgement cut but with guns??
Gonna be the nerd here and correct 17:00 Although it says you only have 3 remaining rewards, those are actually the weekly free claims you get for these "Bosses" you can actually claim their reward drops with stamina until you run out, it costs 60 iirc.
Given how his video contains footage of banners that have been long gone for months I assume that part was scripted / recorded when that wasn't the case
A bit of what he says or shows is in bad faith. Like when he said you can't create wind currents without Venti...there's a gadget that does what he does. You can also create them easily in Mondstadt. 47:31 Was a clip of what appears to show Genshin not allowing you to explore as part of the gacha experience when the context is that the barrier is relevant to its quest. Complaining about the shown gachas having bad stories is very subjective. I thought I was watching Dogpack404 for a second
For me (as a game designer) the real problem with gacha games is that the design of the game is always A gacha first and then a game, the gacha is always the core of the experience and everything is design around that, from the monetization the game has to sometimes the gameplay loop
Yeah but genshin and many gachas that came after only got so popular because they decided to put actual gameplay in the game like if you compare azur lane gameplay to ZZZ you would never think they would both be gachas
Except that just isn't true anymore in modern gacha games. Almost every new gacha game has to put the gameplay first, or else they will fail. Gacha mechanics by themselves is not enough to draw players in an every expanding market that has it every where you look. Especially since Genshin basically became a template for Gacha mechanics, it's literally almost all the same as well.
I don't wanna sound bias or anything, but honestly this is why i love Kuro Games. Both Pgr and Wuwa are the opposite: Game first, gacha second. I've also heard similiar stories towards Limbus Company.
@@Otherface The games were not created for the games. Anyone who wants to create a game would be ashamed to make something gacha. It is massive companies who want to make money and hire people, which they order to create a game so that they can make money off the gambling. The gameplay was never a goal. It is a means to an end and that end is the money in your pocket. Don't delude yourself into thinking otherwise. Think of it like EA making the next Fifa ultimate team. Sure there are people that work there that are talented. But they are all cogs in Maschine to create the most revenue. It is the same amount of artistic integrity as that.
I used to date someone that fell into the trap that is gacha games. We moved in together but soon after she was addicted to Genshin. She literally barely played the game itself, yet she spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars every single month to unlock new characters and just talk to other players to get compliments. She eventually went bankrupt and couldn't afford anything. After that experience I've had nothing but disdain for the genre.
@@Koutouhara oh for sure. It wasn't entirely the game's fault but unlike lots of other mediums for her to get addicted to, gacha games have very little regulations or restrictions compared to real life gambling or substance abuse like Yakko mentioned in the video. These games being so easy to exploit people is one of the main reason why gacha was the poison of choice for her.
@@orionhart4744if the only thing she did with the game was spend money to pull characters and get compliments, it would have happened with anything, not just Genshin. Genshin is one of the least exploitative gacha games, since not only does it have a guaranteed system, but it also doesn't bombard you with microtransactions doesn't have any content locked behind specific characters. You can complete pretty much everything in the game with the starter characters and the ones given for free later on.
I exited my gacha-game addiction around three years ago. Since then, all I see when new loot-box/gacha games pop up is the same core with a different shell. It's almost funny being able to skim through a game and see the common players: general upgrade materials, separate "ascension" materials, premium currency (to buy from the gacha or to buy gacha "tickets"), and common currency (completely useless additional cost to upgrade/ascension). "Yup," I would think, "I've played this game before." Bonus points for being able to let the game fight for you and for unlocking 2x, 3x, etc., speed as player-level progressions. Looking back at the various games I've played, the only time I saw a unique divergence from the path was with the Symphogear gacha game (no longer running). Its unique aspect was, unsurprisingly, in an extra restrictive mechanic: separate stamina. There were different types of levels, and each one would use a different type of stamina. Each of them also regenerated at different rates. It felt so transparently malicious to me, but I guess that's why "hindsight is 20/20."
Hey! I'm from SEA and played Soo much gacha game event before Genshin. My take is if you played a gacha game please don't FOMO. As a f2p, nowadays gacha game characters are easy to obtain, in one patch you can get enough currency to get one character. So planning your saving and enjoy the game at your own pace 😊
i feel the same way in that infinity nikki SHOULD'VE JUST BEEN A NORMAL GAME!!! i remember playing it and feeling like...man...this should've just been a fully paid game instead of a free to play microtransaction game. it's too good in concept to be a mobile gacha 😭😭
In my head I always pushed back at the 'games are addictive' thing because : They end! Like songs, movies or shows. However that's traditional games now that it's clear we're rushing to an age of majority forever games (live services), there's no beating the addictive allegations.
Gacha games are the gaming equivalent of earworms iirc we like finishing things and it gets stuck in our mind when things are left unfinished. The fact that a majority of gacha games have no endings story-wise feel very intentional so the players will always have it in the back of their mind. i personally got fed up with it and realized i could have finished actual complete games or improved on my other hobbies in the time i spent grinding shit on genshin impact
@@PsycheTrance65Some gacha games do have endings though. Most end up shutting down before they get there though. While others have temporary endings, like FGO. The game’s story wrapped up, but the game was so popular that they then decided to continue the story with a part 2. Not everyone likes finishing games also. I’ve had many cases where I finish a game and then feel sad that it’s over, there’s nothing more to see or do. Live service games remove that problem.
These games only end when the publishers come out with those End of Service statements on social media. Even then, fans will still make their own private servers and continue playing there
First of, great video. I don't know why, I keep watching your videos from time to time, even though I rarely agree with the points you make (in your opinion pieces I mean) but I do, and I'm glad I watched this one, because it feels well researched and lived; and the scripts covers the subject in a well structured way. Second, the part 4 "Genshin's Impact" is really where I'm at with these games. I installed Genshin (on a phone? or PS4, I can't remember) once just to see what the "free BotW" could do, was unimpressed by the art direction (gives me bottom of the barrel overdetails bad Tales Of Somethingia vibes), and quickly got bored by the actual game, thinking that if it wasn't free, people would probably never play it. And then I saw on TH-cam a variety of ads for Honkai Starrails and other stuff, and until you mentioned here that these are not from the same company, I assumed they were not only by the same devs, but also in the same universe, since they really all look the same. The only one I'd actually want to play if it were a premium game, and that makes me frustrated that it's not, is Infinity Nikki, because deep down I'm a gamer girl, and I love fashion in video games, and this looks super chill.
I do agree that “you can do everything for free” is a lame defense of gacha mechanics. I don’t think gacha is a (or even THE) solution to monetization but i also am okay with conceding that these kinds of live service games cost a lot of money to pump out new content for weekly and require a lot of love and upkeep (At least, colorful stage does. Never played a hoyoverse game so do take it with a grain of salt) I don’t rlly know a good alternative, so while I dislike gacha mechanics i can kinda understand why they exist, a one-time purchase just doesn’t make sense for live service games that require constant money to keep servers running, add new content, art, music, etc Honestly I think what some MMOs do is actually the best option: subscription to play Like yeah this will probably trigger the “buy everything and own nothing” ptsd of a lot of people but when you really think about it I think it’s fair. Pay once for infinite content forever is not exactly an enticing deal for developers. At first when my ex tried to get me into FF14 i was annoyed that it was a subscription just to play the game, but past the initial shock i can see why. I never rlly got into that game, I could never enjoy MMOs in general, but i think that model could maybe work for gacha games too (but if that tanks player numbers then make it free for the first few months or even free to play but subscriptions for cosmetics or something idk) ALSO on a related note to shareholder hate: i think the very concept of investors ruins gaming in general and everything they touch because number is expected to always go up no matter what even when market saturation is reached but yeah!!! we love the stock market and capitalism is 100% completely perfect!! oh well
The problem with subscription is that it requires commitment. One of the strong point of gacha games is the low commitment nature of them. Like outside story content, what you do in gacha is open the game, do limited attempt grinding for 5-10 minutes, and then turn it off. It's that low of a commitment.
@@DogginsFroggins ESO also did it well with the base game being free, the DLCs being purchasable separately and there also being an optional subscription that gives you access to all of the DLCs at once. Options can do wonders for all parties involved.
As a recovered Gacha game addict, the amount of times I've seen a game and gone "this looks interesting" only for it to be a gacha game is incredibly disheartening, but not as bad as the amount of big influencers and people who just... casually play and advertise the games without a thought about their impact or monetisation. It's quite terrifying.
Yup, I played a few minutes of honkai and thought "this would be better if it had a different leveling and story structure more akin to a proper jrpg like atlus or square makes"
Worst part is actual gaming publishers wanting a slice of the pie too. When I saw that Monster Hunter Explore trailer I was just like "If this budget just went into Wilds I'd probably like whatever came out of that 10x more than whatever this game has to offer me"
@@blookydoopy4593 So many times it's just like, "Hey, you have something awesome here. Just let me pay for it once and play it, please!" Everyone's broke, so this isn't sustainable. That's our only hope.
same honestly, i just quit a few months ago. while formating my hard drive, i want to install star rail again, but instead i downloaded armored core 6 and spend my money on model kits mow
Thank you for sharing your findings from research papers that aren't publicly available for free. Whenever I see a video about the costs of live service, and especially the gacha genre, I introspect. I'd like to share my story with these games. My first gacha game was Brave Frontier over a decade ago. I was always looking for games to play on my iPod Touch back in middle school. One friend and I played together with no money invested for a long time. It was fun to talk about what units we had, and the friend system allowed us to use each others' best units through an assist feature. Then my grandmother began to become ill. It was a slow process, and my biggest regret is that I didn't spend 100% of my time during visits talking with her and comforting her. As she got worse, I spent more time looking at my iPod. And to ignore the very heavy thoughts in my mind, I would spend money on the game. I began spending time during those visits spending money and grinding to build characters I got then and there. Brave Frontier had an auto battle feature, but I would watch the animations play instead of putting it down and talking to my family. I didn't realize this until years after her passing when the game reached EoS. It angers me that I still play gacha games after I've come to understand what I did in the past. I didn't play gacha games since Brave Frontier until all of my friends played Genshin Impact while we were all in lockdown. I'm the only one of that group that still plays. I also now play HSR and ZZZ. The characters and stories in the ladder two genuinely interest me, which is the worst part. After awhile, I started spending $15 each month on their respective daily login passes. I stopped three months ago on Genshin because I genuinely don't have much fun with the game anymore. HSR and ZZZ are just their respective genres without the friction. I don't need to truly engage with the systems to get dopamine. Another thing I think that should be noted is the speed at which you can finish the daily energy spending. The monotony "isn't that bad" between events and story updates because it takes like 10 minutes at most to spend energy and use the materials you got. That's a big thing for me, at least. I recently got into Nikke for about two months because of friends, but I just uninstalled it today as I watched this video. I don't want my days being sucked up by live service. I don't even want to play many other live service games in general because of how awful the engagement procuring is. I hope to, one day, be able to play these games only when I'm genuinely interested by a story update or an event.
Don’t be angry at yourself for what happened. The passing of a loved one is one of the most stressful and upsetting things that a person can go through, and everyone copes with it differently. I don’t think anyone would blame you for wanting an escape at times. There’s nothing wrong with you continuing to play that kind of game if you enjoy it.
I want to echo @adams3560 feelings here but also add that you can enjoy these things as long as you're mindful of how you're experiencing it. Now that you've gone through a negative experience in how you engaged with one of these games, if enjoying another one brings you happiness, go for it. But the key is to play it with the active awareness of how it *can* exploit people. If you feel like you're playing them too much, put them down for a bit, go do something else. If you want to spend money on them, think thrice before "opening your wallet". Reach the conclusion yourself on whether you can enjoy these games healthily. All of that being said, *fuck* these predatory designs in the first place.
i have been a big fan of the nikki franchise for a long time, but it’s meant i have spent a frankly egregious amount of time and money on all of the games. i know how predatory they are, but i still find myself going back. i find myself fascinated with their strange, never-ending lore and their innovative new outfits every time there’s a limited pavilion/banner. i can’t imagine how it will feel to young gamers growing up thinking this is the normal way to play games. it’s not. but alas, here we are.
The thing about Infinity Nikki is that, the dresses are 100% just for cosmetic purposes. The game itself is free, and the gacha is far more forgiving than it should've been. There's no combat system and the game is overall just a chill dressup game. The game emphasizes that you don't even need to spend money to get the outfit you want (unless if you want the 5* gacha ones) and you have no incentives to actually do it. Each costumes have 7-10 sets and acquiring them all is monumental work, only if you want them. They're just optional though.
Yeah right? A great way to pull the players in. Gacha is gacha there is no better gacha game or another, they are all evil systems made to make you addicted, be aware of that.
and the game's systems are hard coded to make you want the dresses, so? "they're just optional though," won't stop someone who wants the dopamine rush of rolling for EARRINGS.
"The game is literally just a chill DRESSUP game" + "The intentionaly design to be more appealing dresses (the main content that ppl want in a DRESSUP game) are aquired through gacha" Totally not exploitative you guys 😂
I was chatting with an acquaintance about gacha games the other day. I was playing Love Live within weeks of its initial release date in spring of 2013. There were maybe a dozen songs to choose from and 3 on daily rotation. Truly a nothingburger of a rhythm game, but I loved it. I even put off upgrading my phone because I had gotten so used to how holding it in its case affected gameplay. Was I aware it was just a gambling game dressed up with anime girls? Sort of. It never really hit me hard until there was one event for a Kotori card that I thought was really cute. I started working my way through the event, but it dawned on me pretty quickly that you would never have enough daily energy as a F2P player to ever complete it. I didn’t even want to start the mental math needed to figure out how much you’d need to spend to get to the end. And at the end was ONE card! Back then, you needed TWO of the same card to upgrade your characters into an idolized form (I feel like this has been changed…? I could be wrong). You’d need to do the event AGAIN, and spend double the amount of money. It really soured the mobile/gacha game genre for me. I came back to it maybe a year later when I had some extra money to spend, but I think I put in maybe $40 before realizing that it wasn’t worth it, and deleted the app entirely. I haven’t touched a gacha game since, and I feel like I dodged a nuclear bomb every time I see how complicated these games have gotten and how sneaky they are with taking your money.
And yet somehow every day I have to swallow the urge to download Marvel Rivals. Like there is no other genre I loathe more than a hero shooter (a genre we perfected in 2007 with TF2 and we just let it fall downhill from there), but… ough I like those guys! Those are the blorbos from my comics! 😭😭😭😭😭
The true danger of Gacha games is that the slippery slope is really dangerous. For instance I've put in a decent amount of hours into Genshin and it's a pretty good game that isn't that bad to play F2P or probably a bit better at like spend 10-15$ every month of two which is cheaper than a Netflix subscription. But, the true danger is first of all not everyone is as steeled to impulse spending as I am and what if you've slowly built up a collection of characters you like and enjoy and than the game you've played for years slowly starts becoming more predatory over time. In that case by the time you realize you're being boiled in a soup of micro-transations you might already be an entrenched game veteran with a bunch of sunk cost keeping you from seeing the obvious.
genshin would be so much better in EVERY, NOT JUST GAMEPLAY, EVERY regard if it wasnt a gacha game im still kinda upset over inazuma writing wise every character involved was fucked over because the pandemic hit and they had to sell waifus and husbandos i like genshin but i believe it would be better if it wasnt a chinese gacha game and was written and coded by developers who actually care (and arent racist)
@@kaelell4697genshi nwould be so much worse if it wasn't a gacha game. Do you think the now like 1 billion dollars they spent on it came out of thin air?
@@kaelell4697 If genshin wasn't a gacha it would be just a Breath of thw wild clone, the things that really makes the game unique came way after 1.0. If it wasn't a gacha it wouldn't be nearly as big
@@kauanjos3199 its not a breathe of the wild clone, look, there are legitimate points about the game but this isnt one of em just cuz it has gliding and racist depictions of native americans doesnt mean its a breath of the wild clone
Watching people move from warning people about games like Fortnite and PUBG to Gacha games Reminds me of the media's shift in interest in warning from TV to social media and TikTok. Great video, perhaps the best video I've seen that delves into a topic.
My nephew received 2800 VBucks for fortnite for one of his christmas gifts this year, and he ended up spending almost all of it immediately on a Snoop Dogg skin. I asked why he bought that one cause I didn't really think that he was someone a younger kid would know that well and my nephew said that he didn't know who he was, just that he was going to leave the vbuck shop soon and didn't want to miss out. I'm not great at expressing my thoughts so I cant even begin to articulate how the current state of gaming for kids is making me feel, it just leaves me with a pit in my stomach when I think too hard about it.
The game is literally giving out a free version of snoop Dogg in a winter outfit right now 😭
@@cammo353 Fortnite players experience a different kind of issue: Collection addiction. Just like Pokémon or even Funko, they buy the most popular skins, use it for a while and then toss them out with the rest. They flaunt their “Marvel”, “DC”, “Disney” skins collection, getting that feeling of being “OG” for buying such content that “may” never return to new players. And many of them beg Epic Games (in a toxic manner) to bring back the skins, specifically the licensed ones (which Epic has not control over it).
