Japanese Social Gaming Companies Embracing Box Gacha After the Kompu Gacha Ban
In May 2012, the Japanese government banned kompu gacha dealing a huge blow to social gaming companies. Gacha is a game mechanic in which players chance their luck (and their money!) to win a mystery item. Many documented cases cite players as having spent exorbitant amounts to win a specific virtual item. However, a lack of regulation meant that some companies could set the chances of winning an item at practically zero, innocent of the knowledge of money-wasting users. Kompu gacha played a huge part in the record profits that had been posted by Japanese social gaming giants like DeNA and GREE.
The main problem here was that players enjoyed the kompu gacha mechanics. However, kompu gacha makes winning the prize so random that it essentially becomes a gambling mechanic. Since underage children often had access to games using the kompu gacha mechanic, this was an inexcusable situation for Japanese lawmakers. The two cases that made headlines included a child in middle school that spent more than five thousand dollars in a month on kompu gacha games and an even younger child that spent more than a thousand dollars in only a couple of days.
Although kompu gacha was banned, gacha remains alive today
Paying for a chance to win a virtual prize is still a core game mechanic. In fact, at least 80% of the most popular social games still include gacha machines and, for many game developers, gacha’s micro transactions contributes more than half of game revenue. However, the industry has taken some measures to reduce uncertainty in gacha and allow players to predict what is going to happen. Most gacha machines allow players to “spin the wheel” for 100 yen. There are also gacha machines with a higher chance of a better payout for 300 yen.
Replacing kompu gacha with box gacha
As soon as the banning of kompu gacha was mooted, gaming companies started trying out different gaming mechanics, necessarily more predictable and less addictive than their predecessors. “Package gacha” has started to gain popularity as an alternative to abusive kompu gacha mechanics of the past, allowing players the same thrill of potentially winning a rare item after spinning.
In normal gacha, each spin’s odds would be reset, meaning that every spin would have the same odds of hitting a rare prize. However, with box gacha each time a prize is won it is “removed” from the box, letting players know that they can win the prize they want if they play a certain number of times. Each spin increases the probabilities of winning a particular super-rare prize. A vast improvement on the unfair practices of yore.
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About the Guest Author:
Nida Rasheed is a freelance writer and owner of an outsourcing company, Nida often finds herself wanting to write about the subjects that are closest to her heart. She lives in Islamabad, Pakistan and can be found on Twitter @nidarasheed.
