Why have some of the biggest names in the industry pivoted away from gacha-based monetization systems? Join us as we explore the response from players to these changes in popular games like Brawl Stars, Mario Kart, Diablo Immortal, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Overwatch, Marvel Snap, and Arena Breakout.
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Join us as we explore the response from players to these changes in popular games like Brawl Stars, Mario Kart, Diablo Immortal, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Overwatch, Marvel Snap, and Arena Breakout.
We’ll examine how these changes have affected players’ progression and gameplay experience and take a closer look at the impact these changes have had on the mobile gaming industry.
Learn about the challenges facing mobile game developers when it comes to removing gachas and changing progression systems, as well as the future of monetization in mobile gaming. We talk to the Chief Game Analysts at GameRefinery, a Liftoff Company, Wilhelm Voutilainen, Teemu Palomäki, and Kalle Heikkinen.
Topics we will cover in this episode:
- Introduction
- Brawl Star has moved away from gachas
- How has the removal of gachas affected Brawl Star’s revenue
- Diablo Immortal has moved away from very heavy gacha monetization
- Player feedback
- Arena Breakout and its interesting monetization strategy
- Games that have replaced gachas with Battle Passes
- Mario Kart has received mixed feedback from players regarding the removal of gachas
- How legislation will affect game monetization in the future
Read transcript
Introduction
[00:00:00] Jon Jordan: Hello, and welcome to the Mobile GameDev Playbook. Thanks for tuning in for another episode. This is a podcast all about what makes a great mobile game, what is and isn’t working for mobile game designers at the moment, and all of the latest trends. I’m your host, Jon Jordan, and joining me today; we have the brains trust. I don’t know. I think that’s what I have to call you. We have three chief game analysts. Good to see you all from GameRefinery by Liftoff. We have Wilhelm Voutilainen. How’s it going, Wilhelm?
[00:00:30] Wilhelm Voutilainen: It’s good to be here.
[00:00:32] Jon: Sunny in Helsinki, by the looks of things.
[00:00:34] Wilhelm: Yes, that’s rare here, but cool, I don’t complain.
[00:00:39] Jon: Teemu Palomäki. How’s it going, Teemu?
[00:00:43] Teemu Palomäki: Going great. Great to be here.
[00:00:46] Jon: Good, and Kalle Heikkinen. How’s it going, Kalle?
[00:00:53] Kalle Heikkinen: Very well. We’re very much looking forward to this podcast episode; so good stuff.
[00:01:01] Jon: This is funny. This is like we’ve been building up to this. In this episode, we’ve talked a lot about gacha in the past, and now we’re going to talk a lot about what happens post-gacha. I guess this has been one of these trends that have been bubbling for at least six months and probably for longer than that as well. Gachas, you guys might have a better description than me, but gachas, I basically see them as we call them, loot boxes. I guess in the West, gacha is more like the Japanese term, but with randomized rewards, you get them in various ways.
For various reasons, some games are moving away from these, even though they’ve proven to be very good monetization methods over the years, particularly for certain types of games. Let’s actually talk to the experts rather than me, or have we forgotten about them? I think we’re going to get ahead straight into examples, aren’t we, of games that have had gachas and are now moving away from them. Teemu, are you going to kick us off? I guess Supercell is the best-known example of a high-profile company with very high-performing games that have moved away from this, but I think you’ve got some other examples as well. Do you want to take us through that high level of what’s going on there?
Brawl Star has moved away from gachas
[00:02:08] Teemu: Yes. Brawl Stars is their multiplayer battle arena game. You have different modes, and you have different characters you collect and play in those modes. They’ve had gachas as an important part of their monetization. As the way you get characters, but also how you unlock new skills for the characters, these power-ups, and how you get experience for the characters. Gachas were really in the system. They were fair. The things that you have obtained are removed from the gacha pool, so it’s not like it was what gacha haters would call predatory, but the system felt fair.
The drop rates would increase if you didn’t get a character, but they were still underused. You would get those gacha boxes from various sources, but you wouldn’t necessarily go out of your way to buy them. With that in mind, they removed all the randomized mechanics from the game late last year. Around December, I think. But what they did to replace the gachas, is that for characters, there is now this star road. There is a linear path to unlocking characters. You’re always building towards unlocking some character. You always have a goal to go forward.
