[totally_human]

It may be true, if we go by simple quantity of games. Low-quality mobile games with gambling mechanics get churned out at very high rates, especially compared to AAA titles. I wouldn't be surprised if most games are gacha by volume, but probably not when adjusted for number of players or total number of player-hours.

[falcolas]

> probably not when adjusted for number of players or total number of player-hours.

I would disagree, given how the major sports franchise games and multiplayer FPS games use gacha mechanics too.

[jncfhnb]

I am not deep into mobile games but I doubt that gambling games are easy to churn out. Is that accurate?

The normal in app purchase trap is time saving bonuses as far as I can see

[totally_human]

There are some "real" games which started with the intention of being fun and then added some in-app purchases to make money. (Angry Birds, Plants Vs Zombies, etc). Then, there are bare-minimum games which basically only exist as a shell for gambling mechanics. Endless Candy Crush clones, incremental / idle games, and so on.

The first type are, indeed, not easy to churn out (at least no easier than any other game). The second, though, are the sort that most third-year CS students could make in a few days of concentrated effort, and individual companies often make many, many games that are basically the same but with different assets. They're then sold with misleading ads in the hopes that a few whales will get addicted. The cost to produce them is so low that even single digits of whales buying lots of in-app-purchases can result in profit.

(There's also a third category: terrible games with a license to beloved franchises, with E.T. being the canonical example. Many of them are microtransaction hell, but more often they take advantage of the brand to sell them for an up-front price. Same strategy, though: minimize production values, market as aggressively as possible within budget, accept a relatively low return which is still net-profitable.)

[jncfhnb]

Do you have any stats though? Because I don’t believe that.

It seems unlikely that you’re going to have people whaling for rare drops in a trash game with no social network. Whaling is often a status thing and benefits from network effects.

I played some Nintendo’s / Cygames gacha from a while back and its revenue numbers were pretty middling despite being pretty darn high end. Are people really making money on games that are just barely serviceable with no fan base but a slot machine in them? I find that hard to square.