Addiction and Spending in Gacha Games

Abstract

Gacha games are the most dominant games on the mobile market. These are free-to-play games with a lottery-like system, where the user pays with in-game currency to enter a draw in order to obtain the character or item they want. If a player does not obtain what he hoped for, there is the option of paying with his own money for more draws, and this is the main way to monetize the Gacha game. The purpose of this study is to show the playing and spending habits of Gacha players: the reasons they like such games, the reasons for spending, how much they spend, what they spend on, how long they have been spending, and whether they are aware of their spending. The paper includes studies by other researchers on various aspects of Gacha games as well. The aim of the paper is to conduct a study with the hypothesis that players who play the same game for a while and have a habit of playing it are willing to give more of their money to enter a draw. Therefore, two research questions and two hypotheses were analyzed. A total of 713 participants took part in the study.