Depending on the age of this nephew/future nieces and nephews if you can spend money to get them a retro handheld with a CURATED LIST OF GAMES YOU LIKE AND NOT 50000000 OF THEM FOR THE KID TO GET OVERWHELMED WITH this is a great way to combat the gambling and FOMO gotcha rot that modern gaming is trying to train kids in in the pursuit of ever-increasing profit margins. Even better if you can be semi-active in the kids life and talk to them about the games they're playing, other games like them, and helping them figure out their own videogame (and even broader media) interests to help them have a media diet that's actually *about something* instead of about the never-ending-gambling-profit-treadmill
I'm lucky that all of the people I know that are below 18 are players of video games that don't even touch games with stuff like that, but I feel that somehow. Maybe it's because of my similarly indescribable hatred for AI generated "art" and other stuff that feels lifeless that I've been through. I've never played Fortnite, or most other online games, but I've also been an avid Roblox player since like 2018, and maybe my feelings for basically anything on the Discover(oh wait, "Charts") page carries over to all of that other stuff. But seriously, screw in-game currency(I know I play Roblox any Robux I get is from Christmas gifts) and the game design that comes from them, play those Indie games you thought looked interesting, and respect your time more(or, in other words, pay attention to what you pay attention to). In case you're wondering what I actually do on Roblox if it's not the big name games, it's Juke's Towers of Hell and its connected games, Item Asylum, and whatever else I feel like playing.
smoke weed everyday
I would think enough stories of children purchasing thousands of dollars worth of FIFA content would raise alarm bells long before this point, but it seems the train has just gone 100x faster since then
PEGI rates Balatro 18+ for being a single player game with playing cards in it (you don't even use them to gamble in the game), while they rate the big industry lootbox sports games 3+
@@Shangri-Lainen This is but an assumption. Odds are PEGI is cut from the same cloth as the ESRB, let me explain. After the US Congress hearings brought on
by the violence in games like Mortal Kombat the industry was left with two choices, self-regulate or be government-regulated. As you'd imagine they were terrified
of the latter, so all the big players banded together and established the ESA, which then created the ESRB. I assume PEGI was just the EU branch's later attempt
Im hoping that a real recession kills these games at some point.
I dont think theyve ever faced a situation with a poor economy to see if it's sustainable or not. But gambling is gambling.
@@ZeromuS_ (In advance, just want to say: Apologies for a lengthy response!) I think it'd take more than just a 'poor economy' to really kill them off because if you look at why a lot of people spend time on 'free' games (or the 'free' internet), it's largely because we've been relegated to having low time/energy and nowhere to go in our free time that doesn't cost money (or doesn't feel like a hobby that's about to be turned into a job). Alongside the economy, we actually need to build a whole other kind of world that would support a wider range of activity that they'd actually have to really engage with (that I don't think they have to right now).
Like, I also kind of enjoy playing some of what was mentioned in the video (and more), but if I could find a way to easily integrate into my community (as I'm an immigrant where I live, and there are very few services that serve to support immigrants in any capacity, language schools do not actually teach the aspects of a language you need that facilitate communication, and every possible hobby is gated behind exorbitant costs and language barriers)? It would actually decrease my temptation to waste my non-work hours on things like this.
Though, I don't disagree with you that a recession and a poor economy would hit them, but I think they'd keep trying to bleed people dry... since that's what a lot of these companies already do. Traditional gambling didn't even disappear in times of depression/recession in the past... Hell, I remember the recession in the US in 2008 (that many people in power tried desperately to refuse to acknowledge). If many casinos weren't burned off then, I doubt this stuff will go away, either. (Again, it's the world shift that's probably necessary.)
social media is raising children.
Midroll ads I got during this video:
Infinity Nikki
Genshin impact
Raid shadow legends
AFK arena
Rad video. Boo TH-cam algorithm.
they are trying to fight back 🤣
This is why you need u-block origin. It will keep you away from trying the gambling games.
It's a bit sad that PGR isn't marketed as HI3rd did
Infinity Nikki and Genshin are good though
For me genshin impact, pokemon unite and honkai star rail in daily ad
People ask me if I have a gambling problem, and I tell them "No, I know how to gamble just fine."
"I don't have a problem with [gambling], only without it."
(I first heard that sentence about alcohol, but it works for any addiction)
Yeah i spend money on stupid stuff but i have enough self control to know when to stop
as a non player of honkai star rail 'kafka isnt real, unfortunately' sounded completely unhinged to me for a hot second
As someone who did, in fact, play Honkai Star Rail for months: it *still* sounds unhinged.
"She's real to me!" The Gentle Men - Real to Me. As a Kafka enjoyer, its unfortunate she's not real, and its 10 Billion percent unhinged.
roaches am i right?
Pretty sure Kafka was a real person. They even have a quite famous book, Metamorphosis.
@@invertebrado Waow they releasing books from hoyoverse characters now
Yakko, you raised a pretty scary point in the end and I'm not sure you realized it.
About the next generation of gamers growing up with everything being hyper-monetized or predatory in its design. They'll think that this is all normal, how it's always been, and the really frightening part? They'll be the majority in another couple of years.
That was the plan, and it seems like it's worked.
Yea maybe it should be all fortnite and balatro
One of the things that I find more important is the fact that we can't get rid of this monetization, we can control it a little bit more, but not erase it. For me teaching the next generating self control and teaching them how to play this games without engaging in spending far greater that what it has to be is more important than trying and ignore an entire industry. This is the future of games we like it or not.
@@yoh9294 I mean, we can get rid of this monetization. Government's have regulated industries and certain practices out of industries for hundreds of years.
Just enough of the population would have to be willing to demand action on this front. But, no majority seems to be interested in the betterment of society through regulation of toxic industries.
So what we are left with is responsibility gospel that always fails on societal levels. Tobacco use has only gone down thanks to *incredibly* strict regulation to make it as apparent as possible how horrible and disgusting they are to the human experience, combined with having every generation go through yearly lessons on basically fear propaganda. Modern lungs are healthier off for it. We could do the same thing with battle passes and gacha games if we desired, we just don't.
@@karalyzel3177 the next generation will eventually learn the HARD WAY. Parents must teach their kids over this dangerous predicament, just like they taught us about other gaming addictions in the past, like WoW, or even Nintendo and arcades.
@@yoh9294 Genshin Impact: I am the future
Fromsoft: So yeah, about that...
guys i think gambling... bad
You’re so brave!!!
I agree with that
You don’t say
LAMEEEEEEE
Unless the payment for access is time.
Gacha games are character building and resource management stimulators. The character being in game and the resource being irl.
I think FOMO (aka Fear Of Missing Out) is such a huge driving force of gacha games that it's scary. A new flashy limited character or whatever appears in the store, and you get this feeling that you need to get it just because soon it will go away and not return in the near future. Everyone else got it - join us! What if it becomes meta? What if the next future character you like will require it for the better team composition? What if one day you will simply regret your decision bc suddenly you changed your mind and desire it now? Oh, and so before all of that happens you decide to do a few pulls bc "hey, I might get really lucky and get it early!". So, you fall into this loophole of failure and wasting your resources... But you're already started this, you have to keep going now...
Or another example. You finally decide to drop the game but then you think about all of future cool events and updates the game will get... What if you decide to come back to one, but then you'll be missing out on all of the potential rewards during your inactivity... These thoughts also continuously make you login daily and participate in the events to collect as many of precious resources as possible!
I'm currently playing Infinity Nikki and having fun with it. It's quite different from other gachas I tried. It's chill, relaxing, the open world is pretty, the music is really nice. I enjoy the different experience it offers. And I think you don't really need the gacha outfits to "complete" all of the current in-game content (since you get a lot of them through exploring and quests and just need to focus on upgrading). However, even then I've already seen people saying how they get FOMO for many of the store outfits since they honestly look more unique and special. Plus, the outfit banners are compiled of many pieces. You don't want to get only half of them, right? And this can lead to you spending real money to get more pulls... (thankfully I'm broke and have no issue with this lol)
Fortunately, I have one simple rule when it comes down to gacha games: if you're not having fun playing the game and it feels like a chore - quit immediately and uninstall it. That's the reason I quickly quit several other gachas (why keep going if I almost avoid the real gameplay?). Nikki was fun for what it is. I finished almost all of the quests and now will wait for another big update that adds like a new map or gameplay features. Same goes for ZZZ (2nd gacha I play). I'm having fun with gameplay, it's satisfying. But if any of that becomes boring - yea, I'm quitting.
At the end of this all there is one thought that always come to my mind - what if these companies actually made non-gacha games? Like I'm sure Mihoyo could make a very fun action or RPG game if they wanted to... But I know the answer to this myself: they won't because it's unfortunately not profitable.
There’s a couple of reasons why:
1: mobile is profitable due to how easily accessible as a gaming platform it is and if you’re already used to developing for such constrained hardware, porting your games to console and PC is a cakewalk by comparison
2: gaming regulations within China actually benefit gacha games much more heavily than other types of games, and many of the companies that make the biggest gacha games either have big Chinese audiences or are Chinese outright.
3: the long-standing culture of how people have interacted with mobile games is the reason gacha dominated the space so quickly. turns out when people don’t wanna pay the big bucks to fund a game, siphoning it away from them is an effective strategy, especially with the prevalence of whales
I mean they do rerun, guaranteed rerun btw they will one day 100%
@@Astra7Light
The problem with that idea is reruns being always tricky, look how fast HSR powercreeps stuff, what if by the time that rerun happens the character gets powercrept literally in the next patch by the newest unit?
@@Super-7327then just don't spin on that character & spin on the newest meta character?
@@muppetry1 The value of the next meta unit you got, you'll see only in the future and that's the problem...at least for HSR, Linghsa and Aventurine is the perfect example of this.
real ones remember the time yakko made videos about gacha games in 2019
oh how far we've come
How the turbles have taned
Before the loss of innocence...
@@yakkocmnmember when you was addicted to cookies and shit
Is this a new high or low
that was 5 years ago???
10:18 A common misconception! The name "gacha" comes from the Japanese "gachapon" (the name of those capsule toy dispensers where you insert some coins and get a random toy, because thats essentially what gacha mechanics are, and many gacha mechanics are indeed styled after gachapon machines) and has absolutely nothing to do with the English slang "gotcha," even though it both sounds the same and has a perfectly fitting meaning. The similarity is a complete coincidence.
It's like how a lot of people assume "emoji" has something to do with the English word "emotion," as they're symbols that convey emotions - nope! Complete coincidence. "Emoji" is another loanword from Japanese, where it essentially just means "pictogram."
The term “gachapon” originates from Japanese onomatopoeia. “Gacha” mimics the sound of the machine’s hand crank turning, while “pon” represents the noise of the capsule dropping into the tray. They were introduced to Japan in 1960
i think my sentence phrasing there was awkward, i meant that the mechanic is so prevalent and central that we often refer to the games as "gacha" before their actual genre - i know it's from capsule machines :)
Huh, I always figured that emoji was just a silicon valley cuteification of emoticon. I mean, I still think it is, but that they took a word from an actual language that means something similar is kinda cool.
@softreyna Emojis were first popularized by Japanese phone companies which added them to their domestic mobile phones in the 80s and 90s. At that time the rest of us were still using emoticons (faces made with regular text characters, like :-) and such), but Japanese-style emojis caught on in the 2000s and 2010s. Emojis is what they were already called in Japan, and we just kept the name. It's got nothing to do with Silicon Valley at all! As I said, the similarity to "emotion" and "emoticon" is pure, utter coincidence.
@@lucasverde8817 Right, but web forums in the mid-2000s already had adapted emoji into emotes* (iirc we informally called them smilies). At some point, a localization team made the decision to take the Japanese word as-is rather than use the existing English translation, and my suspicion is that that decision was motivated by the late 2000s drive to make tech appear 'friendlier.' It is a coincidence that "emoji" and "emotion" look similar, but it's not a coincidence that the former was able to catch on with English speakers.
*There is a technical distinction but the end result is largely the same
how did Genshin become the blueprint?
1. it was released on console quickly
2. easy controls and plenty of non-high combat gameplay, aka casual, relaxing content
3. you don't need to pay money to get characters unless, you have unrealistic expectations for what you can get every year
4. no other studio seriously tried to compete with them for 4 years...
3 you do need to pay to get characters because it's mathematically impossible to get all of them without paying on top of the fact that each of them need 6 extra copies to unlock their potential. It is a game where the gameplay is in its core to collect and raise the characters. It's not fighting not exploration it's the collection
When Yakko pointed out that Genshin was one of most expensive games ever developed, when did you realize most companies could not begin to compete?
@@CJ-wh7ik getting every character and 7 copies of a character is what they mean by unrealistic expectations lmao, you can clear all content in the game with only 4 star units. getting c6 5 stars is a luxury that is basically an auto complete button for content and it is entirely unnecessary
@@CJ-wh7ik getting 6 copies of a 5 star is overkill you're fine with the single copy and you definitely don't need every character to clear any content.
@@CJ-wh7ik in what world do you need all the characters, and c6 at that lmao. the end goal is the endgame aka spiral abyss and theater. now the theater is pushing for a wide roaster, but if you've played for a while your 4 stars will stack up and you'll be fine, the bosses themselves are pretty easy. Abyss is getting tannkier, but 4 stars (especially the 1.0 ones, that u can get in the shop with enough starglitter) are still very compatitive.
It's so cool of you to be open about STILL struggling with gacha temptation. Really speaks to how dangerous they are when someone whos done all this research and content about why they're bad can still get easily addicted. Love your content, this made my day
It's normal to be at risk of gambling, remember. That's the default for humans, we're intrinsically at risk unless we put a huge amount of effort into fighting our nature.
Even Coffeezilla talks about CSGO Valve gambling
Just be free to play, anyone that "struggles with gacha temptation" have weak self discipline
@@jsfyxzuf117 Playing games safely shouldn't require someone to not have "weak self discipline". If you enjoy gacha games that's great, but players shouldn't be blamed for being exploited by shitty business practices designed to exploit people.
@@jsfyxzuf117 these games are designed to get you to spend as much as possible, in very manipulative ways. the more of their tricks you learn about the more disgusting these games become. it's come to the point i don't start any new F2P gacha games. and avoid paid games with these types of elements like the plague too.
the dailies and weeklies thing kind of backfires on me, because when i miss out on one of those i don't really feel like coming back
The best thing for me playing games was when I finally just accepted I'm never going to be a competitive player and accepting my mediocrity. Now I just do what I enjoy and if that doesn't include my "important dailies / weeklies" than oh well. I won't trade my enjoyment for better performance anymore.
@@iamjustkiwi I forced myself to play arknights for years despite hating the gameplay (I generally like tower defenders, but the mechanics in this one weren't of my liking) because I loved the story and characters, I started to gradually distance from the game until I told myself "fuck it, I'll just keep myself updated with youtube videos for the story". Also pressure from friends, the toxic side of the community and fear of missing out was a very big deal. I recently started playing gacha games like normal games, find one i like both in terms of story and gameplay, proceed at my own pace, and enjoy the game.
I think this is something all the companies chasing the Genshin fade don't realize, it's how few Gacha games you can play at the same time.
Last year I got super addicted to Genshin Impact ... then added Honkai Star Rail to the mix and Zenless Zen Zero, and despite enjoying those games (though aware that they were a worse version of what they could have been without gacha mechanics) and somehow lost track of things, and interest in all of them over a few weeks.
I had some overtime so less time for gaming, some holidays away from my laptop, missed some events and lost a couple of 50/50 which mean all the pulls I had saved until then got me ... a random character I didn't want instead of the one I had saved for weeks, and I had no desire to rebuild my savings for another attempt God knows when, or fork some money to reward the game for literally not giving me the advertised character ... so I stopped, and it's been month and FOMO turned into "what's the point by now"
If you missed out on it then a) you had already left and b) its existance didnt get you to come back.
Its non existance convincing you to stay away isnt such an issue at that point.
@MonochromeLunacy Similar to me and Genshin although I used to love the gameplay as much as the story and characters but after not being interessted in any of the characters for a long time I found it unmotivating to play the events and had no characters left to build and thus nothing to do. In these games if you're not farming or pre-farming the game loses its luster, the characters _are_ the content and you can keep up with everything else on youtube.
If only there was a better way to monetize quality gameplay.
I think Kafka is real he wrote a book about a bug man
@@prestonm-f382 my sleeper agent protocol is tingling
🗣🗣🗣
Gregor Samsa from Metamorphosis mentioned 🗣🔥🔥🔥
My arm...has changed
It's absolutely completely unhinged that Balatro was given an 18+ rating in Europe for "gambling imagery" while all this garbage continues to proliferate unchecked.
Since gacha isn't gambling and gacha games don't use gambling imagery like Balatro, so such a rating wouldn't make sense.
@@gyroninjamodder lol
because one game has gambling as a side mechanic while the other's gameplay is entirely based around gambling
@@RaidenKunii Balatro has pretty much no gambling. In order for it to be gambling there has to be risk. You lose pretty much nothing if you lose a run in Balatro.
Yeah, I didn't really get that either. I guess it's fine to have anime girls in very clearly "stylized" attire, but when any form of poker is mentioned, that's it. The former gets PEGI 12, the latter 18, obviously. The media works weird.
Every time you are considering to buy stuff like rolls in a gacha or dlc in some games, ask yourself: How many copies of terraria could I buy with this money?
I've only ever given a free-to-play game money once, and it was a couple bucks to Spiral Knights because I had fun with it, and I was young and just getting into the idea of being a modest patron of the arts with my newfound disposable income. I think I ended up recouping most of my small donation - that's ultimately what it was - by later trading my Spiral Knights currency for TF2 items and ultimately Steam funbucks.