The path is the same for everyone, though you can customize it a little bit. There are points where you can choose between three characters out of which you can choose which one you want to focus on. That’s the way to unlock these basic characters. The main way still to unlock new characters is through Battle Pass. That was not a gacha-based system. What you would do is you would have to buy the Battle Pass, and then halfway through the progress of the Battle Pass, you would unlock this new character. This kind of pay track only, unlocking characters, is still in there.
As per the skills that I mentioned before, you could get those through gachas. Now, it’s just you choose which skills you want. It’s like you have the freedom to choose what you want to get to fit your playstyle. I think in Brawl Stars’ case, it’s going quite well. Now, the bottleneck is not so much. Do you have to lock to obtain the characters, but do you have the coins to upgrade them?
[00:05:29] Jon: It’s interesting your description there, between gacha haters and the fact that this is a fair gacha, which I guess is pointing to the fact that, over time, there has been in certain games, at least in some communities, this backlash or this feeling that some of them at least aren’t fair. I guess that depends a little bit on how the gacha systems are used in the game. It sounds like, from what you’re saying, that Brawl Stars actually had, I don’t know if lightweight is the correct terminology, but it wasn’t like, compared to some games maybe we’ll talk about, gacha wasn’t the main focus on all the monetization. It was one part of the monetization, so maybe it’s easier for them to take it out.
[00:06:10] Teemu: It was still really tied in there, like the way you opt-in, everything was randomized. Now with the change, it is a huge change. It’s essentially revamping the whole progression system. That’s a big thing to do on a live mobile game, but I think they’ve done it quite nicely. It could be a bit of a shock with these kinds of changes, but for endgame players, like I’ve been playing this pretty much daily since it was released on global. For me, I’ve had all the characters unlocked before, so I can just continue the same way.
I can still keep the resources piling up from the Battle Pass and then instantly purchase if there is any character coming outside the Battle Pass. Not much has necessarily changed for the endgame player experience, but now, people can unlock the characters they want. They know when they will be unlocked, and they know how the progress goes. Then they can spend on different things, like, they can spend on the skins of the characters that they like.
How has the removal of gachas affected Brawl Star’s revenue
[00:07:42] Jon: As we come to the end of every game we’re going to talk about, do we have any idea if it’s changed monetization yet, in terms of the money Supercell is making?
[00:07:49] Teemu: For revenue, I think when the change was made there was a spike in purchases. People were excited, but I think that came partly because the downloads also went really up at that point. Interestingly, for downloads, the average or the baseline for downloads seems to be higher now than it was with the gachas, but spending seems it’s roughly the same as it was before. We’re talking about fairly recent change, so it still remains to be seen [long impact].
Diablo Immortal has moved away from very heavy gacha monetization
[00:08:35] Jon: Cool. Wilhelm, you’ve all got some games you’re going to talk about, so rather than just go on Teemu, we’ll move around. Wilhelm, what games do you want to highlight first in this context?
[00:08:47] Wilhelm: There are definitely a couple of interesting ones I want to go through. First of all, we are going to start with Diablo Immortal. Of course, it had a really. I would say controversial launch due to the game’s meta element, the legendary gems being really heavily gacha monetized. Basically, those coming exclusively from this rift gacha. Now actually, after the launch, I’ve been following the game now a bit over half a year already. With each update, they’ve actually launched or made changes toward moving from that super heavily gacha monetization, catering more and more towards both free and low-paying players with different changes.
A couple of those really, I would say, biggest changes in that have been that these premium gacha keys that you need to use for the gacha, free players now also have chances to get those. You have lots of events running where you can get those for free. Also, you have these weekly purchases you can make with the free currency that you can purchase. Also, they have been moving not only making that gacha more attainable for the free players and the low payers. Also, moving a bit away from that randomized gacha mechanic, which is new materials called telluric pearls that you can use to then craft these most powerful legendary gems, which before that were only attainable through that premium gacha.
Now, even those out of the lower spenders and the free players, slowly but surely, can collect these telluric pearls. It takes like 40 to collect them, so it actually takes quite a bit of time. How you get those then is basically through, first of all, participating in live events. Now every player is super incentivized to participate in pretty much every single live event there is. There are also these monthly purchases you can make with free currency, but also, you can directly purchase those through bundles. There can be a player who doesn’t want to rely on that randomized mechanic of the gacha.
They can just directly purchase 40 telluric perils through these bundles, or how many they still need after participating in all the events and craft those legendary gems. When you think about it, that’s actually a huge change from completely randomized premium mechanic to this option to craft those as well.
