Gacha RPGs are everywhere these days, and that’s a fact. There are tons of them on the App Store, There are tons of them on Google Play, and there are tons of them coming every week. Frankly, it’s getting to a point where players are just sick of these games. Still, the main problem here is not their number, but their incredibly predatory nature. They are basically gambling dressed up as video games.
Make no mistake, these games are not for “playing”, they are a race to see who can spend more money on loot boxes. Many major games such as Call of Duty, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Battlefield have been criticized for loot boxes, yet it seems like people are ignoring an even worse example of this in mobile phones: a gaming device that practically everyone has these days.
Of course, gacha RPGs are not the only games that require you to wipe out your wallet in order to make any real progress – that is how pretty much any free game makes profit. They’re surely the worst type, though, because they’re created with the sole purpose of sucking money out of anyone who plays them.
If we could ignore all the monetization issues, gacha RPGs can actually have many great aspects. There is a reason game developers keep making them: There is a huge demand, because many people like these games.
Gacha is just another form of loot boxes
It’s undoubtedly quite appealing to summon plenty of new heroes, hoping that we finally get the one we’ve been looking for. It’s satisfying to assemble a party full of our favorite characters and watch them dominate enemies. Very often these games have very impressive graphics and feature our favorite heroes from several franchises, like Lord of the Rings, Marvel, or Star Wars.
It’s a shame that in order to enjoy all that stuff, we have to use our real life, hard-earned money to basically participate in gambling. Is there a solution for this? Well, there is, and it’s incredibly simple too. Just look at another game from another genre: Pocket City, to see how it handles this.
This brilliant city builder features everything great about a mobile building simulator and removes everything bad, namely the freemium monetization mechanics. There’s no in-app purchase, no energy systems, no annoying pop-up ads.
So, how does it make money? Well, it asks you to pay. Simple, isn’t it? If you want money, just make a quality product, then sell it, then let those who buy it enjoy the full experience instead of hiding under a “free game” mask but lock everything behind a paywall. Games like Diablo 3, Overwatch, or PUBG PC have done that for years. Once you’ve bought the game, you get access to all of the features right from the get-go, and how powerful you are depends entirely on your skills and effort rather than how thick your wallet is.
So what if gacha RPGs followed the same approach? What if we could pay a reasonable price to be able to enjoy a game with a deep story, interesting characters, and captivating gameplay instead of spending a fortune to gamble in games that are all the same? What if we actually had to learn strategies and think of team composition and character builds instead of just smacking enemies with money?
Now, if there’s a gacha RPG that can deliver all of that, there’d definitely be tons of people willing to pay for it. And it’s not even an impossible prospect, just look at Pokémon if you want an exact example of what such a game is like.
So, take note developers: stop wasting your time and effort on making identical games full of pay-to-win mechanics. Instead, just create a game with memorable stories and gameplay that actually rewards skills, and we gamers will be more than happy to pay.