In most modern butlers (and not only, remember the recent Monsu), the so-called gacha is used as one of the important monetization tools. This is when you are given not a specific item for money, but the opportunity to win it.
Yesterday, while dealing with the situation on the Singapore market, we found out that the city-state government may ban shareware projects monetized in this way. By the way, the subtype gacha – kompugacha has been banned in Japan for many years.
Since the difference between the latter is not obvious, we decided to ask Aya Yamada from the Japanese company Adinnovation, which promotes and publishes mobile games, about this type of monetization.
Hi, Aya! Two years ago, kompugacha was banned in Japan. Therefore, we have such a question: why can it still be found in many box-office Japanese projects? After all, in fact, even Puzzle & Dragons uses it (by the way, the game is responsible for money for almost half of the entire Japanese market).
Aya Yamada
Hi, Sasha!
First, look, there are two types of gacha: Komp and normal. Kompugacha is still banned, but this fact does not affect the normal gacha, which is also in Monster Strike and Quiz RPG: The World of Mystic Wiz.
OK, but then a quite natural question arises: what is the difference between gacha and kompugatcha?
Gacha provides the player for a specific amount with just a random item. Kompugatcha translates as “a complete set of items”. This means that you get (or don’t get, as luck would have it) an item by paying for it in a few moves. In other words, to get a thing, players must collect the entire collection.
The term Gacha is used in reference to lottery systems within games. It’s legal. A lottery based on the collectible principle (Kompugatcha) is not.
Here is another example for clarity: gacha is, in fact, a synonym for capsule toys.
Editor’s note: in the Western market, one of the most popular examples of capsule toys is Kinder Surprise: when buying a chocolate egg, you don’t know what toy is waiting for you inside, but it is there, entirely. If we were talking about kompugatcha, then the buyer would not receive a finished figure, but only its component. But after all, there is often a situation in butlers when several components are needed to get a cool dragon – identical cards or collections of items that fall out randomly for the evolution of the character.
Isn’t this kompugatcha?
No, since the items received are “finished”, they can be used in the game as self-sufficient entities.
Is that why games like Puzzle & Dragons are still allowed in Japan?
Yes, unlike the old GREE and DeNA projects, in which this mechanic appeared for the first time.
I see! Thanks for the interview!
Photo: http://www.whysojapan.com/capsule-toy-machines/