[00:11:59] Jon: In that case, I suppose it’s not like a Supercell decision to take out gachas because that Diablo Immortal is a game where clearly gacha is going to be absolutely a big part of monetization, but I guess it’s smoothing the onboarding to it.
[00:12:11] Wilhelm: Exactly.
[00:12:12] Jon: In a sense, it would be interesting. I don’t know if you have a view on this, whether that’s a change they have made because of audience feedback or whether that’s they wanted to go in hard and make that premium material seem very valuable. Once you make something very valuable, and then you allow people to get a bit of it, then they’re like, “Oh, I’m getting this stuff now.” It’s very hard to make something that’s very cheap and valuable. You have to start off with this thing being super valuable, and then you can slightly unlock it. Then, as you say, it’s feeding into retention and events and stuff, so it’s actually helping the whole economy. I don’t know, it’s not to say they couldn’t have thought that as a mechanic, but maybe it’s a bit more the reaction of the players. I don’t know.
Player feedback
[00:12:49] Wilhelm: Yes. I think the player feedback has definitely had an effect on this because even the players who want to spend money, many of those, especially many of the Diablo Immortal’s players, come from PC. They are not used to loot boxes and randomized gacha mechanics of their mobile RPGs that usually have those. Now they have the option to purchase those directly instead of really relying on this randomized mechanic. Also, I think this kind of switch caters more towards a larger player base. If we look at, for example, the revenue graph of Diablo Immortal, the daily revenues have been dropping, I think most of the months ever since the launch.
Now actually, after the release of these telluric pearls materials, and after all these changes they have done, actually, their daily earnings, they have stopped the decline completely, and it’s more steady now. Also, I’ve noticed the latest Battle Pass plan; for example, the Battle Pass, it provides super cool cosmetics in the game and other materials, and it has nothing to do with gachas there. The latest Battle Pass actually had a massive revenue impact. I think it was one of the most impactful Battle Pass revenue spikes the game has had.
What they have attained with that is they are not super reliant on the players spending thousands of dollars on spending money on the gacha. Now, players are more involved. They can buy these telluric pearls, and that way, they get more involved in the game, so they want to buy more cosmetics. The game has been bringing lots, and lots, and lots of cool cosmetics to the game as well.
[00:14:55] Jon: It underpins the fact that for any of these successful games, you have to have multiple layers of interacting monetization that, I guess, maybe five years ago now, or at a certain point in time, you could just basically make a game around a gacha mechanic and that was it. You didn’t have to think anymore. That’s, for all these reasons, clearly not the case now. Kalle, what game do you want to highlight?
Arena Breakout and its interesting monetization strategy
[00:15:20] Kalle: I want to bring the Chinese twist to the conversation and talk about a fairly recently launched shooter game in China called Arena Breakout on Shoot Away. This is not a game that would have actually pivoted away from gachas midway, but this is a game that has been designed not to have gachas from the very start. I wanted to highlight this because it’s an interesting monetization strategy when thinking about the genre that it is in. Arena Breakout, it’s like an Escape from Tarkov style of a first-person shooter game with survival mechanics and a realistic art style.
It’s from Tencent Studio, launched about six months ago, and it’s doing really well in China. It’s in the top 50 grossing, sometimes peaking even to the top 20 grossing. Basically, players participate in these PvP matches against other players or bots. There are two different modes, either with pre-equipped items or without those equipped items. It’s basically a survival game. Meaning that during the match, players need to consider their health levels, find the equipment, and items to loot, kill all the enemies, and then evacuate safely within the time limit.
It is the monetization scheme that is interesting here. It really differs a lot from many other shooter titles that we have been accustomed to, especially in the Chinese market. it doesn’t focus on gachas, limited-time offers, or stuff like that, but rather it focuses on direct purchases of the items that players need during the core gameplay matches. I’m talking about different kinds of weapons, gear, and other items that you need to take advantage of when you are in the core gameplay sequence. One interesting fact about the game is that there’s actually a possibility to lose the items that you have purchased permanently in one of the modes in the game. That’s really interesting take on how to set up the monetisation framework for a shooter game.
[00:17:54] Jon: In terms of that being a top-grossing game, is that just because it sounds like it probably wouldn’t have very high ARPU because the randomness of gachas is often what drives players to spend a lot? Is this just that lots of people are playing it, and they’re spending a bit, or are there mechanics in which players can spend more to get certain things?
[00:18:21] Kalle: The genre definitely is not one of the most accessible or widest, so that definitely set up some constraints already. Yes, I said it’s doing really well. Definitely monetizing off of that audience that it has extremely well. In my opinion, it comes down to the value of the items the players need when they go to the matches and how well they are able to monetize off of those items. That would be my answer.