Not once have I considered giving one money because I wanted what you actually get for it. It's always a value proposition so poor as to be laughable, even when there isn't a gamble involved.
"But I don't spend a single cent on these FREE to play games. Only 300 hours worth of grinding to get that $10 content for free! I win, you lose."
How much MORE fun would I have playing The Binding of Isaac?
@@belldrop7365eh I don’t really any gacha game (at least the main stream ones) are like that you grind like you would a rpg.
@Yami-mugoni613 There's a difference with the grind on a regular rpg or any other game and the grind in live service games.
People who think otherwise are either ignoring the nuances or just outright oblivious to it.
It drives me nuts how so many people tacitly assume that gambling necessarily involves fiat currency as a prize. This makes lawmakers pay no attention to gacha mechanics, which in turn means little Johnny gets to play with actual slot machines in the comfort of his bedroom.
with infinite time and edits i probably would have revised the line "gacha games are not gambling" because i meant it in a VERY literal sense of "you cannot win money" and you can engage in the action of pulling on a banner without spending. realistically speaking, when you do spend, it is still gambling because you are paying money for an outcome of random chance
@@yakkocmn I do agree it's fair to point out these games aren't _quite_ the same as a real-life casino; I'm just wary of phrases like "gacha" and "lootboxes" being used to whitewash the actual reality of what these game mechanics entail. No more, no less.
They are definitely on the scale of gambling, however the main point that it's not as bad as real money gambling is absolutely valid.
Real money gambling results in people chasing losses, which is a never-ending psychological trap that causes desolation to millions of people.
But just because something is a three instead of a nine doesn't mean it's not on the scale.
@@yakkocmn Gambling has many different definitions in different countries, and only in some countries does the reward have to be monetary, most countries just have it as "of percievable value" which Gacha falls into, and causes legal issues in those countries.
@@yakkocmn Ah, ok. I thought you were sucking up their propaganda for a second.
I like playing gacha games, but they really should be regulated. The only reason there is a pity system in most modern gacha games is because people were spending thousands of dollars and not getting the PNG they wanted. Nowadays people only have to spend a few hundred if they directly buy pulls.
The reason they are not regulated is the country of their main spender do not enforce it . 90 % of Genshin revenue come from Asian country , if they do not release their game on EU or America they still make buck in Billion. Gacha mechanic is normal here and exist long before Genshin even exist .
i mean pity not even exist for everything. In most of these games if you want a specific 4* you can still theoretically spend thousands of dollars and not get it. It was the same for weapons in early genshin until they created a really terrible pity that everyone hates and then fixed it up in HSR (and i think ZZZ)
@@adv78It’s true that pity doesn’t exist for 4 star characters. They’re not what the vast majority of players are trying to get though, and the odds are high that you’ll simply end up getting them while trying to get a new 5 star character.
Genshin’s weapon banners did suck, but fortunately they’ve recently improved them.
the bar is so fucking low but gacha devs just keep digging
“Only spend a few hundreds”.. for a single character, of which have a high probability to become completely irrelevant within a few patch 🤡🤦🏻♂️
As someone who’s been in the gacha gaming sphere for nearly a decade, it always surprises me to hear about how cripplingly addicted people can be to these games.
I’ve always been naturally frugal, so the temptation of “getting that next hit” is never a priority for me. Basically, if I’m not guaranteed the next character, I’m not running the risk. If anything, I treat them just like real games cause often times they have good production value or a story I’m actually interested in. But I have friends who spend what they can to see if they get lucky, and I never understood that feeling. Cause I guess I never got actually addicted to spinning the wheel.
And to me, that feels like it would hurt the experience more than help since the feeling of losing is worse than winning. But that’s evidently not the case cause the next step is always swiping the card rather than just stopping.
TBH, I ended up deleting my Genshin account worth almost $350 a year ago in order to quit. Having the lack of self control (and OCD), I think it was the right move for my own sake.
Dayum. Deleted? I didn't delete mine, just abandoned it.
shouldve sold it -350 xd
@@FrazzleFlib This is like saying that you should have sold the cocaine instead of flushing it down the toilet. You know that, right? If it's bad for you, you should not be passing it on to someone else, especially not someone else who's willing to pay that much money for a game account.
you know you couldve refunded and then got it insta-banned after the refund, right?
@@jpanboi_ you know you can't refund crystals you spent, right?
It's funny that it's a criticism for most gatchas that end game content exists and then there is Limbus Company's playerbase practically on their knees begging for end game content because half the playerbase have everything unlocked but nothing to use all that stuff on.
Genshin's endgame is also practically non existent lmao
I just got stuck on level 7-10 Inferno in a little game called "Fit RPG" which I've enjoyed since it's basically FF1 plugged into a pedometer to power up the team. But apparently..... they never released the last two levels. I''ve chucked them $20 since I started playing over the summer, but I think I'm done. The only remaining characters are pure pay to play or massive grinds.
@NecronHandlee I've seen this problem long ago that's why I leave the game a bit of quest I called it the emergency primo quest and just do the some mission when I truly need a character or getting bored
@NecronHandlee Well yeah... There is abyss and The Theatre that are pretty much a dps check at best and a character check at worst
I swear endless mode for mirror dungeon would fix the slogfest that is grinding for characters.
Thank god I’m smart enough to only spend money on predatory preorders and ‘deluxe’ editions that offer nothing of any value in return for jacking prices up to upwards of 150 dollars.
lmao I do find it funny how some people call out gacha games specifically when many of their tactics are used by the gaming industry as a whole
true
Nothing of value? You get to play 2 days early for only $10!
@Luci-pz8xx and if you're lucky the game will half way work.
At least most non gacha games have the decency to only scam players once when they buy the game instead of scamming them each time they release a new banner.
The moment I watched Coffeezilla make his "Exposing Lootboxes in CS:GO" video I immediately thought:
I wonder if people also realize how Gambling is also making its way to kids through GACHA
I'm so glad someone made this topic so I can quickly educate non-gacha gamers on just how absurd this trend is...
I mean aren't TCGs the same thing? Not saying it isn't bad just kinda interesting how for gaming the idea is questioned but IRL things like buying TCG packs to get cards and the like.
@@Demortra Yes in the sense that you can spends hundreds to buy individual cards, sets, structure decks, etc. but the major difference is that those are real, physical items that you can put into decks, give to friends, and sell if its one of the expensive cards. Theres also the fact that outside of pulling cards and making meta decks, theres no fomo events and limited time items like in gacha games. And theres also the obvious fact that once a gacha game shuts your account and the money you spent on the game cease to exist vs the cards you bought still exist and might still have value if the tcg ceases production.
@@salad72057 "Theres also the fact that outside of pulling cards and making meta decks, theres no fomo events and limited time items like in gacha games."
Limited cards do exist tho? Yes you can maybe find it from reseller later, but at steep price. I agree having physical things hold more monetary value longer, but account selling is a real thing too. I think the real problem is how easy to access the payment if they are digital goods. Parents would probably notice more if kids buying too much physical things, but digital good, you can hardly notice them until they broke the bank.
@@salad72057 "Theres also the fact that outside of pulling cards and making meta decks, theres no fomo events and limited time items like in gacha games."
Limited cards and event items do exist tho? Yes you can maybe find it from reseller later, but at a steep price that you might just consider it as you missing out. I agree having physical things hold more monetary value longer, but account selling is a real thing too. I think the real problem is how easy to access the payment if they are digital goods. Parents would probably notice more if their kids getting so many packages from buying too many cards. But digital good, you can hardly notice them until they broke the bank.
@@kurniawandelimaI'd like to point out that the money you get from a casino is also a real object that you can put into decks and give to friends. You don't even need to sell it as it's already money 😅
If anything TCG are more like gambling than online games, because selling an account is against TOS and you can get banned for it, but nobody is stopping you from selling cards, there are auctions for the rare ones, I don't know what else to say.
I think the first step is to increase the age rating of all gacha games.
True +14 is a joke for most of these hype sexualized free honey trap games, but that's how they target huge money sums afterall each month unfortunately
My thoughts throughout this video. I'd extend that to include any game that includes in app purchases for the game's premium currency(s), just to include Fortnite and its use of FOMO to get children to spend as much of their parent's money as possible.
Agreed. I think any game that is centered around gambling your time and or money for a chance at rewards should be rated 18+ for gambling
@@gregorycarmichael6907 what about people who buy blind boxes from pop mart etc? technically those are gambling as well since you don't know which toy you get in them
as far as legislation goes yeah that could help, but remember how easy it was for someone to play COD even while it was rated M (18+)
I am an avid Gacha player, mainly playing Hoyo games, but I try out other titles and am looking forward to one on the horizon (Arknights: Endfield). I think one of the worst things I see in the gacha space is players comparing how "generous" each game is. "X game is more generous than Y game, so X game is clearly superior" as if we should rank games based on how often you get a jackpot at the casino...
My personal experience is unusual: I am a mega saver in these games. I save for months to years to max out a character because that's fun to me. If a game is not fun when I don't engage with its Gacha system, I drop it-end of story.
Zenless Zone Zero lets me play with the various characters during the story, so I feel 0 drive to use the gacha system. And I played for 2.5 years in Genshin Impact without ever pulling on the account. Not the beginner gacha banner, not the standard gacha banner, no gacha whatsoever for 2.5 years.
Genshin Impact has interesting world-building and the lore keeps me coming back. I want to see how things turn out, and how the various threads come together as a whole. It inspires me to want to build worlds and to write.
But if the game can't keep me interested without engaging with its Gacha system, it gets uninstalled.
I think most people eventually realize there is no such thing as generosity for a Gacha game.
If a Gacha game was truly generous then it wouldn't have a Gacha monetization system to begin with. Everything is designed to incentivize people to get into the game and spend on it, that's the sole purpose of freebies, and that's also why comparisons between games that focus on the gacha system result in very shallow discussions
It is wild how hyperfocused the community is on rewards, I keep asking if they actually like the game itself. Genshin is such a chill game too, but then you go online and it's a wasteland of freemogem junkies
I'm just saying you people that accept how hoyo doing things is unironically destroying gaming and gacha gaming as a whole.
You genuinely expect too much from a gambling Sim.
@@peacechan4500 How? Genuinely how?
This is what's destroying video games, not mega corporations buying up and disbanding beloved studios. Not corporations patenting manipulation of matchmaking and shop discounts to reward players for buying skins.
Not the culture of releasing games in a terrible and buggy state.
But me playing a game that I enjoy is what's killing gaming.
@@peacechan4500 dude doesn't know what he is talking about. Lol
When i tried Infinity Nikki earlier this month at every point i would ask out loud "Why Tf is this a Gacha?" (Of course the answer is greed but alas) the game has nice visuals and the loop of exploring the world to unlock new clothes for Nikki is legitimately fun enough that it could be good game. The experience is like you said made worse by the gacha aspect and it saddens me that it could have been just a cute dress up open world game that many would've enjoy instead of another gacha slop with the goal of preying on players
Honestly Nikki has refreshingly felt like the least predatory gacha I've ever played. I'm very cautiously optimistic with their roadmap and plans for the future of the game. But we'll see
To be fair Nikki has always been a gacha since it's first game in the series.
@@starsensemble3201Very true. And as someone who's been a part of the playerbase for the past 6 or so years, it used to be much worse.
The answer is not "of course" greed. The set of artists working on the game would not be empowered to do what they're doing at the scale they're doing it at without the Gacha business model funding them. Greed is involved, but you would never see a game of this genre and scale funded through traditional methods.
Also, many are able to enjoy Infinity Nikki for free (legally), something that cannot be said about practically any of Nintendo's games. And then there's the fact that many enjoy gacha for gacha, accepting it for what it is and isn't.
@@DrGoldenLinkits kinda bad in that some currency is limited time and the gacha is expensive but… you get tons of clothes for free and many of them are great outfits. So I don’t feel the need to spend at all
Good point but you don’t Lose 100 HP every second. Enemies that have attacked and been attacked by Hoederer receive 200 True Damage every second. Attack Range +1 tile, Max HP +15%, ATK +30%, Attacks recover 5% HP and have 25% chance to Stun the target for 2 seconds.
Yes because I would rather gain Max HP +80%, ATK +260%. Immediately throws an anchor forward, stopping when hitting a target or reaching the max distance, dealing 160% of ATK as Physical damage to all nearby enemies and Stunning them for 6 seconds. If the anchor stops on a tile he can deploy on, Ulpianus will Move to that tile
@@Печенькасмаком-й3ъ ok but have you ever thought about immediately summons 2 Revenant's Shadow(s) in attack range (up to 3 at a time, they remain after skill expires). Attack Interval is greatly increased. ATK +180%. Attacks deal 220% ATK. Splash area is greatly increased. Talent 1 trigger chance is increased to 100%. Skill activation grants 6 ammo and the skill ends when all ammo are used (Can manually deactivate skill)
A common defense of gacha games is the dismissive claim that their negative effects are limited to "whales," conveniently ignoring the fact that these games are built on exploiting vulnerable players who are more susceptible to manipulative design, often leading to excessive time investment, data exploitation, and financially damaging spending.
And also that they have to be predatory towards everyone's time and attention to work. Yeah they need a % of the playerbase to pay, but they mostly need a lot of non paying custommers, because they're the ones keeping the game alive. In the end it doesn't matter that much that you pay or not, they need you there and nowhere else. That's why it's not good that "oh wow you can play the whole game for free", it's just as manipulative as the rest, it's just less looked at because you don't pay for it. But people should view their time as at least as important as their money, and those game 100% waste it in one way or another.
@@Fachewachewa Time isn't wasted if you're enjoying it... That is the point of games after all.
@@annaairahala9462 yeah and the point of starting the video with a mention of Addiction by Design is that there are A LOT of ways to build things that will make people think they enjoy what they're doing.
@@annaairahala9462 But how do you know the difference between enjoying the game and just being absorbed by the system? That’s the question this video is asking
I wouldn’t say “often leading to”, but a small number of people can get carried away. That can potentially happen with video gaming in general though.
I was just talking with a friend about something like this today in regards to Fire Emblem Heroes. I used to be a passive player. Work hard. Play hard. Pull for Hector and Reinhardt. I was there since the beginning as a boy just getting into a new game in Highschool. It was wonderful! It was like every new banner was pushing the boundaries! My beloved characters in Fates and Three Houses were coming to me and I got to be their tactician! The memes, the community, all so wonderful to experience!
Then... came the FEH Pass. That damn pass was the beginning of the end. Powercreep, special outfits, more books, more events, more currency for those events I didn't like. And it got to the point that during the Summer and Winter Festival events, two of the BIGGEST EVENTS due to swimsuits, I remember nearly losing ALL of my money. I was jobless as a teen for some time and had saved around 8,000 dollars in the bank. I WENT DOWN TO 2,000. Not just with that, but I can recall a GOOD chunk going to Summer Freyja and Surtr. And I think to myself... "Was any of this worth it?" I stopped hard when I was past Covid. I said no more. And have not paid a SINGLE dollar more for them. But yeah, the point when he said I spent time and money on this game... it definitely struck a chord because I did do that. And now I'm bored of the game, bored of the story, bored of the same powercreep and losing interest. But I can't uninstall it. I spent too much time on it.
Please be careful. Please teach others to control themselves. Show them games you pay a flat amount for, show them a full experience within ONE payment. Don't pull a blunder like I did and fall for this... I love Nintendo. I don't love what I did because of that love...
@@deucesommerfeld1248 sounds like the problem is with yourself and not the game. I can walk intona restuarant and they have the entire menu available to me and I can buy everything but that doesn't mean I'm going to.
@@evil_yellow_ranger8346 This is an entirely unhelpful comment that misses literally every single point made in the video and in the comment you replied to.
@@malchickoleander actually it's very helpful because all too often people like to blame the game when they're actually in denial that they have a problem. Literally the first step in most addition recovery groups is standing up before the room and admitting you're an addict.
@@evil_yellow_ranger8346 And like... Most gacha game players admit they have a problem already? Yeah, the game didn't literally MAKE them gamble, but it uses every opportunity to exploit someone's addictive behavior. It's not fair to blame the game, no, but it's also not fair to ignore the game's exploitation.
@@evil_yellow_ranger8346 i mean, sure, the first step to getting help is realizing you need help, but i would also say the blame should still probably fall on the people putting tons of money into researching *how to exploit people with addictions* and extract as much money as possible out of them
As someone that has a cheap phone,a psp and a laptop that can't run anything more demanding than genshin on low settings or it will explode, I've been playing mostly gacha games since I've starting living in a dorm because I was already playing anyway and my ps4 had to stay at home with my parents. Also, those games are free (a blessing for a broke student) and a lot of people I met in uni also played them so it was a way to socialize as well (i would've dropped genshin way sooner otherwise) so I invested a lot of my "gaming time" in that kind of games.
A couple months ago I found a copy of Octopath Travel II for very cheap at a gamestop while I was visiting my parents and I bought it. I had only one week and other things to take care of so I couldn't even come close to finishing it that time and I still haven't unfortunately but the time I had with it was so wonderful that it made me realize once again that I could be having more fun and more meaningful experiences by playing much better games even with my limited hardware, by saving and waiting for sales or emulating older games. I still can see love and care put in the gacha games that I chose to keep playing but the reality is that no matter how good what keeps me genuinely engaged is, gacha mechanics and how they impact anything else in the game inevitably taint the experience.
