Especially during the last few years, a very particular genre of games has gotten a huge amount of love and attention from all sorts of gaming communities: gacha games. The final breakthrough, however, was probably made with the release of either HoYoverse's Honkai Impact 3rd in 2016 or Genshin Impact four years later. But what makes them so popular, and what exactly makes a gacha game a gacha game?
If you haven't heard of gacha games by now, you've probably been living under a rock for the last few years. However, only a few people actually know what a gacha game is, where its name comes from, what different types there are, and what makes them so popular. It's time to change that!
Let's find out why gacha games are so well-loved and what makes them so unique!
Gacha Games: A New Era Is Taking Over
Whether you've never heard of gacha games before, have maybe given it a careful try or are a total veteran in said department, there's a lot of interesting stuff to learn about this type of game.
What Are Gacha Games
The most obvious thing that makes a gacha game a gacha game is its special loot box system (also called gacha system) which allows you to get new ingame goods or characters in exchange for either a free-to-play currency or real money.
The price you will get is pretty random, at least to a certain degree, which makes it hard to aim for a specific item. Most of the time, these special items or units are only available in a limited timespan. The game itself however is most of the time completely free-to-play!
Genres, which are used quite often in combination with a gacha system, are either card collectors like Fire Emblem: Heroes or (open world) action RPGs like Genshin Impact!
Our Top 5 Gacha Games
In case you have gotten a little curious and would like to get your own insight into the world of gacha games, we have listed you our top five gacha games right here:
Title | Release Date | Genre |
| Genshin Impact | September 28, 2020 | Action RPG |
| Arknights | May 1, 2019 | Tactical RPG /Tower defense |
| Honkai Star Rail | April 26, 2023 | Turn-based RPG |
| Punishing: Gray Raven | December 5, 2019 | Action RPG |
| Fire Emblem: Heros | February 2, 2017 | Tactical RPG |
Do you play any of these games already? As for me, my personal favorite gacha game has to be either Genshin Impact or Honkai Impact 3rd!
A Careful Start
When talking about such a huge topic like gacha games, we should start at the very beginning and find out what the first ever gacha game was and where they got their name from. Luckily, this is pretty easy to explained, since the name “gacha” has its origin in a slightly different field!
Have you ever seen or even tried out one of these little capsule vending machines, where you have to put money in, in order to get a little toy out of if? Then you have played a gacha game! — At least somewhat, I would say.
The name “gacha” originated from the word “gachapon” which is actually a trademark of the popular Japanese toy manufacturer “Bandai”. And if you think about it, the idea behind digital gacha games is basically that same: You put a currency of some sorts into the machine, and it gives you a random prize.
What the very first digital gacha game was, however, is pretty hard to tell, but I will give you two pretty hot contenders, which have been around for an incredibly long time:
MapleStory
The game MapleStory was first and officially released in Korea in 2003.
Published by Nexon, the game is a free-to-play, 2D, side-scrolling MMORPG, developed by South Korean company Wizet. You can still play the game on Steam today. It has a distinct gacha feature, since you can buy tickets for the “The Great Gachapierrot” in order to receive various prizes.
Dragon Collection
However, maybe Dragon Collection was the first ever gacha game instead! This game is a typical card collector mobile game from 2010, developed by Konami.
A pretty interesting fact about this game is that it actually has a manga adaptation call “Dragon Collection: Ryū o Suberu Mono”! The first chapter released in 2011 and the series has six volumes in total. And it's getting even wilder: To make it full circle, Konami released another game, which is based on said manga in 2014 named “Dragon Collection RPG: Shōnen to Ryū-gari no Ryū”.
What's next, an anime adaption? … Well, yes! What if I'd tell you that there really is an anime based on the second game with the exact same name! The anime has 51 episodes and was airing from 2014 to 2015.
Last but not least, let's take a look at why gacha games are so incredibly popular!
The Popularity Of Gacha Games
One huge factor why there are plenty of pretty popular gacha games is because they are, at its core, free-to-play! You can download them super quick and easy on your smartphone and get rid of them the moment it starts to annoy you.
Another point which could explain the massive popularity is probably the low maintenance of gacha games. If you're not a hardcore gamer, you can get away with 10 – 15 minutes of playing each day in order to stay up to date in your gacha game of choice. Perfect for filling a small train journey to school, university or work, for example!
Alright, let's address the elephant in the room: gacha can be pretty fun! It's no secret that the gacha factor itself is responsible for a large part of the success of said genre. Getting super powerful characters or items without multiple hours of grinding does feel pretty good and next to that, the rare occasion of pulling a special unit super early within the game just lets you feel so lucky!
And there is nothing wrong with enjoying the gacha system by testing your luck here and there, as long as you do it in moderation! Spending enormous amounts of real money really isn’t the point or fun in gacha games and in my opinion you make the games less fun by getting all these super OP character, even through you can play the game without any issues by using the free-to-play units as well.
There really is much more than what meets the eye when talking about gacha games and especially bigger titles, as for example all HoYoverse games, offer a great story, lovely character and a mesmerizing world to explore! No wonder many players fell in love with gacha games, right?