[00:19:01] Wilhelm: I think a good add there, at least how I feel because the game also has this quite clever limited-time boost chest and the subscription plan as well. Correct me if I’m wrong, Kalle but isn’t there this subscription plan where you can basically purchase the plan or these limited-time boosters, which can then basically give you this chest where you can then store these items, and if you die, then you actually do not lose those. I would assume that if you are really big, I don’t know, breakout player, it will be a no-brainer to purchase the subscription plan. I feel like that’s probably one of the main revenue drivers of the game as well.
[00:19:47] Kalle: That’s exactly true. It’s attached to the subscription plan, and according to my understanding, you can also buy it as a separate purchase as well. That’s definitely good that you added that there, definitely, and very interesting addition to how they monetize as well.
[00:20:00] Wilhelm: I have not seen a first-person shooter in a while. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a high grossing ranked one that does not use any gacha, so that’s really interesting. I think the game is going to be released on the Western markets as well. That’s going to be interesting. Call of Duty Mobile has huge competition with Call of Duty, Free Fire, and PUBG, all of those games that are super heavily gacha monetized. This game, Arena Breakout, is from a completely different FPS subgenre, this Escape from Tarkov. There is no competition there. They don’t have gachas. Western players,, compared to Asian players, do not prefer gachas that much. Arena Breakout could also attract PC players because they don’t prefer gachas either. It’s going to be super interesting to follow if and when the game gets released in the West.
[00:21:07] Kalle: Another difference is, of course, that most of the other shooters are very heavily focused on monetizing cosmetic items. This is an interesting alternative for any developer who is exploring different options to monetize shooter games other than the very heavy focus on cosmetic monetization as well.
[00:21:29] Wilhelm: This gives me the old-school vibes of playing RuneScape and the fear of, “Oh, I can’t die now. I’m going to lose all of my stuff.”
[00:21:38] Jon: Maybe we’re doing a podcast about the insurance policies in monetization options. That’s what everyone is doing now, insurance policies. Cool, so yes, there’s your alpha in today’s podcast. That Arena Breakout is one to be checking out. Okay. Wilhelm, I think you got another game you want to discuss.
Games that have replaced gachas with Battle Passes
[00:21:53] Wilhelm: Yes, I could go just a couple of really quickly, two of my last examples.
I think, keeping in the shooter space, of course, is not a mobile game, but just a quick because it’s been so interesting. Overwatch 2, the PC game, basically moved completely away from the gacha-based monetization of Overwatch 1. Now actually, they removed the gachas in Overwatch 2, and they added a Battle Pass plan and this direct purchase monetization. What they also did is they moved from this exclusively cosmetic monetization of Overwatch 1 to actually also monetizing those heroes through the Battle Pass plan.
Similarly, they worked on some of the top mobiles, like League of Legends or Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and those. In the Season 2 of Battle Pass in Overwatch 2, there was actually this new hero that got released. The only way you get that hero is to purchase the Battle Pass plan, and you get the hero instantly. Although there were this new super high-quality of cosmetic skins as well released, the old highest quality was legendary skins, they added I think it was called ultra or something, with this super detail and fancy effects on the skin, similar to what the top mobiles are also doing.
They changed the monetization model quite a bit. I think they’re reading through player reactions. Of course, players, I think were overall pretty happy with the removal of the complete randomized mechanics. Also, for many of the players, the game does not release new heroes that often, so a hero is locked behind a purchase, and from what I have been reading, many of the players have not been too happy with that either. Especially I know it’s a tank hero. I think it’s quite strong in the game’s meta,, so important character to have. That’s definitely an interesting shift.
Then another example is, again, a game that is super heavily limited-time, gacha monetized still but is beginning to shift a bit away from that. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which I just actually mentioned, is the highest-grossing 5v5 classic MOBA game in the US market, that’s, as I mentioned, super heavily limited-time, gacha-monetized usually. They run these huge events, and they’ve released these super cool skins, which are only attainable through these limited-time gachas. Actually, they just had their M3 Esports events. This point of these big events in the game.
Of course, with that, they released a set of these super cool skins for these heroes, which, in the past, would have always been monetized through limited-time gachas, but actually, the first time they tried these limited-time Battle Pass monetizations, the events are revised, and they’re basically monetized two under additional limited-time Battle Pass plan. That’s a huge shift and also goes into the trend of these event-monetized Battle Pass plans. We’ve seen those in merch management using those. These developers are seeing that there is actually huge power in the Battle Pass plan, so why don’t we just slap these, on top of events as well to monetize them instead of having those gachas?
