Why would anyone ever play a gacha game? And what's wrong with them in the first place?

Gacha monetisation is predatory at best, if not outright evil... More thoughts & explorations:    • Why creators experience games differently,...   ...the companies which make these games range from problematic to incredibly anti-consumer. So why would anyone ever play a gacha game? Up until a few years ago, I would have never considered giving them a try. After all, there are so many other games to play, ones where you pay a reasonable price up front and then play to your heart’s content. My impression was that gachas were low quality cash grabs, which preyed on people who were essentially gambling addicts, and cost exponentially more than any game ever should. And to be clear, to this day I still dislike gacha monetisation. Yet I now count a couple of gachas amongst my favourite games of the last few years. Have I gone mad? Or, just maybe, might some gacha developers have struck a balance which makes the whole idea just about acceptable? And could there even be some hidden upsides to these games that people who have carefully avoided them are unaware of? Let’s talk about it. 00:00 Intro 00:54 What is a gacha? 01:35 Why accept it? 01:51 Why accept it? • Game first, gacha second 02:38 Why accept it? • The total price 05:04 Why accept it? • The grand scope 06:59 Why accept it? • Conclusion 07:14 The almost-good 07:50 The almost-good • Pity systems 08:58 The almost-good • Pay to play 10:27 The almost-good • Pay to win 11:06 The almost-good • Difficulty spikes 11:51 The almost-good • Pay what you want 12:26 The almost-good • Consistent comfort 13:19 The bad • Acclimatisation 14:00 The bad • Appeal 14:42 The bad • Powercreep 15:38 The bad • Completionism 17:05 The bad • Social pressure 18:31 The ugly • Conditioning 19:15 The ugly • Normalisation 19:59 The ugly • Artificial scarcity 20:34 The ugly • Obfuscation 21:33 How to play gachas without losing your mind 23:06 Conclusion I'm always happy to talk Genshin, WuWa, and other games, streams 3pm UK every Wed/Sat/Sun   / saurusness   Genshin rotation app: https://genshin-rotation.com/ Twitch:   / saurusness   Merch: https://saurusness-shop.fourthwall.com/ Twitter:   / saurusness   Discord: https://www.thatsaurus.com/discord #genshinimpact #hoyocreators #genshin #wutheringwaves #projectwave