Also, the average price for buying a 10-pull is INSANE. When I think I could buy a nice meal in a restaurant for the same price or that there are full games that cost less than one 10-pull in genshin, I just can't justify that amount of money, especially if you might not even get anything good for it. I'd rather buy some cool merch instead.
What you get for the money you put into gacha games is really a complete scam when you think about it. For $15 CAD I got 3 games on my Steam wishlist recently thanks to the winter sale (Sunblaze, Voidigo & Axiom Verge 2). That would barely get you anything in virtually any gacha game.
Honestly believe that gacha games should NEVER be played by people who already have a gambling addiction or are very susceptible to them, and have policies that regulate them harder. I play them and I know the dangers of it and I get a lot from it without spending anything at all, but for others this could put them in debt.
Ive had thousands of hours worth of content in Genshin ( story and lore, the TCG minigame, theory-crafting, doing challenge runs in abyss, and the building minigame in Genshin) and have yet to spend a dime in the game
But then again most gacha games are absurdly expensive if you even think about buying with actual money. Im pretty sure with gacha games like FGO , straight up gambling is cheaper than that
like you i also prefer spending my money on merch than the game itselfs, serves as a decoration and as a reminder of past experience for when i eventually quit the game for whatever reason, and it can stay on my desk for as long as i wanted to keep it
also i got to keep the relatable experience for being a f2p
Never buy rack-rate gems. It's not worth it. Roll using F2P gems, or at most get the Welkin, which is a reasonable value. If they would let you stack two Welkins at once, I would do it, but you're right that if you buy the gems directly it just seems like a waste.
@@timogul"reasonable value" as if spending 5$ bucks on 0,6% of getting a new guy every 2 months was anything but reasonable. Quit this trash
It's so surreal to be old enough to remember a time when games consoles could barely connect to the internet and the closest thing to a loot box was horse armor. Remember when Dungeon Keeper mobile made headlines for charging two dollars to break a single block? Clearly I must have imagined the whole thing because statistically speaking you probably don't even know what a Bullfrog is or what it has to do with personal computers. I weep for current and future generations growing up with a gaming landscape where renting a game disk from a library to beat in a single weekend purely for the joy of experiencing art, all without it asking you to bankrupt your parents and ruin your school attendance record is an alien concept. Forgotten and sunk in a toxic sewer of a world where wages stagnate and the human cost of making games grows ever larger under shockingly abusive management that would rather give out space brownies at employee meetups than paid sick leave. But let's not kid ourselves. Rose-tinted glasses aside, this snowball has been rolling for a while. It will continue to grow until lawmakers step up to the plate and tell the corporations responsible that this too shall pass.
remember when the most monetization a game had EVER, was a subscription of 5 bucks?
It feels as if half the comments section didn't even fully watch the video that they're commenting on. It doesn't matter that your gacha is highly "F2P friendly" or that "You can experience all the content without paying a single cent", Yakko quite litterally brings that up a fifth way into the video. The point isn't that its technically possible to clear a gacha game's content with the lowest rarity/free units you get. The point is that gacha games inevitably will push you towards interacting with the gacha system as a whole, and that corrupts the rest of the industry to push towards this style of unregulated and predatory monetization system that leads to people being abused.
I'm an avid FGO and Limbus player, been here for 8 years in FGO's case. While i can tell you Avalon Le Fae is possibly one of the best written works of fiction that's ever been produced and how Limbus Company has broken the mold with how they're handling their game, it doesn't matter in the end, we love these game not *because* of the gacha system, but *in spite* of it. And that's the long and short of it all.
which is why many people disagreed with him in the comments, f2p friendly comments or not, because predatory practices aren't even something that you TRULY need to concern yourself with as a consumer unless you are one of those people who must complain about everything scummy or you are their actual business rival which I bet you are not, mind you that there are people who just want to enjoy things as it is so there's no need to act so high and mighty by telling that companies suck because this is 2020+, most people know companies suck and they still consume their products anyway, so it's always better to stay neutral instead of trying to repeat the usual song and dance of "oh no, companies have predatory practice, you should know this fact yada yada yada", waste of time and even I wasted my time watching the video along with typing this to a random person on the internet just to bring a tiny bit of common sense
Predatory animals aren't something you TRULY need to concern yourself as prey unless you're one of those people who must complain every time a hawk tries to eat them or are their actual competitor like a fox.
@@oniplus4545 If everyone thought like that, we'd still be in the Gacha Dark Ages by current year. Predatory practices *are* to be called out on, they ARE something you should care about, because if you don't, you wouldn't have displayed gacha odds, you wouldn't have hard pity hard capping how much you'll need to spend on a unit, and you wouldn't have just the idea of transparency and fairness as a whole. That's the point of these discussions, to call out the bad things and hopefully they can be improved into better things.
Do note, im not trying to accuse you of being complicit in this or something ridiculous like that, but im saying that there's no reason to just tell everyone to just mindlessly consume product and then get excited for next product. Its extremely reductive to just say "you shouldn't care about this unless you're whining or you're financially benefitting from tearing down the opposition". Im just a player who sees the flaws in the games i play, and while i enjoy them, i don't fault people for calling out said flaws in said games.
_But_ if it leads to more companies making games that are as good as Genshin, then that's better for everyone. Win-win!
That "loving it in spite of the gacha" really rings true for me with Limbus. I play it due to being a fan of the devs since their first game, and Limbus, while imo being their worst game besides its presentation, is the current project. I get why they did it, having a stable source of income is a big boon to such a small and (back then) rather niche studio, but it is spooky to me, that it needed a *gacha* to reach these numbers. Being part of this """genre""" actually elevates the game for some people for some reason.
Lowkey with how the gaming space is nowadays, gacha games really aren't even the worst offenders. Every single one of the big mainstream multiplayer games have some sort of engagement based matchmaking, some sort of way to push you a microtransaction, and all to manipulate you into playing the game more and more. With every new release you gotta ask yourself if the developers are just trying to please shareholders or if there's actual passion behind the game.
EA FC has me on the edge 😂😂
Yep like games nowadays don't even want to make players wants to pay. They force them to pay for games lol
Exactly.
As a Call of Duty Mobile player, I've dropped some cash on battle passes and legendary guns. But hey, the game's free, so it didn't feel too painful.
That being said, I've got friends who've taken it to the next level - we're talking over $1,500 spent on the game! It's crazy to think about, but it's not just gacha games that can get us hooked. Many games are designed to make us want to spend on skins, guns, vehicles, and more.
Recently, I dipped my toes into my first gacha game(zzz), and I'm surprised by how much I enjoy it. There's this one skin I'm obsessed with getting, but here's the thing: the game actually lets me earn in-game currency for free by completing tasks and events. It's a nice change of pace from Call of Duty Mobile, where I have to buy cod points.
For me, it's all about self-control. Games are designed to keep us engaged, but at the end of the day, it's up to us to decide how much we want to spend. If I don't need something, I won't buy it - no matter how hard the game tries to convince me otherwise.
Edit: Remember, it's not just about spending money. It's about having self control, don't let what you consume consume you.
90% of games are not made with passion lol
@@pokemonduck I play a lot to say this is SO TRUE!
Yakko: Explains that he has a problem with gachas and finds them difficult to resist despite knowing the negative effects they have on him.
Limbus fans: Come on man it's just one hit, it'll be fine.
Edit: This was a condemnation you animals. I like the game too but read the room yeesh.
I legitimately didn’t know limbus company was a gacha game till this video despite seeing memes about every once in a while
The one gacha game where you can (mostly) ignore the gacha entirely and still get all the IDs
Which is why Limbus imo is a live-service game with the option to waste your money on gacha if you feel like it.
Question from someone who've played Llibrary, how grindy is it? I kinda just want to get to the good story tbh.
I know this is a joke to some degree, but this is just low, man.
Edit: I've seen your edit now, and yeah, sorry for misjudging the comment.
While I can agree that these practices do exist, I feel like people like to spin the idea that people DON'T enjoy the game they are playing and are forced to be there by the transactions. Personally, I'm willing to spend on these games if they put in the effort and care to improve the player experience (Nikke/Wuwa being my 2 big gachas atm)
That's also my main criticism of this video, he talks about gacha games the same way D.A.R.E in middle school told me about the dangers of smoking. Not to mention, a LOT of the things mentioned are not predatory features, I am not convinced for one on how daily missions can be predatory as he makes little to no actual case for it. If someone is gonna play the game everyday why is it OVERALL predatory, he doesn't even get into case by case. Doing the WuWa dailies and doing the Hsr dailies are two entirely different topics and yet it was stamped as an overall predatory feature.
@@junebugo3384 The thing is they are predatory features. What makes something like daily missions a predatory feature is that they exist not primarily as more content for you to consume but as a means to take up more of your time. The very nature of live service games is prioritization of your time, and a lot of it. These systems all are centered around keeping you around longer and longer because the longer you stick around, the more likely you are to spend money. Whether it be due to investment or the gradual wearing down of those barriers you have in place to prevent such spending. And the big issue with that is that while you and most players either don't engage with or engage on a minimal level with spending in these games, there aren't any guardrails in these games to prevent the unhealthy amount of spending that they're looking for to generate their profits.
Tldr. These features are predatory because they all funnel towards taking a lot of your time and/or money.
@@junebugo3384 Doing daily tasks is habit building, which is what I'm sure he refers to, but I do think that there's this weird assumption in the video that players would and should be playing other games if not for these addictive tendencies. For example I actually like doing daily quests in some of the gacha games I play. Not every day sure, some days I skip them, but I legitimately enjoy having a little simple task to do that doesn't take to long, and I don't think I need to feel bad about getting enjoyment from that.
@ I agree! He definitely does mention it building habits but I just mean to say its not a convincing argument on being predatory yk? So what if someone is like oh poop “I need to log on really quick to do my dailies” I just feel like it’s not as big an issue which can muddy the point of the video when we’re also talking about serious things like putting all your money into gacha games and becoming addicted [agree with u completely just explaining why i said what i did in previous comment]
@@junebugo3384
Turn players into cultists.
Turn company into religion.
Turn impulse into dependence.
Turn preference into blind faith.
Turn announcements into gospel.
Or something like that idk, the habits really do break you as a person though
Expenditure isn't the only limit for a game to be predatory, it also has to make sure you will end up preferring one game more so than others which you can look at as the game preying on your conscience as a customer, hence that whole spiel from me. Gacha games just so happen to be the most egregious and loudest (online) case of this. Adjacent examples being Fortnite skins and Counter-Strike crates.
Back in 2021, I had been addicted to Cookie Run Kingdom for nearly a year, and I had spent likely 1000 in total over that year. I logged in daily, grinded for hours, and even asked for apple gift cards during birthdays just so I could get another hit. I finally had started to pull away, and your older gacha essays helped me break free from my sunk cost falllacy, and I'm grateful every day that I got out of that.
As old gamer i dont understand how people can play the mobile crap. ITS BAD AND LAME.
@ the thing is, the game has a ton of beautiful artwork, good voiveacting, and great spectacle that draws people in. Sometimes people don't know that it's a gacha before downloading it, and by the time its revealed they've already enjoyed some of the game. Then they spend money to get the pretty and game breaking new characters, or spend long hours slaving away for another ten pull. Then the sunk cost fallacy takkes root, and it becomes really hard to pull away. Word of mouth, gorgeous ads, and thriving communities all contribute to that first step. Take me for example, I heard about cookie run through word of mouth at my school, and I downloaded it cause I wanted to show up my friend and get better units than him (which quickened the spending). Then, after I had gotten through the story, I grew bored, and there is where I would normally quit. Buuut, I had already spent so much money and time on the game, and I didn't want it to be left unfinished! So I slaved away until then next update, then the next, then the next. It was practically a gambling addiction. Gamblers get extra jobs, borrow money, and do everything they can to get enough money to win a jackpot, and I slaved away, put hours into mindless gameplay, and spent hundreds of dollars trying to get the best unit for that update. Its a vicious cycle. So, sure, you've never fallen for it, you've ignored the ads be use you were educated enough to see through them. B ut lots of people are NOT educated, like I was, and they get trapped in a really deep sunk fallacy cycle. Even if you are educated, communities can boost up their game saying "blank is so generous, they give out so many freebies!" And that draws you in all over again. Or maybe a new gacha released, and you join that one so you're not behind the updates or missing any characters. Why do you think phrases like, "praising the gacha gods" or " stuck in gacha hell" exist? These people know their stuck, but the allure of community and sunk cost fallacy keep them stuck in a shared suffering.
TLDR, gachas can be very enticing to people uneducated on their tactics, and even educated people can be drawn or redrawn in via sneaky marketing and loyal communities of other victims. Don't be so quick to dismiss everyone who's fallen for this, if it was so easy to avoid, gachas, and likely casinos as well, would all go out of business. That 2 billion speaks volumes.
This is all shown in the video btw
@@Constelliar For me what got me into gacha games was mostly just they're often the only half decent looking games on mobile at all, that and youtubers I liked promoted them and showed off what a ton of pulls could do and I wanted to be "cool" like them, I'm glad I pulled out of the hole myself a few years ago, I deleted all gacha games and only kept the only one I really enjoyed without spending, partially because I'd already spent so much on it that I basically had everything. What got me out was rationalizing the money spent and being like for every time I felt like spending $100+ on a banner to maybe get something that might be fun I could just buy a full priced game I was interested in that would respect my time and money and that was it for me.
I agree with you. CRK was the closest I’ve felt to “yknow it a hobby so why not spend a bit of money on it” ive ever felt and Ive always stubbornly stayed f2p
@@CompSomAnichi chris reeves knives?
Super great video, one that I largely agree with despite personally me having so much love and praise to the developers and artists working at mihoyo putting together these massive worlds and stories, i think it’s genuinely really unfortunate that a lot of their work often comes at odds with their monetization.
One thing i always like to bring up in the context of the discussion is the fact that a lot of these games come from mainland china, which is a nation which historically has never had a true “organic” development of the games’ industry the same way we found it in the west and japan, mostly in part due to government overreach leading to the outlaw of games consoles between the early 2000s up until around 2014 or so (with the PS4 being the first official game console truly ‘pushed’ onto a chinese market).
in my opinion, when discussing the rise of gacha games it’s an important point to consider as it sort of frames the discussion around the presence of live service gaming domestically-without the rise of games consoles, ‘gaming’ as a past time was largely forced to grow on PC and mobile, and the east asian sociocultural expectations behind gaming typically mean that these are experiences designed to be ‘accessible’ in a way where you can just log in and do a few actions in between a commute to work or school.
It does come to the reality that really there IS no real ‘viable alternative’ to gaming in the mainland and really hasn’t been until REALLY recently. Black Myth Wukong is one of the first major non-live service games to have come out of the mainland to a relatively large amount of global success, and personally i believe it’s a game that will hopefully shake things up a bit and prove that the chinese gaming industry has the ability to find success beyond executive mandated, parasitic and predatory design.
of course, i say all of this but i still genuinely have so much love and respect for games like Genshin Impact for their artistic merits-the visuals, music, and the cultural integration of east asian traditions allowing people from all over the world to experience them where they would otherwise likely remain ignorant.
A lot of modern mainstream gachas come from China because the older ones coming from Japan usually suck ass.
Yes, as simple as that: Japanese gachas are just plain worse both visually and in terms of actual gacha rules.
Which is why Chinese ones get so much attention worldwide: the sell actual 3D characters with movesets, not a bunch of 2D PNGs, and often can guarantee you one in a certain number of attempts.
Another reason why those games are so popular is new content however. How many story DLC will you get out of a regular RPG like Witcher 3? Will even one of them be free? Will they release them every 1-1.5 months? The answers are usually "no".
@@ОсликИа-я2ы They're popular because they're designed to be addictive, not because people actually WANT this non-stop drip feed of mid content. They're just hooked on the skinner box and FOMO manipulation techniques.
Thank you for making this video, as someone who has played gacha games on and off for the past 8-ish years of my life, much of what you said rang true for me. For me, I find enjoyment from these games comes from keeping up with the game through minimal spending. I liken it to an MMO like Runespace or FF14, where the results of your labor are not exactly “difficult”, but the journey to get there with your account is still rewarding in its own right. Keeping up with endgame content, dealing with powercreep, and making new and shiny meta teams IS the game for me, and not spending money is the core of it. Its on the side of the game developers to make that cycle interesting and rewarding, and games like Fire Emblem Heroes lost me over time due to it being too stressful to really enjoy. But when it is built well, gradually obtaining new tools on your account that leads to creative new ways to tackle endgame content is a satisfying content loop that I haven’t seen other genres properly emulate.
Of course, the amount of predatory business practices that you have to ignore in order to look at these games in that way is pretty staggering, which is why I think its important for videos like these to exist. Understanding what you are getting into with these kinds of games, and being able to admit to yourself whether or not you are the type of person who should play these games even with that understanding, is the only real way to enjoy these games healthily in my eyes. But a lot of the profit that these games make is from people who fail at either of those two steps. So my final takeaway is that as Gachas continue to explode in popularity and production quality, these types of videos should be an industry standard, rather than those ign reviews that you showed that treated the gambling aspects as some sort of side content.
100% agree!!!
i'm also a gacha degenerate, and despite hating the industry, the endless game loop of always getting stronger is not something anything else quite captures. disgaea is a game that kinda scratches that itch, but getting stronger in it feels pointless, as once you get to a certain point theres just no reason to strengthen your team other than... strengthening it.
this loop is what makes me play those games, and i think its why i didnt quite latch on to genshin and stuff. they try to present themselves as "real games" but when put in that field they just fail.
