In Japan, “complete gacha”, in which users must continue to play until they collect the complete set of prizes in order to win, has now been banned. Some countries have even taken steps to legislate against loot boxes and gacha games.
Gacha games often have an addictive nature, and as in-game currency is often different to the real world currency spent to buy it, children may spend large amounts of money without keeping track of what they’re putting into the game. Because of the random nature of the prize, these mechanisms have often been classified as a form of gambling, which makes children playing these games problematic for various reasons.
Gacha games have often been compared to loot boxes, which encourage users to spend money to obtain a random item during game play.
