Almost 19% of Japanese people in their 20s have spent so much money on gacha they struggled with covering living expenses, survey reveals - AUTOMATON WEST
This is exactly the reason why I won't play gacha games. First everyone complains about loot boxes and microtransactions and then a game-genre where that's the core of the game takes off.
Just goes to show that the people that (rightly) complain about microtransactions cheapening gaming experiences were always in the minority and most will just keep spending like headless chickens.
Most people I know aren't or don't see themselves as gambling addicts. They're "proud" about how much they spent.
When that’s characters, I just accept it. Like, “Oh, I guess I don’t get to try out this character? I’ll level up others instead and see how well I can do.”
Personally I don't play any game with microtransactions.
I'm only interested in games I can purchase outright and then own*. If there's large scale DLC that's fine, great even, but if there's some in-game way to spend money that isn't restricted to a DLC button/section, then I'm not interested.
I want to play games, not be inundated by constant sales opportunities.
*I'm aware I don't "own" most game due to the stupidity of licensing, and while I don't love that, I can acknowledge it's still a different and better thing that games that constantly push microtransactions
There isn‘t much of a contradiction there, I think. People complaining about it are mostly from an entirely different culture than where Gacha slop is developed and most popular. The former being the western world and the latter being South East Asia and players who have a deep fascination for it.