No matter what your favorite game is or how long you’ve been gaming for, chances are that you’ve got an opinion on gacha games and mechanics.
It’s quite a divisive topic in the community, with some gamers loving the fast-paced and engaging nature of gacha games and others disapproving of their habit-forming mechanics and apparent focus on high-spending players.
Here, we’ll be taking a look at how gacha mechanics have impacted MMORPGs so far and what we might see popping up in the gaming world in 2024.
It’s important to note that we won’t be looking at the legal aspect of gambling in games in this post. Make sure to check your local regulations if you encounter anything you’re unsure of.
What Are Gacha Mechanics?
First, let’s establish what ‘gacha’ actually means, as there’s some debate over what falls into the gacha game category.
The term ‘gacha’ or ‘gachapon’ is Japanese in origin, originally used to describe vending machines that typically provide random toys and collectibles in return for money.
Games with gacha mechanics follow the same principle. There are different kinds of gacha systems –for example, a box gacha or a redraw gacha – but generally, a player can spend a currency to open a digital box/roll on a digital loot table and get a randomized item. These items are usually characters, skins, or weapons and other in-game items.
It’s important to note that gacha games aren’t always just focused on the loot and characters that players can pull. There are heaps of games with gacha mechanics, ranging from MMORPGs to strategy games, and the amount of emphasis placed on the gacha mechanics will vary from title to title.
The finer details depend on the specific game, but for the sake of simplicity in this article, we’ll assume that gacha mechanics:
- Require money to be spent or significant in-game time in return for premium currency
- Focus on digital loot tables
- Have an element of chance to them
Gacha mechanics can be found in almost any type of game nowadays, but the MMORPG scene has seen an influx of them in recent years.
Which Key Games Feature Gacha Mechanics?
One of the first titles that comes to mind when discussing gacha games is Genshin Impact, followed by others like Tower of Fantasy and Honkai: Star Rail, the latter of which is developed by the same team as Genshin. These games offer something for everyone: there’s plenty for big spenders to sink their coins into, decent gameplay for free-to-play fans, and a good variety of characters for collectors.
Lots of mobile RPGs feature gacha mechanics, too. Raid: Shadow Legends is a particularly popular one, along with others like Dislyte, AFK Arena, and Another Eden. Some of these are more F2P-friendly than others, like AFK Arena for example.
Some gacha-heavy games are more in-line with strategic themes, such as Arknights with its tower defense-esque style of gameplay.
Put simply, gacha mechanics can be found all over the gaming world.
They’re most often found in games that have an RPG structure and a strong, visually appealing style. This makes them worth looking out for as an MMORPG fan- they can’t be found explicitly in many of the huge MMORPG titles yet at the time of writing, though.
One exception here is the lockboxes in The Lord of the Rings Online.
This LotRO feature has had its fair share of controversy in the past (due to the unclear pull rates, mainly), and fans are still not overly keen on them. To open lockboxes, players must purchase specific keys like gacha players must top up their currencies. There’s a big element of chance here, too, making them functionally the same as a gacha pull.
LotRO lockboxes (and other similar online lootboxes/lockboxes) are the exception not the rule right now, but it’s possible that gamers could see more of these features in the near future.
How Has the MMORPG Community Reacted to Gacha Mechanics?
If you play MMORPGs, you’ll know that the community can be incredibly passionate when it comes to defending their favorite mechanics and games.
While preparing this article, we spent a lot of time scouring community forums and subreddits to see whether MMORPG fans were in favor of gacha mechanics or not. While some people were nonplussed, two clear groups emerged.
The first group of players, which we’ll call Team A, were adamant that gacha mechanics are a bad thing for MMORPGs. These gamers tended to play MMORPGs quite regularly, often opting for either big, story-driven games or games with deeply competitive scenes.
In their posts and comments, Team A players noted how gacha games can promote gambling behaviors in younger gamers and how gacha mechanics can lead games towards a pay-to-win mode.
Introducing gacha mechanics into an MMORPG at a later date can lead Team A to feel irritated and worried about what the game’s next content update will be like. Will there be enough raid/dungeon content or will the next patch just be more characters? Can they unlock everything they want by playing the game or do they have to spend money?
On the flip side, Team B players were much more positive about gacha mechanics, noting how they can be a good thing for MMORPGs and make games much more enjoyable to play in bite-sized chunks.
Notably, not every Team B gamer we came across was a big-spender, and a fair few of them enjoyed gachas as free-to-play gamers.
The most common points in favor of gacha mechanics in MMORPG titles were the sense of progression/achievement from completing sets and the frequent updates and new characters to look forward to.
They also noted that gacha games in the MMO niche tend to be easier to pick up and play whenever, and that they don’t require as much of a time investment as a traditional MMO might. There’s content to progress through, but less of a requirement to sit and battle through tough dungeons or raids repeatedly.
For the most part, gacha MMORPGs tend to be free to play, with the gacha mechanics or other elements like in-game stores acting as the income source for the developers.
Something that was really interesting to see was the amount of people who hopped over to gacha games from classic MMOs. They noted how they’d made lifestyle changes - like having a child, for example - and how gacha games suited them now much more than MMOs did.
While it wasn’t a very satisfying conclusion to draw from our research, it seems that the MMORPG community still seems to be incredibly divided on gacha mechanics even at this point in 2023. Every time a streamer spends a heap of money on a game like Honkai: Star Rail, you can be sure that their chat will be packed with people arguing about the topic.
Something that has definitely come out of the rise of gacha games in the MMO world is a focus on monetization in games. The influx of gacha mechanics has caused many gamers to consider how they feel about in-game currencies and stores, and has led many developers to think about new ways to make money from their games as well.
Gacha mechanics or gacha-esque mechanics aren’t anything new by any means - monetization strategies from popular franchises like FIFA or Fortnite have had their fair share of controversy, too.
The level that people are willing to dedicate themselves to gacha games is intriguing, though, and is worth paying attention to as an MMORPG fan. Something has clearly changed in the gaming scene relating to monetization and game focuses, and this points to an unclear future for both gamers and developers.
What Might We See In 2024?
Firstly, it’s unlikely that we’ll see people starting to agree on gacha mechanics any time soon.
Gacha games have hordes of dedicated fans, especially gacha RPG titles. To match this, though, there are plenty of folk who are vehemently opposed to the idea of gacha mechanics, and there are plenty of places in the world where gacha games are illegal/heavily monitored.
Anything remotely related to gambling is always going to be controversial, and so is the price of games or the level of in-game monetization that modern-day titles have.
Secondly, it’s possible that we could see more MMO teams looking at introducing gacha mechanics or similar monetization strategies in 2024.
While it’s unlikely that we’ll see larger, more established MMOs decide to introduce gacha systems for new characters or skins suddenly, newer MMOs in most subgenres will likely be looking for creative ways to monetize their game.
It’s clear there’s a desire for gacha games, and customization or cosmetic items are incredibly valuable to an increasingly large group of gamers.
There’s been a lot of discussion in 2023 about how the price of games is steadily increasing (along with everything else) and players who are newer to MMOs can feel put-off by upfront costs and subscription fees.
In-game stores and gacha systems might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they’re alternative monetization systems that we’re likely to see more of.
The way games are purchased as a whole is changing dramatically, too. As this wonderful piece by GoingIndie points out, it’s more common than ever before to see games being offered as part of a subscription/rental service rather than as a single, one-time purchase.
This doesn’t quite apply to MMOs that follow a subscription format, of course, but it points to the shifting sands of the gaming world. 2024 is set to be a big year for the world of video games and MMORPGs, specifically, in more ways than one.