[00:25:50] Jon: No, and it definitely makes sense. I think from a psychological point of view, it’s funny you saying Overwatch, in that, even though– How much is the Battle Pass there? I don’t know. $10 or something? There’s a really cool character behind there, and people have said, “Oh, I can’t pay $10 for a character that says–” Someone is always going to complain about something, but obviously, compared to having to spend on average $100 to go through the gacha to get that character, the Battle Pass system is certainly psychologically much clearer about you spend this money, and you get it. There’s none of this randomness stuff going on.
I guess, probably we’ll end up; maybe people will be complaining about then. Now there are too many Battle Passes because you have all these, a Battle Pass, then you have event Battle Passes. It’s a way, I guess, for developers, you’re trying to make a certain amount of money, and it’s just you don’t really care how you do it, but you’re trying to find a sweet spot of making money, what you need to run the company and the game, and feeling like your players are getting a good deal and, they’re enjoying the process as well. I guess that’s the trick in development.
[00:26:45] Wilhelm: Yes. I think the way Overwatch 2 if you think about it, it’s quite clever that they add the new hero as the first purchase. Also, you get it instantly when you purchase the Battle Pass plan. Then players purchase the Battle Pass plan because of they want to get the new hero, and then there’s the huge grind to get other rewards, which, again, acts as a huge retention driver for the players. I think there’s really nice synergy in that.
[00:27:29] Jon: Imagine the complaints if you had to buy a Battle Pass, and then grind out to get the hero at the end, but we won’t go into that.
[00:27:33] Wilhelm: I think that would probably be a bit too much.
[00:27:35] Jon: Okay. Teemu, I think you’ve got one last one we want to talk about more specifically.
Mario Kart has received mixed feedback from players regarding the removal of gachas
[00:27:40] Teemu: Yes. Just to mention quickly, Mario Kart Tour removed gachas earlier in 2022. They didn’t remove the gacha element completely; they removed the monetized gachas, so to speak, that you can spend money on. The gachas are still present say, as Battle Pass reward or as daily login rewards, but you can’t really just keep on spending on them. Maybe it is Nintendo trying just to be more family-friendly or just to go with that image. For them, looking at the numbers, the revenue is stable, but I think it’s lower than what it was with gachas, and there are fewer purchases on days that are in between the releases of content.
It’s not as stable as it was before. For gachas, you can go for them at any point, but for new flashy stuff, you get excited about it the first time it appears there. That’s interesting.
As for the downloads, and announcements of removing gachas, tend to give you a huge download spike. Since then, it has stabilized to where it was before. Interestingly, looking at what are the players reactions to this change, I did some searching in the Reddit world, and that’s, of course, a bit of an echo chamber always. There’s only the most active or the most hardcore players.
A Reddit user had made a poll about this topic, like, “Now that the gachas have been gone for some time, what is your reaction? How did you like this?” Out of 1,400 votes, it was 50/50 whether they liked it or not, or it was half was positive, and half was negative. Then it was, there were also people who were like, “It’s neither good, nor bad.” It’s really interesting to see how the player reaction can also be very split.
[00:30:39] Jon: We’ve gone through some examples. I’m guessing this is a trend, but it’s not a trend that everyone is ripping out gachas and replacing them with other things. With all these things, it’s certain companies make decisions about certain games, depending on the lifespan of those games where they are.
Do you think we can say, for 2023, gachas are going to be less important at the end than they were at the beginning, and we’re going to start to see these other Battle Pass-type things coming in? Is this a thing that anyone with a gacha mechanic in their game should be, maybe not worried about, but thinking about?
How legislation will affect game monetization in the future
[00:31:26] Teemu: Yes. I would say it’s something that we will maybe keep seeing more. There’s the legislation stuff going on. The EU is thinking of legislating the loot boxes.
It’s something that companies definitely should be thinking about. What are the alternative options if we lose all of Europe because we have gachas? I don’t know if it’s something that we see a lot of experimenting on the already released games because making a change in them can be massive, but maybe on the new releases that come out, just experimenting more, trying different things. MARVEL SNAP recently released– They have a different type of approach to monetization. I think the new releases are the most interesting trendsetters to pay attention to.
