Gacha

(Hey, been a while, huh guys? The simple version is basically that I pivoted a lot of my work to my YouTube channel and growing and refining that, which combined with kind of the stagnation I felt while the 2E was being developed and tested meant I didn't feel like firing in on some EP ideas for a while. But since 2E is out and about and I've been reading it and getting a bit back into EP, I've been thinking about occasionally scratching a few ol' ideas off my list, and maybe some new ones. If you want to hear my thoughts on the new edition, check out the most recent episode of our podcast What's Up? w/ Omega & Lucky where me and the co-host get into it. Also considering subbing us for future Actual Plays and other discussions. Otherwise, here's a bit of a look at what has been consuming a lot of my time for the past couple years...)

"Gacha" is a term for a type of randomized mechanic from the Japanese "gashapon" the term for capsule machines. The western way of referring to this mechanic was popularized as "loot boxes". They are commonly a form of monetization, where one redeems in-game items or currency for a randomized reward, and the currency can be purchased with real-world money. It draws its origins from real life capsule toy machines, where one feeds in physical currency to get a randomly distributed toy (often with specific items having specific rarity), or from the "booster pack" model of many trading card games. Over the years, various concerns and definitions have been raised over the system, theorizing it is anti-consumer, exploits addictive tendencies, or is tantamount to gambling - but also it's incredibly lucrative. This means that obviously even in AF 10, the profitability of these models and familiarity means they are still used in certain types of entertainment.

Randomized trading and collectible card games are still popular, though to conserve resources they are often now purely digital and played via AR. The general outlines for a lot of these games are the same, they involve building up resources to play various personalities or entities, who appear in the AR skin and do battle with your opponent - who can be another person or an ALI. There is a wealth of these games, and often amateur game designers will cut their teeth producing such games, with only a few taking off. Some are licensed products in a franchise, others are their own original creation involving specific art styles and "lore" (For instance, Monsters' Duel has an artstyle based on traditional Japanese pop culture, while Spells: Archived has a western look somewhere between fantasy novel cover and a metal album cover. Both are owned and operated by the same hypercorp). There are even sports based games which involve trading of current and historical players, and often integrate into Fantasy Sports teams who compete against other fantasy teams and clubs. While some of these games offer fixed distribution, most are randomized. Players can either pay real money outright, or grind for in-game points which can be converted into boosters. If players can actually trade their libraries, there is also often a secondary market for specific cards of high rarity.

In the AR or vid-game space, there are also many traditional "gacha games", which rely entirely on this randomized mechanic. One's available "units" or other game pieces are entirely random, and one must spend an in-game currency (often premium) to receive new units. Units often have special increases in rarity (rate ups) or are time limited to drive sales, and some games are not well balanced, meaning new units are often required to keep advancing in play. Many of these games use characters from media franchises, or contain original stories set in fictional universe in order to get engagement from players and build a roster. Still others use public domain characters from history and folklore in their own art style, such as Destiny & Chaos which uses characters from many traditional mythologies, or Tactics Crest, which has famous military commanders. Or the even more esoteric collab between Direct Action and Go-nin, Foxhole Girls, which personifies military hardware with an asian pop-artist style. These rely more heavily on gameplay and appealing to classic questions like, "Who was a better commander, Caesar or George Washington" or "What would happen if Hercules and Cu Chulainn fought?". Some do use entirely original rosters, though often with very archetypal setup for why one must collect all these characters - these models often have to try very hard to get noticed in the market.

Other games, especially VR games, may utilize this form of monetization as an extra revenue source. While many allow custom adaptations by the community, quite a few also randomly distribute cosmetic in-game items randomly, adding new "skins" to the simulmorph or various aspects of the game universe. Some of these are quite rare, and often highly valued in the secondary market either just for the prestige, or because they're often designed by the professional art team. Some of these items may be available in non-randomized form, but often require large expenses of in-game, even premium, currency, incentivising the "gambling" aspect. Some games take this a step further, pushing closer to the "gacha" model to randomize actual game elements such as in-game equipment, abilities, characters, etc in the rewards system. If these are mechanically superior, this is often seen as a warning sign for consumers, as those with lots of free time and money can often gain an edge over players with shallow pockets or who lack time to grind.

How these games are handled depends very highly on the "market place". While quite a few polities don't necessarily feel any moral compunctions against gambling, some may not like the monetization angle, others are money driven but note the stigma. The LLA is a more socially conservative locale, who carefully regulates many of these models - requiring rarities to be posted, availability to be clearly stated and leaving exploitive tricks (such as making a unit appear for a limited time, then reappear later permanently without noting) open to litigation. Morningstar operates similarly, trying to enact a more "concerned" hypercapitalism, and avoid the appearance of praying on addicts. Such games are somewhat rare in the Jovian republic, especially as they tend to be less focused on some of the technologies - but may still be made available with some of the same regulations. In addition, if a game deals with sensitive subjects (such as nanotechnology, AGI, Uplifts, Anarchism, etc) it may be censored by the government, in addition to removing blatant sacreligious elements. The Planetary Consortium and allies polities, on the other hand, fully embrace the free market. Little restriction is put on these games other than the default protections one might assume (such as outright scams or frauds), and let the consumers take care of the rest. This tends to mean the most exploitative or profit driven games have smaller player bases or build slowly over time, while more "approachable" games are more acceptable, liked by their players for not being a "blatant" cash-grab or having more respectable mechanics for free or small-budget players which keep them interested.

Extropians have an interesting approach - as obviously they see nothing philosophically wrong with any model where the customer voluntarily pays in, fully knowing the terms of the payment. Extropians may often play the same games as the PC. However, their open source and remixing culture puts them at odds sometimes as well, leading to many "hacked" servers, homebrews, or "custom" games where underlying codes and elements are altered, units and items added, currencies and probabilities changed, etc. Players of these versions of the games are often barred from the "normal" versions, but some of these offshoots get popular on their own. The New Economy also has interesting thoughts on the model. Autonomy isn't restricted, so there's nothing wrong with people playing these games or the gambling aspect, but exploitative monetization is frowned upon also. Like the Extropians, Anarchists and Titanians often have to host their own versions of these games (or are distributed a different version) with the monetization elements removed, and in-game points only used. Some have even integrated this with the rep system, players in good rep standing generate steady amounts of in-game currency to trade in for the randomized materials. Players with bad habits or who have a low rep will find themselves struggling to earn new items, cards or units.