Games like that which prey on vulnerable people with gambling addictions should be highly regulated and probably not exist.
Exactly my thoughts. In the US, the laws are waaaaaaaaay behind where they need to be to address it. It's gambling. It has a game in it, but it's primary monetary source is through gambling.
They are lol
I don't mind games as live service but I feel Gacha as a mechanic has been ruined beyond repair.
At first the concept of almost infinite progression appears attractive but everything is ruined by greed eventually. You start hitting walls and all of the illusions disappear. For example, I played Genshin Impact and would limit my spending to 10-20$/mo which is very reasonable for a live service game IMO but at some point all of the enemies start to become super spongey to the point where the games was simply not fun anymore.
Now Gacha means that you can only have fun if you're literally spending hundreds of dollars or participate in this meta hunt and neither is fun or sustainable.
I do feel like Star Rail is handling gacha well though. I have all of the characters I want in my 10-20$ budget but that's an exception to the rule if anything.
I haven’t really played any of them, but I did put a little time into Kingdom Hearts Unchained X. It definitely felt like a grind, and the follow up (Dark Road) having an auto battler setting was silly imo. Not really a fan of the genre, but I do hear good things about Genshin.
Currently playing FGO and Star Rail. Started FGO about 3.5 years ago and still keep up with it. One thing that I've realized since I've started is that these types of games are meant to be played over years, not days. So it's easy to feel like you hit a wall in progression for your characters early on. Once I figured that out, it became a lot less annoying when I felt like I couldn't upgrade characters to where I want them to be. Gacha itself is gambling, and like all things, can be fine in moderation. But as such it definitely preys on people susceptible to addiction and FOMO. Star Rail seems a bit better designed and paced so far than Genshin, and I find the turn based system more suited to my preferences.
MOE Can Change - playing since 1st year on NA server Fallen Princess - started it only because I trusted AMB. Mistake. Deceased. Witch Weapon - the price of becoming a girl is saving the world. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Deceased. Girls Frontline - it had a Gunslinger Girl collab. I'm amazed it's not deceased.
I still haven't figured out if I like MCC. Anyway so I want to make a non-scummy gacha. I'm nailing out design stuff currently. Dev chat is on matrix, if you are interested in actually doing design (and teaching me about your pet hate gacha), you can come; it's by invite. But the actual design doc is open source.
I played AFK Arena for close to 3 years and I really enjoyed it. For the most part it was very F2P friendly and moderate spending helped boot you pretty significantly but wasn’t necessary. I enjoyed that there were multiple modes to the game and then the occasional events that were a little more interactive and required teamwork (Abyssal Expedition) that allowed you to compete against other guilds. Unfortunately it felt like over the last year or so the devs got a little greedy and the game got harder to keep up with as F2P/mild spending so I ended up dropping it. Sadly I haven’t found anything to replace it with yet but it was a good time while it lasted.
I currently play two gachas: Guardian Tales and Fire Emblem Heroes. Guardian Tales is very F2P-friendly, FEH is less so. But I feel like as long as you play for a little bit every day, the sense of progression is great.
I look at it through how much time I've put in - I can spend $60-$70 on a new game and get ~40 hours of entertainment give or take, either before I finish it or get bored. But a GaaS like a gacha gives about an hour of playtime a day in small chunks, so now we're talking about 400+ hours a year. I'm usually fine paying a monthly fee or buying small packages, I've probably spent about $150 in each game a year.
But the downsides are rough - my absolute favorite game to play was Final Fantasy: Record Keeper, which shut down last year after 7.5 years in service. That one felt absolutely terrible to lose. It sucks that they couldn't find a way to make a closed server version, but it's just the nature of the game model. Sucks.
Used to play FGO and Dragalia Lost but eventually hit a wall that required such a ridiculous grind that I dropped the games entirely. Fun while they're generous but terrible once the grind starts.