[00:32:39] Kalle: Yes, to add to that, I would say that we’re still in the observation phase where we are looking at already existing examples like Mario Kart and Brawl Stars, and closely examining these cases and following their performance. Still, the number of these examples that we have, I would say it’s still relatively small. That is something that we have to remember, but then if we think about the different drivers that play a role here, pushing games to think about maybe either switching to a non-gacha monetization, or then if they are still in the design phase, then thinking about finding an alternative monetization solution than gachas.
I think there are three things that come to my mind, at least. The first one is IDFA. Obviously, we all know this, changes in the app store user targeting landscape have just made games that have traditionally been very reliant on effective use targeting show some weakness. This group of games includes many of the gacha-reliant games, where the LTVs of the top 1% of super fans can be really, really high.
There are a lot of games that are in this new landscape. I’m trying to find more healthy and more balanced monetization approaches.
That means, for example, Wilhelm mentioned the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, experimenting with different kinds of Battle Pass mechanics and stuff like that, and subscription options, and so on.
Then the second thing is regulation, which Teemu already mentioned. There’s a constant flow of news coming in, where loot boxes and gachas are compared to gambling, and there are discussions on regulations. For some companies, this might be a way to make sure that they are not hit by the potential banning of gacha-based monetization.
Then the last thing that comes to my mind is Teemu; you mentioned this as well, player friendliness. You can always call me naive, but I want to believe that, at least for some of these companies, might partly also be an act of benevolence and an attempt to distance the company, their games, and their IPs from loot box associations and these discussions altogether.
For some companies and IPs, especially if their games have a younger audience, there is a risk of damaging the value of their IPs because of this. As we have already discussed, is this really what the players want? That’s totally a different story, of course.
[00:35:34] Jon: No, I think it’s a very good summation that, as is always the case, there are lots of moving parts on that. It’s not, for different companies, there’d be different parts of those three issues that you raised that are going to be more important than others. Combined, they’re a general trend obviously. The legislation has been around for, I don’t know, Belgium five years ago or something, they brought that in. That’s an ongoing sort of thing, but it is interesting Supercell; that’s the headline news. Clearly, they’re a company that I think takes its role very seriously in terms of being a mobile game leader.
It’s an interesting point of view. Then the IDFA stuff, if you have a particular mechanic that is targeting a very small number of people, and you can’t target them anymore, then there’s no point having it in there, is there?
Even if you love gachas, if you can’t get the right audience who love gachas into your game, then you’re going to have to do something else anyway, no matter whether the legislation changes or whatever, so, a case of all three. Very, very good summation, Kalle. You should be hosting maybe. You should be comparing the notes.
[00:36:34] Wilhelm: I’m curious, actually; now that we have Teemu and Kalle here are experts in the Asian markets, what do you think? Is there any chance the Chinese games will drop their gacha monetization?
[00:36:49] Kalle: It’s really hard for me to imagine a scenario where that would happen. It would need a really substantial shift in how all the other companies and developers are skimming their monetization frameworks and also big legislation rollouts in various different geographical areas.
If that would happen, then I could see it happening, but I’m very skeptical if that will come to reality. Actually, if we look at data on how important gachas are in different regions, we can see that, for example, having more than five gachas in your game in China, if you look at the top 200 grossing in China, 43% of the games have that.
In Japan, 54% of games have that. Then in the US, it’s 38%.
Not that big of a difference anymore, but still speaks of the importance of gachas in Japan and China. I don’t know. Teemu, do you have anything to add to that?
[00:38:16] Teemu: No, I think you summarized it pretty well. It is going to take a lot to get gachas removed from Japanese and Chinese games.
[00:38:31] Kalle: Yes, it’s also the genre landscape, especially in Japan, there are so many hero collection RPGs that are so much, like, it’s in their DNA to have gachas in their system design. I don’t know.
[00:38:49] Jon: I guess it’s wider in the culture as well. Gacha comes out from those little physical machines when you get the rewards in the Pachinko thing. It’s ironic Japanese don’t have gambling. It’s illegal to gamble in Japan, but they basically invented something akin to gambling. They don’t see that as gambling because they know gambling is banned. It’s insular there, but we would just say they have a ban in Japan.
[00:39:14] Wilhelm: I would assume a huge part of the mobile RPG experience, especially in the Japanese RPGs, is getting to pull those gachas. It’s almost like another mini-game experience there.
[00:39:29] Jon: Good. Excellent stuff. We’ve covered a lot of stuff that was really good, really enjoyable. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your expertise, and thank you to you for listening, and watching the podcast, however, you’re consuming our content.
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