I would say spending is sometimes counter productive, watching some streamers annihilate bosses in 2 attacks in star rail feels awful, because the bosses in that game are amazing, and the cool part of fighting they is struggling, its the doubt of "can i really beat this guy with my team?" But that is throw out the window when you one hit kill everything. Playing a game you cant lose gets old very very quickly
Battle Cats is a pretty extreme example of this. The standard pool never changes, you're expected to literally juice out every single Unit in that pool, and the level difficulty even when you build decks to hard-counter stages is ABSURD. You can't whale it very well; it just doesn't work when it takes so much skill to beat a stage.
Yeah as a former WoW player and current FF14 player I think Gacha games scratch the same itch as mmos.
They have a similar goal in game where you are always on the grind looking for better gear and upgrades for your character. Sometimes you just want a daily mindless grind to play as you destress.
I'm a light spender in HSR, but I figure throwing some money at the devs is fine for a game I'm playing ftp otherwise. I'm used to paying a sub for mmos so getting a monthly pass for $5 bucks is nothing really to me.
The biggest thing is to have self control when you play gacha games. Sure you could shell out more money now to get the character but its never really worth it. Honestly most of the time I just stop when I lose the 50/50 and most of the time I don't even bother to get the characters on a rerun... there are some exceptions but its hard to tell what characters will be meta and what won't be.
Man this really sums it up.
Though honestly, some gacha games would be a masterpiece if they didn't a have a gamble system in this first place, more like a paid game with most of the in game items being free instead of a free to play game with paid in game items and infinite mindless farming that takes alot of time, heck it may turn into a full time iob if one got so addicted.. if only this was true man, i hate such system.
This coming out after I just kinda spent my entire paycheck on Nikki is a little funny I’ll admit
How much did you spend and what did you get? I'm currently trying to figure out if it's worth paying for anything. I really only care about the dresses, all of the accessories are a nice-to-have so I'm not a completionist. There's a couple outfits that can be bought outright so I've been eyeing those, but the others locked behind the resonance system seems to be a waste of money due to the random draws.
@@kylelyk500 I always get the $1 outfits (60 stellarites one, I get the 60 gems from the treasure where you get the extra energy) I also got the $5 one with the gems because I really wanted to complete the pink fairy outfit from the first banner. After that I collected my pink gems for a future outfit I'd really like. Right now, I'm just saving them up to pull on the 4-star outfits which come in banners every 4 weeks because they are much easier to get (an item guaranteed every 5 pulls instead of 10 pulls for the banner with a 5 star outfit). I think I rambled too much, but the money I spent were based on thinking how to get some extra outfits with paying the least amount of money. Currently I saved a ton of pink gems just by doing extra missions. I didn't pay for pulls because I just kept playing the game and got enough by just doing missions. I watched a bunch of other youtubers explain the system first and what they suggested, which mainly is keeping your gems for some outfit you really want if you want to stay free to play and not pay for pulls.
Kafka is real. But why would you want neurotic writer from Prague in your life?
the problem with successful gacha games is... they are fun to play...
Once you've been brainwashed into believing so 😶
"they are fun to play"
Go get a doctor ASAP
Gambling and pressing a single button is not "fun"
@@Mehieddin7 Hoyo makes gacha games that are actually good. They are still predatory, but the base games are good. I think that's one of the most secrely evil things actually - the good gacha games hook you in with engaging gameplay loops, and then tempt you with spending to get even stronger.
@@TheChilaxicle no LMAO
Hoyo makes one of THE WORST GACHAS out there LMFAO
They don't have gameplay, they don't have story, they don't have anything
They are literally glorified azur lanes except they are worse in almost egery aspect
@@TheChilaxicle wake up
Hoyo's games are nothing but copies of games and are stripped COMPLETELY from what made the copied game a "game" and replaced with a poor attempt at replicating azur lane.
As a "gacha gamer" myself (only Hoyo games), I think this video makes valid points. I'm all for more regulations on gacha games that protect consumers from overspending their time and money. I believe it's perfectly possible for game companies to provide quality live-service-games and make a profit, without relying on predatory mechanics. Furthermore, I think consumers carry some of the responsibility as well, which is why more education on gambling, spending money, addiction, FOMO, and sunk-cost-fallacy is so important. That being said, I think it's also necessary for gacha games to have effective age restrictions, since obviously these concepts are hard for young minds to grasp.
Personally, I don't play these games for the gacha elements. It saddens me that sometimes these type of games get villainized so much - don't get me wrong, I understand where it comes from, but it's just not that black-and-white. At least for me, it is the fun experiences, events, gameplay, music, art, voice-acting and lore that has hooked me on these games. I really like fictional characters, just in general, and it's fun to experience a lot of meaningful stories. Furthermore, as someone who loves routine and structure, I get a lot of satisfaction from doing dailies, which only take up a small portion of my day. No game is perfect of course, but if it wasn't fun, I wouldn't be playing it in the first place. I know a lot of "gacha gamers" who are the same.
That being said, I do participate in the gacha elements. I think it's fine to spend money on live-service-games, even if they have gambling elements, as long as it is within your means. For example, I give myself a leisure budget each month that I'm not allowed to cross. I place a lot of importance on saving and financial stability, but life is short and you never know what happens, so it is okay to treat ourselves too. While some may spend it on clubbing, other hobbies, shopping, etcetera, I like to spend some of it on games. In moderation, of course, which is entirely possible. I have no regrets supporting a game that gives me a lot of joy, and that I feel continues to enhance my experience of playing the game. If it stops being fun, I will stop playing, and not worry about "sunk costs", because I will know that at the time I spent my time and money on something that brought me joy.
Gacha is just one of the possible ways for companies to monetize their games. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing - after all, developping and maintaining a free game costs money too. I also don't think it instantly makes a game bad - if anything, there is often a lot of pressure for these companies to ensure quality content, because there are people that actively spend on the game and the competition is increasing. Not saying that all gacha games are of good quality, there are some real shitty ones out there. But there are other gacha games that the devs really put their hearts and souls into, and that continue to improve. This includes quality content for F2P players too, who are just as important for a company. After all, without enough players, a game will die. This is why I believe loyal F2P-players, subscription-only, and low-spenders that truly enjoy the game, are more valuable for a game long-term, than some whales that will quickly drop the game for a new one. Plenty of people I know really enjoy the same games F2P. Once again, I do wholeheartedly agree that proper regulations of these types of games are important.
In my experience gacha often relies on the competative aspects of gacha games - which is something you can also manage your own expectations and goals in. For example, I don't feel a need to flex and have never pulled for meta-reasons. This might mean I will not get all the rewards from the competative portion of the game, but I'm fine with that as I can still get most of the rewards, and I also need less rewards if I'm pulling less and saving more. Even for those that do care about competative content and pulling for meta-reasons, there are plenty of gacha games that are quite forgiving, reward building an account over time, and don't have a strong powercreep. For this, having patience, knowing you can't always get what you want, and learning to deal with FOMO is important, and it's something that will help you in life in general. I think that like me - there are plenty of players who manage their money, time and sanity perfectly fine.
At the same time, I too get annoyed by the gacha communities sometimes. While there are valid criticisms sometimes, there can also be a lot of (imo) unnecessary negativity, and sometimes I wonder why some of these people still play at all, when they don't seem to be getting much joy out of it. But on the other hand, it is not up to me to dictate how and when someone else should play a game. Furthermore, any online space that is big just deals with toxicity unfortunately, and within those spaces you will also find a lot of lovely individuals who are building amazing communities.
I guess in short, balance is important. With that in mind, bringing more awareness to the dangers of gacha games is a good thing, and once again I think this is a great video. I also think that anyone who is currently playing a gacha game and is not having fun or experiencing negative effects on their wellbeing, should consider quiting sooner rather than later. At the same time, I believe gacha games can provide people with valuable experiences, and everyone should spend their money and time however they wish, without immediate assumptions being made.
I'm very passionate about this topic, sorry for the super long text haha, but maybe this provided some interesting perspectives. Not sure if anyone will take the time to read this lol, but if you have, thank you and I hope you have a lovely day
Yeah gacha is just another buzzword, feel like we getting the COD treatment where they churn out skins for literally bucket of money for an already paid game ect. We have our criticism, but in the end we just another target that gonna go off the radar again if someone else make outrageous monetizations, like paying irl money for digital ammo like that. Some day some devs gonna do that and the public attention will just switch to that, like this happened before to loot boxes, digital market (TF2, counterstrike), most of them fall out of the radar nowadays, today the AAA gaming scene with preorder, deluxe edition tactic is even more outrageous in my opinion.
Things changed but it change slowly, unlike internet public attention span, that go away after like 2 weeks to something else to rage about and make buzzwords about.
@@phuct4980 Buzzword that people will attack, becouse why bother fixing AAA games having MTX and other bs while you can attack Gacha games
Genshin isn't even effectively monetized at a basic minimal-effort level. Can I pay real money for past event weapons that I missed? No, they're not available. Can I pay to increase my artifact storage space, like dock space in Azur Lane? No. Can I pay to add/remove simple items on the characters, like glasses or Mavuika's helmet? No. There are characters I would have pulled in this game if it had basic customization options with hair and outfit, but outside the extremely rare skins it doesn't, so I skipped them. A lot of factors make it very easy to skip most of the cast and never feel pressured to buy crystal packs. Obviously some can't do that, and it preys on them, but honestly I wish it would try harder to prey on me.
I can't believe I agree with everything in this comment. Plus, I am someone who balances himself and doesn't get mad losing 50/50 or grinding shitty useless artifacts. I enjoy them (hoyo games mostly) a lot for lore, characters and world design. Peace!
I dont try hard arti play for character and story artifact if have to build someone try building jjst usable if unit love tbat when grjnd for passion nothing else even thoi got some good init dont build cause it not unjt want to
Stopped at around 6:04. (in a literal sense) only exists because the definitions of gambling haven't caught up to the modern day gacha ecosystem, whether it's through lawmakers just not understanding or companies lobbying. Bringing up the distinction at all feels disingenuous and I can't watch the rest of the video in good conscience.
The funny part is, an actual gambling-centred game (Balatro) is less scummy than any of these mobile gacha cashgrabs ever will be
And it’s rated 18+ in Europe. It doesn’t use real money, yet Madden and FIFA (which do) are fine for kids in Europe.
Probably because it's a one time purchase rather than asking for 5-20 bucks every so often
Proving that you can have fun playing cards WITHOUT gambling away your kids life savings.
@@liammcnicholas918 yes yes, we all watched the same video
Purely for the monetization.
Give the rights of Balatro to EA and then it would be scummier than Genshin or FIFA.
Gaming in general born out of a by-product of gambling : Arcade in the 80’s was the “Genshin” equivalent of addiction: Flashing, obstrusive and starliting to “pull” quarters on the machine. Companies like Midway, Atari and Sega, got investors from gambling companies to kickstart gaming as a whole.
Even remember when China ban consoles over that issue, which is ironic, cause this would lead into the rise of mobile games and gatcha in the region (as a loophole).
Look at lil bro over here lol 🤓-head
@@Inverted10H Get off the internet and breath in fresh air. You got contaminated with "Comfortable not being punched" virus.
@@Inverted10Hdude actually posted some informative stuff, and you respond with a "Okay nErD" comment, in 2024?
You must be the "Amirite?" guy at the party.
@@hurricaneb6243it's a troll. A bad one.
Yes, and gachapon was a direct result of the arcades as well, it's just come full circle now. Gacha isn't anything new here, in reality it's what gaming has been from the start
Saying "Is that Genshin" to every new anime gacha has the same energy as my dad saying "Is that Pokemon?" to every anime he stumbles on
My gacha is better vibes...
to be completely honest though, the hoyoslop formula has become so widespread at this point everyone copies at least a little bit of their system, its annoying
Does it have the same energy, though? it literally looks the same, even down to the big city hub area. Its not really the same as comparing Pokémon to FMA or MHA or whatever.
@@chastermief839 Because to him, everything does look the same at first glance, without really looking deeper into it.
"Is that Dark Souls" to every new soulslike game moment.
I get the argument regarding kids, but honestly, that is on the Parent's, I'm frankly kind of sick of Parent's getting off the hook for being lazy and terrible.
My mother might not have fully understood the games I was playing (not being a gamer) but she looked into things before letting me anywhere near any money with the ability to buy a game. (for the young ones, back in the day buying a game online also didn't exist to a large extent, and even when it did I knew I'd actually get in trouble if I stole my mother's card like some of the parent's claim whenever it comes up that X kid emptyed a bank account)
So the idea that it's not on the parent to... you know parent, shouldn't be a government's job to fix (though is the reason quite a lot of governments are forcibly going that way, so start parenting your kids properly please) and that argument mostly falls on deaf ears for me.
I do understand the inherent scumminess of the daily login system for gachas, but as someone who's dealing with pretty heavy depression that just has me lying in bed doing nothing or doomscrolling, they actually have a positive impact by forcing me to get up to jumpstart my day lol. Like I get up to do my Star Rail dailies, then since im up, might as well do some work, or draw, or write, or dm and interact with people. It's probably not the intended outcome, but I am grateful for that little push even if its from something sinister. Just an interesting perspective.
im glad they can be a motivator for you, I currently play hsr, (and previously genshin before quiting partway through 3.x) but honestly some days I dont even get up... not for like... 6 hours past when I woke up... they dont motivate me to get up :/
ig I can say that my desire/addiction to pull for characters at least makes me want to work to some extent for money so I can spend it on game? is that healthy? no, probably not, but it was a motivating factor for existing for a bit there
That's a band aid at best. You might need friends and maybe even start excercizing.
Small victories do count. Especially if you never give up. The solution should not come from something designed to manipulate.
Be dependent on it for as little time as possibly could.. And get well soon.
This is true for me in genshin. I wake up, do my dailies or events while drinking coffee. Lol it's my equivalent to reading a newspaper. Better this than mindlessly swiping up and down on facebook or insta
you do realize that its not going to work anymore at some point right? You should go get a hobby.
It's good that it's working, but maybe if it wasn't for this it's be something else!
There has to be similar cases where a gacha or similar game is replacing something that could be a lot more personally rewarding. Because in the end those games (and a lot of other games tbh) are kinda "empty", they don't really help long term with those situations. For an extreme example, some people have this with sports, but sport addiction (because it does the brain chemical thing too) isn't as bad because it apparently had benefits 🕵
What I'm saying is anything can be part of a daily routine, and once the routine is set, you don't need as much motivation to start doing the thing, and it becomes a motivation in itself. That's kind of the issue with addictions in general (not saying that's what's happening to you with the gacha, but I'm sure it is for some), they rewire the brain and the reward/motivations are completely twisted, by having such a "easy" way to get those brain chemicals, the normal stuff is a lot more bland. I guess the worry is that with something that's preying on their consumer's engagement, "helping" risks becoming the motivation in itself, and that's a dangerous place to be especially if there's nothing else around that's a bigger pull.
Anyways like other have said, I wouldn't count of this too much long term, but yeah it's also probably better than the random social media engagement farming!
Ok, you can talk about gacha game this and gacha game that, but I just need you to stop bringing up Dragalia Lost. Can't believe it's already been 2 years man...
I cry
Im surprised they didnt do an offline version of the game, that game was a gem
In case yall havent heard, there are a couple of fan servers so we can relive Dragalia. Just look up Dragalia Lost fan server and you should find guides on how to download them.
2 whole years……
I miss it every day T_T
I conflicted because I have not loved a game like I've loved zzz in a long time. I love action games and ones that I'm interested in come out surprisingly infrequently, so one that comes out with regular updates and new content to complete is literally my dream.
Now the gacha stuff doesn't phase me much, I have only spent money on the battle passes which run about 10 bucks every month and a half, because I have no problems making spending plans to guarantee the things I want. I even like doing the mindless dailies because I like the gameplay so much!
This is not the case with my friends. They're constantly pulling for every single character and spending money to complete their collections. This is on top of the monthly passes that reward premium currency when you log in daily. I even hesitate to stream the game because they often try to pressure me into spending what I have saved just so they can watch me gamble. It's unnerving to say the least.
Ok the last part is scary
If you're a healthy individual you should be fine. If you have problems with spending and are easily swayed then probably put it away. It's okay to enjoy hobbies, but when done unhealthily, it should be reconsidered.
No difference than for me with MonHun, as a teen I was soooo addicted to the grind I had to learn to not sacrifice sleep because it was affecting my school 😅.
I relate to this 100%
When your Friends become your Enemies ^^ looks like they have some really addiction Problems while you sound grounded.
Now imagine that in sane world ZZZ would be just a normal rpg you could get on steam. But yeah mh needs to exploit their player base and get them $$ from gambling
I really love how clear it is that you went all out on research, understanding, and dedication to this video. It has to be your best one yet!
Dude, witnessing how your editing and production has developed over like... half a decade is deeply making me feel like time passes. TH-camrs (parasocial, yes) also grow and improve their craft; shit. This think-piece format and atmosphere is great from this one particular video feom you; more academic than literary, huge for me.
I know what you mean, first finding him he was pretty good but very similar to other people I've seen. Now it feels like he's really found his style, figured out what he's really good at
@@bertramjensen188 well back in my day people called him a videogamedunkey copycat 👴
I think a lot of the problem comes from the perspective of being able to spend and spending on the game. Casuals who just play and enjoy the game and roll here and there dont seem to have this problem. This is not applicable to everyone but a lot of the people i know who used to play gacha never spent on it, at most they just bought monthly passes and that wasnt even regular.
