It’s a free-to-play mobile gacha game. Therefore, it is trash. That point simply cannot be argued. It’s not up for debate. If you’re here to debate that point, please don’t even bother. All mobile games are trash. All free-to-play games are trash. All gacha games are trash. Again: there is no debate about that.
Having gotten that out of the way: why are so many people under the false impression that this SPECIFIC trash game is somehow more than trash?
Does it have particularly sexy anime girls? Particularly sexy anime prettyboys? Cool mechs or something? Does it very sadly contain core elements of gameplay that would be fun in a non-trash setting?
Help me out, here.
Hey, I didn’t mean to make it exclusively about anime titties. There are completely non-anime-related games that use exploitative gacha mechanics.
I’m referring to games that exploit gambling addicts. Do you understand that situation? The harm that is being caused by games openly exploiting people who can’t control themselves?
It’s exactly the same as serving alcohol to an alcoholic. If you do that shit, you’re an asshole.
And gacha games are even worse than actual casinos, for two reasons:
First, because they don’t involve the players winning money, the racketeers aren’t even putting any of their own cash at risk. Even with the house advantage, there’s always SOME chance that a real casino will lose money, every time someone pulls a slot machine lever. Gacha games, though, they don’t lose any money when you win a character, or a skin, or a weapon, or some fake gold pieces.
Secondly, because there’s no real money being won, gacha games evade existing laws against gambling. People are free to LOSE their money, all the way to zero, but they can’t win a cent, so it’s all nice and legal.
That shit is fucked up. Gacha games are built on savage exploitation. I’ll hasten to add that not all F2P games are based on the most awful version of this metric. Some games don’t encourage the gambling mentality nearly as much, and I should have given them credit, sooner. If you’re just able to buy skins or gold or whatever, it’s not as bad. As long as the game doesn’t come back in some other direction and get you by limiting your ability to play the game with artificial “stamina” mechanics, or whatever else, and pry exploitative amounts of money out of you, that way.