Gacha for Beginners

GACHA for BEGINNERS  

how it entertains and monetizes

Gacha is one of the dominant monetization mechanics on the F2P market, which allows to monetize all cohorts of players - from minnows, by offering them cheap gachas with low chances to win something valuable,to whales, providing limitless “black hole” that will sink enormous amounts of cash.

But what Gacha exactly is? This term is a shortened variant of Japanese gachapon (or gashapon) a name of special vending machines that provide a buyer with a special kind of toys, but he doesn't know what exact toy, only a possible set of them. The goal of purchasing these toys is simple - to collect all characters from your favourite anime, manga, cartoon or another special series of toys.

1. 1 Gashapon machines

Why is it more beneficial for a seller to provide his customers with toys by this way instead of just selling the same toy directly even at a higher price? Using this kind of mechanics extends person`s way to desirable outcome - the full collection or one specific toy. As chances of getting different pieces are not the same and a possibility of getting the already owned toy are still there a one will need to spend additional cash to play for several times more, and often many times, and pay cash to get what he wants. Would he buy the same toy for several times otherwise? Of course not, and gacha is basically a way to sell the same, and sometimes even needless, item for several times. The system works the best when it has more possible options to draw from, as it gives a reason to set a cheap price (as a possibility to win something really valuable is low) and still give users something with each attempt.

In the F2P games all these rules work even with higher efficiency, allowing not only monetize PAU and squeeze some additional cash from them, but for retaining NPAU too, as it extends time required to get the desirable items. NPAU population is valuable as a potential payers and for generating revenues by watching ads, but their another crucial function is to be rivals for PAU players, number of whom is usually insignificant in total F2P game users` base.

With a rise of a F2P games, especially mobile, gacha becomes one of the major tools which is used for monetization. While in Japan games gacha may take many forms, in Western games it usually much less sophisticated comparing to Asian counterparts.

Japanese gacha

As a first step we will take a brief look on the Japanese games gacha, as a pioneer of this monetization mechanic and variety that may serve as source of inspiration. Description of the Japanese gacha is taken from article by Dr. Serkan Toto, published in his blog.

Kompu gacha, shortened from “complete”, now banned for Japan developers, as it had tremendous influence on players and they could spend thousands dollars on it.

The idea behind it is simple - if you want to get Big Prize you need to collect several other items that may be won only from infinite gacha, and after collecting all of them you get the Big one.

2.1 Kompu gacha

2. Package gacha (or Box gacha)

The main difference comparing to Kompu gacha is that it has finite number of items in the box. I.e. sooner or later you will get what you want, because with each try there are less and less items left and probability of winning what you want is rising. In this case a user may assess his chances to win and calculate how much he needs to spend.

3. Step-Up gacha

Step-Up gacha works as a ladder when with each next attempt you receive better and better rewards and the grand prize, or the highest chances to win it, lies on the last step.

The trick is that you need to complete the whole streak in one session or in a short period of time and if you don`t you will have to return to step one.

2.2 Step-Up gacha

4. Sugoroku gacha

This type of gacha received its name after traditional Japanese game.

A player needs to move across a board, or number of consecutive nodes, and each of them contains some reward which may be obtained when a user passes it. The goal is to reach the final point that contains the most valuable reward. To move further a player needs points (coins) and number of points determines how far he may go, and these may be received by rolling a dice, or any other kind of chances-based game.

2.3 Sugoroku gacha

As you may see there are several different and engaging ways to present gacha to players, so let's take a look how Western games utilize the mechanics.

Western Games

Ok, I just need to start with this game as one of the phenomenons in the game industry.

Clash Royale is vivid example of both simplicity and perfect game balance. The goal of the game is simple - to collect “ultimate” deck of characters (cards) and beat with them other players on arena.  

Each character has level, which may be increased, and to do it player needs to collect specific cards of this character. Sometimes they may be purchased but the main source of them is gacha.

3.1 Clash Royale main menu

As you may see on the screenshot 3.1 CR has different kind of chest and different ways to obtain them:

Battle chests have double-looped gacha - the second one, already described, which gives you a random set of cards, but the first one determines which exact type of the chest you will get after a battle, from the simplest Silver to the most valuable Super Magical one. Thought, the chance to get a certain chest is predetermined by a cycle, not by chance, it may be considered as finite Box gacha when a player doesn't know the next reward, but sooner or later he will earn the Grand Prize.

All chests serves two main purposes:

And how does the game monetizes its gacha-based gameplay?