The more i read the more i feel like he pinpointing the addicted ones, the ones who let temptation make them spend cash which fine he can. But he wording make me feel like he envelopes all of the user who played these gacha as those people who isn’t all that if at all.
@@phuct4980 His wording does envelope all of the users since all of the people that play these games are subjected to manipulative tactics, regardless of the level of addiction or lack of addiction entirely. Because everyone is subject to manipulative tactics, its impossible to tell if/how much purchases made by people were due to actual enjoyment/value, or manipulation. I'd imagine its a combination of both. In this way, its not a great idea to see people as "not addicted" and "addicted" since people can be manipulated into purchasing things or spending a lot of time without being addicted. Even if people are casual players and spend no or little money, they are still subjecting themselves to manipulative tactics, which, at best is annoying, at worst can lead to addiction, and somewhere in the middle leads to people making purchases and time investments they later realize they should not have done. This is why these mechanics are bad for consumers regardless of what type of player you are.
@@phuct4980Yeah, in a lot of videos like these, they often focus on the people who got carried away. They can end up making it seem like that is the norm for players, which it isn’t.
Friends, the point Yakko makes by "focusing on the people who get carried away" is that *these people are manipulated to be carried away in the first place*
These games are *designed* to facilitate its userbase's absurd spending. Yakko specifically makes the point in this video that of course you can enjoy the game without getting to that extreme, but the fact that you need to advertise to your friends the need for exceptional self control in order to healthily enjoy these games is "fucking bleak" (or some other similar expression he uses). The fact that you and I can control that impulse doesn't excuse the fact that the game is throwing reminders and psychologically optimized propaganda to syphon you of as much of your money as they can, all the time, during its own gameplay. That's what predatory means.
Cope
I'm not young, and probably considered extremely disciplined in personal finance (have almost maximum credit score, no revolving debts, and have financial assets). Yet I play a couple of these games, lol. I mostly just buy monthly pass ($5). I think of it as a subscription fee really. I actually enjoy saving (habit from real life, I guess) in the game, and be selective about characters I want. There's satisfaction in that. Usually when I get everything in a game, I am done and drop it.
Now, I think these kind of vids are more welcome than gacha pulling videos. Players really tend to joke about going bankrupt for gacha characters, and some newer players might feel justified that spending willy-nilly is normal. Being educated about how gacha might get you is key.
The thing is game is indeed can be played for free. Say, you have no money, no credit card, well, you can still play it. Something about most western studios is that they really want to both charge you for the game, and also sell stuff in-game.
Do you think the studio lets you play for free out of the goodness of its heart? What are they getting out of players who don't pay? It's not nothing.
@@TheHopperUKYeah, when they're not taking your money, they're taking your time.
But i'm too lazy to make any good progress in these games anyway lol
@@TheHopperUKtime, interaction in the community and spreading the words through word of mouth. That the price just like everyone playing a game they like, they will spread it to their friend ect. That basic human interaction.
Imagine if he said: "This video is sponsored by Genshin Impact" 💀
Hi guys, funny Project Moon meme man here to say that Project Moon does infact get mentioned at 7:53
Have a great day
Ideal.
Sancho!!!!
IS THAT THE RED MI-... Oh wait wrong meme, IS THAT WELVADER?!?1!;1?!
Hi Wel!
limbus company my beloved
What annoys me, is that even if reviewers explain how gacha system works, they often skip comparison between gacha system and regular microtransactions seen in all sort of games. All you said about FOMO and holding player in the game's ecosystem can be said about many non gacha games. Dailies and weeklies, battlepasses, overpriced item-stores even in games with subscription models, overpriced expansions locking people out of content. By that metric are gachas that evil? I'm not genshin fan but if you ask me to choose between monetization like Destiny's (which is worst offender of current monetization) and Genshin, I'll choose Genshin's every time.
Two things can be true at once. Perhaps both monetization schemes are bad.
gachas *are* that evil, and so are other predatory monetization systems - it's just that the metaphorical frog has been so thoroughly boiled people are just fine with it now
@@fiona9891 i do feel crazy sometimes as someone who grew up with gen 5 and 6 gaming and avoid these sort of games like the plague, and yet watch everyone around me embrace them so heartily.
If the things you might get in a gacha pull are worth having, why doesn't the game just let you buy them outright? Why do you have to roll on it?
@@lovelydumplingI also avoid these games.
Addiction to a Gacha game is like assembling a slot machine in your living room.
no its like opening your fridge and finding a slot machine inside
I'm gonna be honest here, I really don't understand the "everything draw you to put on money" thing. tbh, my first experience in gaming like out of the classics like subway surfer candy crush and all was genshin impact and since then I've consumed other gacha games like hsr and infinity Nikkie but not even once have I had the urge to put money (even tho I don't have any) and had always been f2p. And I think (not sure tho) the principal reason is that I have an immersion problem. No matter how much I find a story interesting, attached to a character, my brain just automatically draw the line between reality and fiction without letting me fully experience it making it so I play the games but don't want that much character, the moment I have a minimum amount of damage that makes me not spend more than 5 minutes in a fight I just chill out. If I lose my 5050, I either keep grinding until I get it or the banner is over and move on or wait next rerun so...yeah it's difficult to relate to anything for me
same...
What pisses me off about these games the most is that when I was still a factory worker, I was consistently around labour workers that earn paycheck to paycheck (what that means is that it's either just enough or hell, even not enough to survive every month, so like around 800 a month etc. a lot of them work overtime for extra money for this reason). And during break time, or the few minutes before our shift, I would see them playing these games, collect their dailies, spend money on digital goods, etc.
I myself have spending problems, I get that, I'm trying to work on that myself, it probably came from unearthed childhood trauma. But to slap YOU JUST DON'T HAVE ENOUGH SELF CONTROL excuse to people who are living from paycheck to paycheck and they of ALL people know they don't have the luxury to save money, much less spend it, is literally avoiding the problem or pushing the blame to someone else instead of actually doing something about it.
(Also before anyone asks why there are people earning less than minimum wage, I live in Asia, there's no such thing as a minimum wage here. Love your content btw yakko, burn the fucking anime girl cardboard let's gooo)
Its funny. I have emulator on my phone and people were asking me how my games dont have adds. People are stupid and companys abuse this.
Yeah playing black and white 2 on phone, while the sucker next to me gets interupted by a add every 30 sec its funny to watch.
Better than spending it on alcohol, I guess.
@@timogul These people would've never spend it on alcohol in the first place though, or cigarettes, or any other type of addiction for that matter. Because as I've said, they already DON'T HAVE THE MONEY to even try to indulge in these things.
That's the whole problem I have with these types of games, it is showing hell, sometimes even giving a new type of addiction to people who wouldn't have been exposed to it or got into any other types of addiction in the first place
It's not shown or regulated enough for it to be appeared as bad, hell it's even normalized and in a positive light
@@lumination0923 That's a false theory though. There are no people who "otherwise wouldn't have gotten an addiction." Addicts will find an addiction, the only way they won't is by deliberately choosing not to. Anyone who spends more money than they could afford on a game is not going to save that money by the game not existing, it only means that they would find some other venue to spend that same money. And there are far more harmful options out there.
It's only "normalized" because for 99.9999% of people who play it, it Is perfectly normal and harmless. Even water can be dangerous if you drink too much of it, that doesn't mean we should restrict access to water for everyone.
@@lumination0923 That's a false theory though. There are no people who "otherwise wouldn't have gotten an addiction." Addicts will find an addiction, the only way they won't is by deliberately choosing not to. Anyone who spends more money than they could afford on a game is not going to save that money by the game not existing, it only means that they would find some other venue to spend that same money. And there are far more harmful options out there. It's only "normalized" because for 99.9999% of people who play it, it Is perfectly normal and harmless. Even water can be dangerous if you drink too much of it, that doesn't mean we should restrict access to water for everyone.
This is why consumer protections are important, we really shouldn't be allowing, let alone tolerating exploitation of addictive tendencies to rob people of their life's savings, at the very least we need to an 18+ rating on all of these because we've known for centuries that addiction severely fucks up developing brains.
This why does Balatro get an 18+ age rating but Genshin doesn’t. Balatro doesn’t even feature real gambling lol.
@auroraboracat26Genshin also doesn’t feature real gambling. The difference is that poker is a real and very popular gambling/casino game.
With no monetization in it. It's a skin of cards while being a rougelite.. While there are news stories or people dropping $100K in gacha games.
The issue with regulation is that it just takes too long. Even if entities like the EU actually implement consumer protection, they usually take years and by then the games industry has found the next highly unethical cashcow, or finds some loop hole around the new regulation
@@adams3560 "but actually its not real gambling because you're not losing money" miss me with this bs. It is very real gambling aimed at young developing minds. It's very additive, everyone loses all the time in those games that give you useless crap when you pull majority of the time. It's funny how in gi you get absolutely useless 3* weapons you can't do anything with then you use gatcha mechanic. And ppl are ok with that.
Genshin was my first "real" gacha and I instantly fell in love with it. I wanted to play Zelda BotW, because it looked super casual and colorful, but then I learned it's a Switch exclusive (I had no idea about that at the time, I don't follow console stuff, I didn't even know it's made by Nintendo), so I was super bummed. And then, out of nowhere, I found Genshin, which was like a dream come true, it was EXACTLY what I wanted to play. I was instantly hit with extremely high quality and unseen level of polish. I used to play a lot of F2P games, so I had some comparison, and let me tell you, Genshin did NOT feel like a crappy F2P made to just milk you for money, but more like an indie from a very experienced and passionate developer (like The Witness). The stylized visuals were amazing, the animations - super smooth, the controls - responsive. Usually, in F2P games controls feel very... blocky, clumsy, just weird in general, it just doesn't feel right. But here It was as smooth as Guild Wars 2, which I used to play for some time, when it was still a B2P.
I was totally captivated by Genshin's world, how pretty it was and how relaxed I felt when I was exploring. The BGM was the first indicator that I'm dealing with something serious. You don't hear that kind of quality of music in F2P games. What I mean is, you know, I like dubstep and I like orchestra. Skrillex sounds great to me, but he can't hold a candle to Mozart, you know what I mean? It's both great, but the classical music is just something else, man. And the more you're listening to it, the more you realize how complex are these compositions. If you have any idea about music, you'll know what I'm taking about, it's just a different caliber of music. Same with old-school big band jazz - like, man, I really do love modern electronic music, but no one in their right mind would claim that it's superior to big band jazz. EDM can be VERY catchy, but it's also VERY simple. Take Deadmau5 for example, I really do love his beats, but when you compare it to classical scores, it's just a different league.
Developers just don't bother, usually, to put that much effort into score, especially in F2P games. So that got my attention right away, because it's a clear indicator of quality. And then I saw a few in-game cutscenes made in form of animated drawings, and that was so cool as well. I very quickly started to appreciate the artistic value of Genshin. It's not just a game, it's an experience. It's basically an interactive anime that allows players to play their part in the events, and it's so incredibly cool. Not to mention the open world that gives you so much freedom. Wherever you look and see something interesting, you can actually go there. You can go there right away, right after starting the game. There are very few areas that can be seen but can't be reached at the beginning. And then you start to discover everything and you learn that there's even more to see! There are caves, undergrounds, and even entire separate regions that lie outside the overworld map.
As I wrote all that, I realized I kinda lost the plot and I'm not sure what I really wanted to say. I just love Genshin. It helped me fight my inner demons, it gives me a peaceful place where I can always return to, and Mondstadt feels like home to me.
But what I'm most grateful for is the fact that Genshin motivated me, indirectly, to start pursuing artistic career. I started to learn to draw because of Genshin. More precisely, because of Honkai Impact 3rd, which I discovered only because I played Genshin. And for that, I'll be forever praising Genshin. It unlocks creativity in people. I see so many talented individuals doing Genshin fan arts, playing Genshin music on various instruments, doing Genshin cosplays, doing Genshin animations, cooking Genshin food... It's such an incredibly inspiring piece of work. I don't believe there will be another game like that in our lifetime. Some may come close, but Genshin will be remembered as World of Warcraft of gacha games. It's revolutionary.
Wow, your love for Genshin Impact really shines through in your writing! It’s clear the game has had a huge positive impact on your life, and it’s inspiring to hear how it motivated you to pursue art. I think it’s amazing how much creativity and joy it’s brought to so many people, yourself included. For my part, I enjoyed Genshin for a few months too, but I eventually felt the gameplay leaned a bit too heavily on gathering primogems, and over time, it started to feel a bit shallow to me. Still, it’s great to see how much it’s meant to you and others!
@@HanzoTookTheWrongShuriken Thanks for reading it all, haven't thought anyone would actually bother to go through all that wall of text xD It's true, it had a huge impact on my life. I recommend you to come back when you can find a moment to spare. Try to ignore the gacha aspect and just play through the stories, and see all the new regions and listen to the new music. There's so much to see and admire, it's mind-boggling. If someone told me a few years ago that this is the quality we'll get in a free game, I'd have called them some funny names for sure, because it would've sounded too good to be true.
I bought a switch just to play Zelda breath of the wild. Which led me to buy other games on switch. It's actually a really good system.
Got an ad for Zenless Zone Zero while watching this lmao
7:59 As someone who sunk 450 hours into Limbus Company, let me say this.
Yes, its one of the best gachas available in terms of the "hidden costs" that is to say, its geared towards low spenders, and the game was made with gameplay and player friendliness in mind first and foremost. I have unlocked like 35+ something IDs (alternative character forms that come from alternative universes) and 20+ something special powers without spending a single dime on them across 1.7 years now, and the only money I spent (a total of 60$ from June 2023 to December 2024) was on season passes because I want to support the devs for making one of my favorite franchises (The Project Moon verse as we call it) atm. Hell, last week was pure comedy where I pulled THREE 3% special power drops back to back while trying to pull for a character (mission failed successfully?) before finally pulling it off. They give you ample amounts of free currency from weekly maintenance compensations, celebrations, special banner starts, and your dungeon runs. The amount of in game resources is very minimal, with only 2 being relevant for upgrades, and unlocking new characters is possible from beating the pass and grinding the dungeon, as well as the occasional pulls you do. The gameplay is also one of the most unique turn based RPGs you will ever play, with its gameplay designed for people who are psychopaths who enjoy reading (such as myself), with one of the most unique settings ever put in a videogame, an AWESOME storyline genuinely, and a REALLY distinct artstyle that stands out in the sea of similiarties that is gacha gaming artstyles (Seriously, could you even tell Ananta or whatever it was called is a different game from Everness to Neverness, and that both WEREN'T made by MiHoYo?)
And I'm speaking here as a gacha game hater who refuses to play these games out of principle. I refuse to engage with their predatory mechanics and other things these games love to do (even if ironically gacha games have gotten fairer about it compared to non gacha microtransaction riddled hellholes), same as I do with any free to play game that wants me to pay up or suffer. I will never promote or pay for such shitty systems. Hell, like I said earlier, I never spent money on the games gacha, I spent it on the season passes.
So why am I typing all this out? To say that, there WAS a cost in all of this. My time. Remember this, these games operate on live services, and to this day, no joke, not a SINGLE gacha game ever "concluded" properly if you get what I mean. They never finished their stories, and always have ended on getting cancelled before making it to the finish line. Limbus Company has a set plan of going for *EIGHT MORE YEARS* before hitting their end goal. That is ambitious but I dont know if they can ever get that far. For all of its fairness in all of its systems, that time investment is the real cost. As a fan of the developers and their games and comics, that time is a real investment. I WANT to see what happens, I WANT to know how it goes, what they do. That is my choice and my grave to dig.
If you got this far in reading, thank you for your time, and please consider your choices carefully when engaging with these games. There is ALWAYS some cost.
Rather than digging you own grave, you could say you are digging up an already burried grave?
Joke aside, I do have the same feeling of giving money and my time because I actually enjoy the story rather wishing for a reward. I think my bigggest investment was spending on books that the character are inspired by than in the game. I hope no further bad development decisions are made over the course of these years because I enjoy hearing new players reaching last chapters in no time.
@MoroFuoro same.
Genuine question, what is the source on Limbus wanting to run for another 8 years? I'm a very avid Project Moon cultist myself, and tend to read whatever communication PM puts out, but I haven't seen anything definitive on how long Limbus will run for.
@@meeszijlstra5426the CEO does livestreams where he announces future plans. In that, he’s said that Limbus is modeled after the Dante trilogy (Dante’s Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso). Right now we’re in inferno- there are 12 main characters for limbus and each of them are going to get 1 focus chapter before moving onto purgatorio, then paradiso. Each focus chapter (“season”) takes 4-6 months to produce. 6 months x 12 characters x 3 books = 6ish years. Right now we’re only just now coming up on season 6 by the way, of 36 total.
Also, the CEO revealed in a live stream that he has his own personal account that he puts his own money into, which I think is part of why it’s gacha system is one of the most ethical ones on the market right now.
That's great that you have your principled stance, but you can continue playing the game and see the story continue because others are spending.
Something a lot of gachas do, that Limbus Company dodges through its narrative design, is that they lock access to characters behind the gacha. This is an easy way to make people want to gamble on cool/attractive characters, but it also shoots their story telling capacity in the foot. Limbus Company on the other hand has a cast of characters that's pre-set from the start, and the gacha only gives alternative powersets/variants for those characters. (Think a cosmetic + an alternate move set.) This is combined with a system where any of these variants can be bought with a non-premium currency, without engaging with the gacha at all and regardless of whether they are currently offered in a banner or not. (I reckon about one in three variants is gained this way instead of the gacha.) The overall result is a far lower degree of FOMO, and the kind of player that would have the compulsive drive to get a certain character has paths that don't involve endlessly spinning the wheel.
However, even with that accounted for it's far from perfect. Comparing it to a non-gacha game from the same developer (Library of Ruina) that has some similarity in mechanics, it definitely suffers some from the genre. An example is the inability for the dev to have a clear expectation of what IDs the player has available at any particular point.
Yeah... most of the time gacha games has too much characters that hurt their story telling
I find that to be Limbus’ biggest weakness really. It’s just the same small cast of characters forever.
@@adams3560 Literally the best decision they made. Don Quixote, Heathcliff, Yi Sang or any other Sinner's development would hit NOWHERE near as hard (Be it their Canto or individual progression between Cantos) if they simply choose to subdivide their allocated screen time between a limbillion other characters as is common in other Gachas. What good would come from having so many characters with none of them being anywhere as comprehensive or well-explored as Don or Heathcliff?
@@adams3560 Actually don't think that's accurate.
There are still characters outside the core cast that turn up, and if you think about it, those are not that different from how other gachas have a character turn up a bit for the story that advertises them, only to disappear again after because the dev can't expect every player to have them.
Like, just for one there are the characters from each sinners past that play a role in their canto's story.
It's not unprecedented for gachas to have a smaller core cast that does get consistent appearances and repeated appearances, but usually that is a rather small number.
LC has ~14 such characters, which allows for more interpersonal dynamics and a consistent pace of characters getting development without one single character going through the wringer all the time.
(Which isn't to say that they couldn't do better with what they have, but it's not bad.)
Honkai Impact 3rd used to do that a lot in the past, not so much anymore, sadly. Back in the old days, it was Mei, Kiana, Bronya, Theresa, Fu Hua, Himeko, and that was pretty much it for the most part; they were simply getting new battlesuits as the game progressed - all in accordance to the events in the story. When a character got a power up in the story, some awakening or something, it then appeared as a new, separate character in gacha, even though the character itself was the same, just with different moves in combat and new outfit. I liked that a lot; it's what allowed the original HI3rd cast to remain relevant for so long, and made people attached to them. The whole story was centered around Mei, Kiana, and Bronya.
Title should be change to "The real cost Modern Monetization" and then this video as a whole will be more valid topic.
Modern games in general are created with monetization being a core pillar.
You know it's kind of wild that people spend possibly 10x the price of a regular game for things that would just be there by default in any game from the PS2 and back.
I could be off base but I imagine it's due to most people that cough up the money do it in small doses that slowly adds up over time
Like if you see a full priced game you might be skeptical about it being worth the money
Then you come across a free game and it's surprisingly enjoyable
Maybe I'll spend a couple dollars here and there and then one day without realizing you end up wracking a huge bill
In the comments there are people that admit they spend close to 1k or people in high school spending like 600 on one game
Personally the max I've ever spent on a gacha was like 5 dollars several years ago due to having a little extra left on a gift card
You could argue they spend 10x on one game.
Football gamers will spend that amount money yearly on multiple iteration of the game.
Tbf I spend lesser in gacha games than console games.
@@AIIXIII0 Buying something isn't gambling and really isn't comparable.
@@lanadelsultana yeah but the argument is the cost. I could play Elden Ring for hundreds (my currency.) or play Genshin for free.
And football gamers bought the game and still gacha in it which is worst.
@AIIXIII0 can't argue w/ gacha in a full price game being worse
Sunk cost really keeps people playing. I've put so much time (not so much money though) into genshin it feels like a waste to get rid of the game to me. These types of games can be very hard to let go.
Trust me, it wont feel like it, heck you can even just watch resumes on the story and not bother playing because is the same game it was 5 years ago
@@Beard789It has changed and progressed over the past 5 years though. There’s so many cool characters now, many regions to explore, new mechanics, new mini games, and the story is approaching its climax. I’m enjoying it more than ever.
BUt thats applies to almost every live service game though, I would say its even more prevalent with pvp games
I don't know, I've quit games I've put a lot of time and money into before, MMOs and mobile games, and that's because they reached a point where they just weren't fun anymore. With games like Genshin, I keep playing them because I'm still having fun, because I expect to continue to have fun for the forseeable future, and while the daily/weekly mechanics might give me a specific incentive to log in _each_ day instead of sporadically, I actually like that, because it keeps me from dropping off like I often do with games that release DLCs months after launch.
If you have let go once, you can let go twice or three times. My experience though.
Boy, I feel all the pains you shared. To this day I feel I'm missing some big event for not interacting with gacha games. But the moment I try one and present me with the gacha mechanic and the shop, I have Vietnam flashbacks and uninstall the game. And is a shame that so many good stories, characters and (sometimes) gameplay is lost because of that. Most recently I wanted to try Heaven Burns Red, but at a point I felt rushed to end the main story and just disengaged completely.
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, I want that Mym figure. Please tell me where you bought it. I miss Dragalia Lost ;-;
Trust me brother you are not missing a single thing
@@vinceb8123 He is missing a lot but if you aren't built to resist then you gotta miss out. Same with food allergies.
@@Jinni-iras17514 "Missing a lot" 1s and 0s that cost real money......
completely unrelated but is that missile dressed as sissel
Honestly, once you get past the smoke and mirrors you would realize that like what people have said, you're missing out on basically nothing at all. It's like midnight releases back in the days of Halo and Call of Duty, or the promotional campaigns for Blizzard games during Blizzcon back in the 2000-2010s era. All of it rely on you already being a fan of them, and if you're not a fan, then it basically amounts to nothing for you at the end of the day.
7:53 The Limbus Company community jokes that the devs have no idea how to make a gacha game, and that we *definitely shouldn't tell them*.
If they learn, they might start to be horrible manipulative bastards like all the other gacha devs. They're used to being an indie studio from their work on their previous two games, and I honestly worry that if they begin to understand the power in their hands, they'll crush us all.
To be honest, they are well aware of how devoted their community is. A lot of choices are made to reference players discussed elements and even memes; I mean, we got Mili to make music solely thanks to sone dude's amv of Lobco.
In past, they struggled with multiple situations bringing them to nigh bankruptcy... and not once did they use those as excuse to rise prices.
Last year they made it so you can only buy BP for lunacy - to prevent people from exploiting system, and immediately introduced exact lunacy pack, so you don't spend a single dime more than before.
They removed VA from intervallos to speed up production, suggesting they might redub them in future - and there we are, their promises kept.
I have been with PMoon long before even Ruina was announced. My worship is cultlike as not only their practices, but also stories in their games are what I genuinely believe a cure to gaming industry.
Eh..
I played Limbus Company during in-between my time of playing Reverse1999 and Zenless Zone Zero. And honestly, as a Free-To-Play player that doesn't buy anything in any gacha game ever, its experience in terms of pace and progression is not too different compared to the "horrible manipulative bastards" that you're referring to.
Besides, the developers already developed a superior version of Limbus Company in almost every single way. It's called Library of Ruina, and it just needs you to pay once, unlike Limbus that demands you to login daily, and buy the Battle Pass monthly for the optimal experience.
TLDR: Limbus Company is overrated af. It's still a gacha game at the end of the day.
@crowraterohale Library of Ruina was alright, but it didn't do any of the most interesting things that Limbus excels at - it has much less story, worse graphics, an unpolished combat system, etc. Which is to be expected, since it was a finite project by a small indie studio instead of something that could be added to and improved infinitely. Live service games have that going for them, it's the same reason that a game like Warframe has some of the best story out there - years of iteration and resources. I don't necessarily think it's the right way to do things, in fact I would argue that it opens a game up to more pitfalls than ever, but if those pitfalls are avoided, it can do wonders.
As for the progression, I've gotta say I don't see what you see at all. The differences are insane. Like, I've played most gachas out there, and they always have some horrid system that makes your units never perfect - you always need to either limit break them by pulling them multiple times, attach statistically impossible rerolled 'relic' items to them, you need to level their skills separately so even when maxed they aren't really maxed, etc. Thus you never feel like you're actually experiencing the game properly unless you're a whale spending thousands of dollars and hours.
Limbus, uniquely as far as I've seen, just makes your units be their objectively perfect selves after you level them up and Uptie them. No skill leveling, no limit breaks, no nothing. It just works similarly to a normal video game. That couldn't be more different from a regular gacha game, and if they ever changed that, I'd leave, as just one example.
I definitely don't think Limbus is perfect, and hell, I'd drop it in a heartbeat if we magically found a way to stop all even slightly abusive game design tactics and that had to include shutting down Limbus. It definitely isn't on the same level as the other gachas, though.
@@A6by I see that we have different perspectives when it comes to progression.
Progression for me, is how able you are to clear and beat all the content in the game, regardless of whether your unit is "complete" or not.
While games like Limbus Company, Arknights, Fate Grand Order, and Dragalia Lost do offer little to no minimal progression gains when you get duplicates/copies of characters, the Hoyo-style games with major-effect duplicates (Genshin, HSR, ZZZ, Reverse1999, Girls Frontline 2) make it so that all content is clearable with little vertical investment, as long as you know what you're doing.
Between playing Reverse1999, Snowbreak Containment Zone, and Limbus Company, it took me roughly 2 months as a F2P player to clear their endgame contents. One uses a unique business model, and the other two uses a Hoyo-lite model.
Anyway, I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just that for me, my experience in progression pace was not that different. All of them are still subject to timegating/gacha mechanics.
There is nothing "fleeting" about live service games. They can very well be playable at the end of their lives if the publishers release the server binary, yet they choose not to because "fuck consumer rights"
1:02 I miss those times, the fact they'd rather vote for a Gacha game over BG3 or even Astro Peak is just sad
Genshin and etc are pretty well made idk about raid tho
In ZZZ you missed that there is batteries that speed up your progress. + there is usually some shit got for a story and so on. + for 3 times bosses - you can grind them with stamina too. 3 in a week - it's for free. and you can do it in a easy way for 40 sec to just got a item.
Thank you for making this in depth vid!!!
These games are so intense and when you took those papers and the book "addiction by design" to further break them down this vid will be one of my most recommended.
Video games should be fun! I wish they didn't try to manipulate people.
This video alongside People Make Games - Roblox is worth the watch.
When comparing Infinity Nikki to all the other games mentioned in the video, it really seems to have ditched some of the most toxic elements of gacha games. It doesn't lock abilities behind "characters", and even the clothing that you can get from paid banners only have different visual effects and serve no ingame function. Also Nikki has no lewd content or characters and does not cater to that audience. You will unlock all abilities through gameplay, and the gameplay is more animal crossing adjacent and combat focuses on matching different clothes, where ofc higher star rate makes game easier, but you can level up any clothes to get further in the game.
From my experience as a player, it has also been quite generous with f2p and gives a lot of prenium currency (in my experience with 1 month played, I have been given atleast 200 free pulls) which you can use to unlock higher star rated clothes from banners. The currency system is very confusing, but I feel like the game let's you plan what you want and how much you want to work or pay for it. I just wanted to leave my comment as I really valued the information in the video, but there wasn't much information on Infinity Nikki's system, which is understandable as it's a new game and maybe not in the interest of the creator. As a player who has "drunk the cool-aid" of Nikki, it really seems that Nikki devs have found their niche in the gacha gaming that was unfullfilled.
With how rapidly these systems are systems are evolving and how little pushback there seems to be for these kinds of things nowadays, the news headline "Fortnite Itemshop Gacha introduced" could drop tomorrow and I wouldn't even flinch at this point. Hate to get all boomer but what the hell happened to the sentiment of "10$ golden horse armor" being ridiculed to hell and back, feels like people just genuinely arent having discussion like this anymore which is shame.
i mean is fortnite really that much better when a skin you want could pop up in tomorrow's shop and if you don't have enough vbucks you're pushed to buy more to get the skin in case it doesn't appear in the shop for months or years at a time
A lot of creators at the moment say Infinity Nikki is just cosmetics. But the clothes have stats and you need to level them with currency, so far mainly available through energy and the battlepass. And of course the endgame styling contests give you a good amount of diamonds so you can pull more. But the current gacha outfits have an advantage in those limited time contests, making you save time/energy leveling if you get them.
So far the abilities attached to the outfits have been only cosmetic. But in a game that is all about aesthetics, you could argue that is sort of pay to win.
I feel like even mahjong gachas are more cosmetic than that.
thats because nikki IS pay2win series, because its ALL about "cosmetics" to use in various activities within the game. take a look for example pso2 - 95% of its gacha system is also cosmetic, but those cosmetics are just that - simply cosmetics. no stats or anything, just flexing a new bling to people.
Infinity Nikki is not cosmetics only because in this case the "cosmetics" actually do affect the story and end game and is the whole point. It's different from buying skins for characters like in League of Legends, it's similar to gacha in Genshin Impact where the premium character have more ease of completing exploration, in the case of Infinity Nikki it's better to complete the Mira Crown and Styling Challenges. But Infinity Nikki series in general always started as gacha for fancy costume, that being said they are giving the miracle outfits which are the free 5* costumes that everyone can get.
Then theres cookie run kingdom, you miss a full year and your mailbox is full of free stuff
My Friend has a child that is around 10 Years old and grew up on Fortnite and such.... I was playing Animal Crossing on the Switch with my Child (3 Years) and we had to get some Milage Points (Points you get for doing things like "chops 10 trees" or "visit x Friends") and he asked why we do not just pay for them.
I first did not understand what he meant and then he was in total shock that you can not buy those points in Animal Crossing.
It is really scary how gaming will turn out in 10+ years and i do not the games and more the players.
Great video. The biggest thing I'm surprised you didn't mention though (if you did whoops I missed it) is that End of Service generally means a total erasure of any purchases. While some games do get permanent versions with all content available at EoS, this is rare and very much not normalised. As a big Granblue player and general gacha-enjoyer, the main thing that's kept me from spending a penny on things aside from just not wanting to commit to any 'gambling' is that any investment I make in a game like this can be taken away from me without a single thing I can do about it.
Investment? I think you are seeing it the wrong way. It's an expenditure for entertainment, not an investment.
Do you ever go to the cinema? Maybe a bar? a theme park? These sort of things in which you are spending money for entertainment have an expiry date. After the movie is done you only keep the memories. After you get wasted and the bar closes you only keep the memories. After the theme park closes and you are rushed out you only keep the memories.
Buying a physical game and playing it is an entertainment expenditure in which you could make some money back, but you are still mostly spending.
Surprise, but you dont own any game. You are indefinitely leasing a license to play. Any game you have in your library can be shut down any second and you will lose it. Never see any money you spend in or on a game as an investment. You dont own anything and you are not legally allowed to sell it or even have the files on your PC after your license is revoked. It is very similar to renting a console. You spend money for your fun for a certain period. That's all there is to it.
I mean that's technically the same for every game on steam too... you pay for the license to play, not for the game itself. At any moment steam can "EoS" and you lose your library. The time of physically owned copies that aren't just licenses is actually a one small period of time in the middle of gaming history.
Imo it's best just not to worry about it too much, pay for the immediate experience rather than any permanent aspect that will outlast you, focusing on your present. That way you'll always be satisfied with your purchases, never feel pressured to spend, and enjoy everything you can to its max potential
Spending money in a game isn't an investment. That World of Warcraft subscription fee ($15) and buying a $15 of pulls in a gacha game are gone just like watching a movie for $15.
@@annaairahala9462 This is a genuinely awful take. What you’re basically saying is that “you don’t own anything and you will be happy, also don’t think about the gambling part too much 🥰”, especially when the license to play bs got Steam users upset anyways. If paying is not owning you may as well just pirate. (Not like companies could do anything about piracy either. There’s always another Russian/Brazilian torrenting site.)
I don't think the goal is to get every character. There is great joy to be had from saving up for future characters and then being quaranteed to get the ones you really want.
Also what these games give the most is excitement for future chapters, with bursts of gameplay and story along the year. Steady updates like this were not feasable on previous MMOs I've played.
2 interesting cases:
1) when a live update type game simply doesn't take off, it's actually sad. I love the gameplay behind Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt, which is a bit like overwatch but with goth fashion add ons and vampire abilities. But it simply was too niche for mainstream, so it couldn't survive as a live updating game. This is honestly devastating for the niche who did enjoy it, as the devs were forced to stop making new content. What does it mean for the future of games when good games aren't able to make it because they Don't manipulate the mainstream enough?
2) animal crossing pocket camp recent came to the "end" of its live update life. The amount of furniture in that game surpasses the amount in New Horizons by leaps and bounds- but the issue was always that it was locked behind gacha and events. But because they were ending live updates, they recently released "Pocket Camp Complete" which for $12 changes the gacha system from one based on real currency to one you obtain in game through quests exclusively and unlocks all of the premium features. Because animal crossing has always been a kind of "daily play" style game, it doesn't feel terrible to have to check in and participate in seasonal events to get seasonal furniture. That's part of the charm. So I wonder if this kind of End Game will be something other developers also implement. But it's also hard to keep a live update game going without constant revenue, like in the case of Bloodhunt, which I suspect is only barely paying the server fees. So maybe not :(
What I've noticed with hoyoverse recently, is that they love just straight up copying stuff from DMC, e.g. that one character that looks like Dante's dmc3 devil trigger and that one character that literally just has Bury the light as their theme but in an entirely different language. 8:24 - 8:30 is literally just a copy of a red queen combo from dmc4/dmc5. 8:53 is just judgement cut but with guns??
Gonna be the nerd here and correct 17:00 Although it says you only have 3 remaining rewards, those are actually the weekly free claims you get for these "Bosses" you can actually claim their reward drops with stamina until you run out, it costs 60 iirc.
Given how his video contains footage of banners that have been long gone for months I assume that part was scripted / recorded when that wasn't the case
@@DarkHeroCCI think it was always the case though.
Always been the case
A bit of what he says or shows is in bad faith. Like when he said you can't create wind currents without Venti...there's a gadget that does what he does. You can also create them easily in Mondstadt.
47:31 Was a clip of what appears to show Genshin not allowing you to explore as part of the gacha experience when the context is that the barrier is relevant to its quest.
Complaining about the shown gachas having bad stories is very subjective.
I thought I was watching Dogpack404 for a second
@@doublehh1674 Nope, in 1.0 and 1.1 you could only do it 3 times a week. The ability to use energy on them was added in 1.2
For me (as a game designer) the real problem with gacha games is that the design of the game is always A gacha first and then a game, the gacha is always the core of the experience and everything is design around that, from the monetization the game has to sometimes the gameplay loop
Because if you actually have a good gameplay loop, you don't need to rely on gacha to keep people coming back.
Yeah but genshin and many gachas that came after only got so popular because they decided to put actual gameplay in the game like if you compare azur lane gameplay to ZZZ you would never think they would both be gachas
Except that just isn't true anymore in modern gacha games. Almost every new gacha game has to put the gameplay first, or else they will fail. Gacha mechanics by themselves is not enough to draw players in an every expanding market that has it every where you look. Especially since Genshin basically became a template for Gacha mechanics, it's literally almost all the same as well.
I don't wanna sound bias or anything, but honestly this is why i love Kuro Games. Both Pgr and Wuwa are the opposite: Game first, gacha second.
I've also heard similiar stories towards Limbus Company.
@@Otherface The games were not created for the games. Anyone who wants to create a game would be ashamed to make something gacha. It is massive companies who want to make money and hire people, which they order to create a game so that they can make money off the gambling. The gameplay was never a goal. It is a means to an end and that end is the money in your pocket. Don't delude yourself into thinking otherwise. Think of it like EA making the next Fifa ultimate team. Sure there are people that work there that are talented. But they are all cogs in Maschine to create the most revenue. It is the same amount of artistic integrity as that.
I used to date someone that fell into the trap that is gacha games. We moved in together but soon after she was addicted to Genshin. She literally barely played the game itself, yet she spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars every single month to unlock new characters and just talk to other players to get compliments. She eventually went bankrupt and couldn't afford anything. After that experience I've had nothing but disdain for the genre.
And people say there aren't wrong ways to play a game. I would definitely consider that one a wrong way, lol.
Says more about her than the game imo, addiction is no joke and it sounds like even if she had a different addiction it would be the same thing.
@@Koutouhara oh for sure. It wasn't entirely the game's fault but unlike lots of other mediums for her to get addicted to, gacha games have very little regulations or restrictions compared to real life gambling or substance abuse like Yakko mentioned in the video. These games being so easy to exploit people is one of the main reason why gacha was the poison of choice for her.
@@orionhart4744if the only thing she did with the game was spend money to pull characters and get compliments, it would have happened with anything, not just Genshin. Genshin is one of the least exploitative gacha games, since not only does it have a guaranteed system, but it also doesn't bombard you with microtransactions doesn't have any content locked behind specific characters. You can complete pretty much everything in the game with the starter characters and the ones given for free later on.
@@AndresLionheartthe game itself is wrong 🤷
I exited my gacha-game addiction around three years ago. Since then, all I see when new loot-box/gacha games pop up is the same core with a different shell. It's almost funny being able to skim through a game and see the common players: general upgrade materials, separate "ascension" materials, premium currency (to buy from the gacha or to buy gacha "tickets"), and common currency (completely useless additional cost to upgrade/ascension). "Yup," I would think, "I've played this game before." Bonus points for being able to let the game fight for you and for unlocking 2x, 3x, etc., speed as player-level progressions.
Looking back at the various games I've played, the only time I saw a unique divergence from the path was with the Symphogear gacha game (no longer running). Its unique aspect was, unsurprisingly, in an extra restrictive mechanic: separate stamina. There were different types of levels, and each one would use a different type of stamina. Each of them also regenerated at different rates. It felt so transparently malicious to me, but I guess that's why "hindsight is 20/20."
Hey! I'm from SEA and played Soo much gacha game event before Genshin.
My take is if you played a gacha game please don't FOMO. As a f2p, nowadays gacha game characters are easy to obtain, in one patch you can get enough currency to get one character. So planning your saving and enjoy the game at your own pace 😊
i feel the same way in that infinity nikki SHOULD'VE JUST BEEN A NORMAL GAME!!! i remember playing it and feeling like...man...this should've just been a fully paid game instead of a free to play microtransaction game. it's too good in concept to be a mobile gacha 😭😭
In my head I always pushed back at the 'games are addictive' thing because : They end! Like songs, movies or shows. However that's traditional games now that it's clear we're rushing to an age of majority forever games (live services), there's no beating the addictive allegations.
Gacha games are the gaming equivalent of earworms
iirc we like finishing things and it gets stuck in our mind when things are left unfinished. The fact that a majority of gacha games have no endings story-wise feel very intentional so the players will always have it in the back of their mind.
i personally got fed up with it and realized i could have finished actual complete games or improved on my other hobbies in the time i spent grinding shit on genshin impact
@@PsycheTrance65Some gacha games do have endings though. Most end up shutting down before they get there though. While others have temporary endings, like FGO. The game’s story wrapped up, but the game was so popular that they then decided to continue the story with a part 2.
Not everyone likes finishing games also. I’ve had many cases where I finish a game and then feel sad that it’s over, there’s nothing more to see or do. Live service games remove that problem.
These games only end when the publishers come out with those End of Service statements on social media. Even then, fans will still make their own private servers and continue playing there
First of, great video. I don't know why, I keep watching your videos from time to time, even though I rarely agree with the points you make (in your opinion pieces I mean) but I do, and I'm glad I watched this one, because it feels well researched and lived; and the scripts covers the subject in a well structured way.
Second, the part 4 "Genshin's Impact" is really where I'm at with these games. I installed Genshin (on a phone? or PS4, I can't remember) once just to see what the "free BotW" could do, was unimpressed by the art direction (gives me bottom of the barrel overdetails bad Tales Of Somethingia vibes), and quickly got bored by the actual game, thinking that if it wasn't free, people would probably never play it. And then I saw on TH-cam a variety of ads for Honkai Starrails and other stuff, and until you mentioned here that these are not from the same company, I assumed they were not only by the same devs, but also in the same universe, since they really all look the same.
The only one I'd actually want to play if it were a premium game, and that makes me frustrated that it's not, is Infinity Nikki, because deep down I'm a gamer girl, and I love fashion in video games, and this looks super chill.
I do agree that “you can do everything for free” is a lame defense of gacha mechanics.
I don’t think gacha is a (or even THE) solution to monetization but i also am okay with conceding that these kinds of live service games cost a lot of money to pump out new content for weekly and require a lot of love and upkeep (At least, colorful stage does. Never played a hoyoverse game so do take it with a grain of salt)
I don’t rlly know a good alternative, so while I dislike gacha mechanics i can kinda understand why they exist, a one-time purchase just doesn’t make sense for live service games that require constant money to keep servers running, add new content, art, music, etc
Honestly I think what some MMOs do is actually the best option: subscription to play
Like yeah this will probably trigger the “buy everything and own nothing” ptsd of a lot of people but when you really think about it I think it’s fair. Pay once for infinite content forever is not exactly an enticing deal for developers. At first when my ex tried to get me into FF14 i was annoyed that it was a subscription just to play the game, but past the initial shock i can see why. I never rlly got into that game, I could never enjoy MMOs in general, but i think that model could maybe work for gacha games too (but if that tanks player numbers then make it free for the first few months or even free to play but subscriptions for cosmetics or something idk)
ALSO on a related note to shareholder hate: i think the very concept of investors ruins gaming in general and everything they touch because number is expected to always go up no matter what even when market saturation is reached but yeah!!! we love the stock market and capitalism is 100% completely perfect!! oh well
The problem with subscription is that it requires commitment. One of the strong point of gacha games is the low commitment nature of them.
Like outside story content, what you do in gacha is open the game, do limited attempt grinding for 5-10 minutes, and then turn it off. It's that low of a commitment.
@@Za_Ra_bruh Guild wars was the best solution so far, pay once play as much as you like, but each expansion costs more.
"everything for free"
That's basically willingly eating shit for free
@@DogginsFroggins ESO also did it well with the base game being free, the DLCs being purchasable separately and there also being an optional subscription that gives you access to all of the DLCs at once.
Options can do wonders for all parties involved.
As a recovered Gacha game addict, the amount of times I've seen a game and gone "this looks interesting" only for it to be a gacha game is incredibly disheartening, but not as bad as the amount of big influencers and people who just... casually play and advertise the games without a thought about their impact or monetisation. It's quite terrifying.
Yup, I played a few minutes of honkai and thought "this would be better if it had a different leveling and story structure more akin to a proper jrpg like atlus or square makes"
That happens with me and survival crafting games. "Wow, this looks amazing! Oh, nm, it's a survival game."
We'll get past this stuff eventually.
Worst part is actual gaming publishers wanting a slice of the pie too.
When I saw that Monster Hunter Explore trailer I was just like "If this budget just went into Wilds I'd probably like whatever came out of that 10x more than whatever this game has to offer me"
@@blookydoopy4593 So many times it's just like, "Hey, you have something awesome here. Just let me pay for it once and play it, please!"
Everyone's broke, so this isn't sustainable. That's our only hope.
same honestly, i just quit a few months ago. while formating my hard drive, i want to install star rail again, but instead i downloaded armored core 6 and spend my money on model kits mow
Thank you for sharing your findings from research papers that aren't publicly available for free. Whenever I see a video about the costs of live service, and especially the gacha genre, I introspect. I'd like to share my story with these games.
My first gacha game was Brave Frontier over a decade ago. I was always looking for games to play on my iPod Touch back in middle school. One friend and I played together with no money invested for a long time. It was fun to talk about what units we had, and the friend system allowed us to use each others' best units through an assist feature.
Then my grandmother began to become ill. It was a slow process, and my biggest regret is that I didn't spend 100% of my time during visits talking with her and comforting her. As she got worse, I spent more time looking at my iPod. And to ignore the very heavy thoughts in my mind, I would spend money on the game. I began spending time during those visits spending money and grinding to build characters I got then and there. Brave Frontier had an auto battle feature, but I would watch the animations play instead of putting it down and talking to my family. I didn't realize this until years after her passing when the game reached EoS.
It angers me that I still play gacha games after I've come to understand what I did in the past. I didn't play gacha games since Brave Frontier until all of my friends played Genshin Impact while we were all in lockdown. I'm the only one of that group that still plays. I also now play HSR and ZZZ. The characters and stories in the ladder two genuinely interest me, which is the worst part. After awhile, I started spending $15 each month on their respective daily login passes. I stopped three months ago on Genshin because I genuinely don't have much fun with the game anymore. HSR and ZZZ are just their respective genres without the friction. I don't need to truly engage with the systems to get dopamine. Another thing I think that should be noted is the speed at which you can finish the daily energy spending. The monotony "isn't that bad" between events and story updates because it takes like 10 minutes at most to spend energy and use the materials you got. That's a big thing for me, at least.
I recently got into Nikke for about two months because of friends, but I just uninstalled it today as I watched this video. I don't want my days being sucked up by live service. I don't even want to play many other live service games in general because of how awful the engagement procuring is. I hope to, one day, be able to play these games only when I'm genuinely interested by a story update or an event.
Don’t be angry at yourself for what happened. The passing of a loved one is one of the most stressful and upsetting things that a person can go through, and everyone copes with it differently. I don’t think anyone would blame you for wanting an escape at times.
There’s nothing wrong with you continuing to play that kind of game if you enjoy it.
I want to echo @adams3560 feelings here but also add that you can enjoy these things as long as you're mindful of how you're experiencing it. Now that you've gone through a negative experience in how you engaged with one of these games, if enjoying another one brings you happiness, go for it. But the key is to play it with the active awareness of how it *can* exploit people. If you feel like you're playing them too much, put them down for a bit, go do something else. If you want to spend money on them, think thrice before "opening your wallet". Reach the conclusion yourself on whether you can enjoy these games healthily.
All of that being said, *fuck* these predatory designs in the first place.
i have been a big fan of the nikki franchise for a long time, but it’s meant i have spent a frankly egregious amount of time and money on all of the games. i know how predatory they are, but i still find myself going back. i find myself fascinated with their strange, never-ending lore and their innovative new outfits every time there’s a limited pavilion/banner. i can’t imagine how it will feel to young gamers growing up thinking this is the normal way to play games. it’s not. but alas, here we are.
The thing about Infinity Nikki is that, the dresses are 100% just for cosmetic purposes. The game itself is free, and the gacha is far more forgiving than it should've been. There's no combat system and the game is overall just a chill dressup game. The game emphasizes that you don't even need to spend money to get the outfit you want (unless if you want the 5* gacha ones) and you have no incentives to actually do it. Each costumes have 7-10 sets and acquiring them all is monumental work, only if you want them. They're just optional though.
Yeah right? A great way to pull the players in. Gacha is gacha there is no better gacha game or another, they are all evil systems made to make you addicted, be aware of that.
and the game's systems are hard coded to make you want the dresses, so? "they're just optional though," won't stop someone who wants the dopamine rush of rolling for EARRINGS.
"The game is literally just a chill DRESSUP game" +
"The intentionaly design to be more appealing dresses (the main content that ppl want in a DRESSUP game) are aquired through gacha"
Totally not exploitative you guys 😂
I was chatting with an acquaintance about gacha games the other day. I was playing Love Live within weeks of its initial release date in spring of 2013. There were maybe a dozen songs to choose from and 3 on daily rotation. Truly a nothingburger of a rhythm game, but I loved it. I even put off upgrading my phone because I had gotten so used to how holding it in its case affected gameplay. Was I aware it was just a gambling game dressed up with anime girls? Sort of. It never really hit me hard until there was one event for a Kotori card that I thought was really cute. I started working my way through the event, but it dawned on me pretty quickly that you would never have enough daily energy as a F2P player to ever complete it. I didn’t even want to start the mental math needed to figure out how much you’d need to spend to get to the end. And at the end was ONE card! Back then, you needed TWO of the same card to upgrade your characters into an idolized form (I feel like this has been changed…? I could be wrong). You’d need to do the event AGAIN, and spend double the amount of money. It really soured the mobile/gacha game genre for me. I came back to it maybe a year later when I had some extra money to spend, but I think I put in maybe $40 before realizing that it wasn’t worth it, and deleted the app entirely. I haven’t touched a gacha game since, and I feel like I dodged a nuclear bomb every time I see how complicated these games have gotten and how sneaky they are with taking your money.
And yet somehow every day I have to swallow the urge to download Marvel Rivals. Like there is no other genre I loathe more than a hero shooter (a genre we perfected in 2007 with TF2 and we just let it fall downhill from there), but… ough I like those guys! Those are the blorbos from my comics!
😭😭😭😭😭
The true danger of Gacha games is that the slippery slope is really dangerous. For instance I've put in a decent amount of hours into Genshin and it's a pretty good game that isn't that bad to play F2P or probably a bit better at like spend 10-15$ every month of two which is cheaper than a Netflix subscription. But, the true danger is first of all not everyone is as steeled to impulse spending as I am and what if you've slowly built up a collection of characters you like and enjoy and than the game you've played for years slowly starts becoming more predatory over time. In that case by the time you realize you're being boiled in a soup of micro-transations you might already be an entrenched game veteran with a bunch of sunk cost keeping you from seeing the obvious.
genshin would be so much better in EVERY, NOT JUST GAMEPLAY, EVERY regard if it wasnt a gacha game
im still kinda upset over inazuma
writing wise every character involved was fucked over because the pandemic hit and they had to sell waifus and husbandos
i like genshin but i believe it would be better if it wasnt a chinese gacha game and was written and coded by developers who actually care (and arent racist)
@@kaelell4697genshi nwould be so much worse if it wasn't a gacha game. Do you think the now like 1 billion dollars they spent on it came out of thin air?
@@kaelell4697 If genshin wasn't a gacha it would be just a Breath of thw wild clone, the things that really makes the game unique came way after 1.0. If it wasn't a gacha it wouldn't be nearly as big
@@bencegergohocz5988 have you ever played the game? no? alright then
@@kauanjos3199 its not a breathe of the wild clone, look, there are legitimate points about the game but this isnt one of em
just cuz it has gliding and racist depictions of native americans doesnt mean its a breath of the wild clone
Watching people move from warning people about games like Fortnite and PUBG to Gacha games
Reminds me of the media's shift in interest in warning from TV to social media and TikTok.
Great video, perhaps the best video I've seen that delves into a topic.