Now That Most Second Life Shopping Events Have a Gacha, What Should We Think About a Whole World Gone Gacha?

Pocket Gacha lead developer Oobleck Allagash has a provocative blog post on the state of the gacha industry in Second Life, which has more or less consumed Second Life's shopping culture.

How many related events have a gacha? "80% would be an educated guess [which do allow them in a mixed format," Allagash tells me. "And of course you have the ALL Gacha events like Arcade and Epiphany. And then you have PocketGacha that is more of a hybrid Gacha event in that we allow full set purchases in copy/mod."

To judge by social media updates, 80% sounds about right -- certainly a majority of SL shopping has some gacha aspect. While he's obviously biased, the rapid growth of gachas does bring up some thorny issues that deserve debate, which Allagah raises:

Some argue Gacha is baiting the buyer to spend more.  Well, yes, let’s not sugarcoat it in that of course the essence within Gacha is to be related to “gambling.”  Yet it’s not at all a close relationship.  Gacha can be easily given to friends in transfer. It can be sold on a resell market. In gambling, you can’t sell your losses or give them away to friends for that matter (we wish!). But with Gacha you can.  And for the buyer who wants only one item but has to keep playing to get it and feels baited there are two answers to this: The creator did not make a Gacha that properly had the shopper wanting more than one or two items and the shopper has not appreciated the benefit of perhaps getting the item they really want for less than a single item release would have cost.  In the end, no one really loses. Gacha are transfer. Creators who do wonderfully thought out sets sell more.

"I have always noticed that there are waves of sentiment that are discussed, have been for years, regarding Gacha," Allagash explains to me. "The naysayers I feel tend to look at from too much of a surface level and miss the deeper benefits that we tend to take for granted. Many of the hidden surprises - like how it encourages creative cohesiveness in a set, tells a story, and also markets a brand via trading, and reselling. I felt no one had ever really addressed it before. People just took the concept for granted without truly explaining it beyond the part of  'it's fun!' or 'It's not fun!'"

Now that the SL market has embraced them so thoroughly, the real questions should be: How healthy are they to the Second Life economy (for Linden Lab, content creators, and consumers), and how should Linden Lab evolve SL, to make it more gacha friendly. (Or should they?)

Comments

[Chic Aeon]

I am not a gacha player. Actually I am not much of a shopper of any sort having a very wide and varying inventory and the ability to make many things that I might want.

THAT being said, I do MAKE gachas and they most often do well -- sometimes very well (although not in the 10,000 pulls category which is personally mind-boggling to even think about). There are pluses and minuses surely. I have houses in my gachas and some pretty intricate items that are worth up to ten times or more their "pull" value. I try not to put items in the gachas that are worth less in the current market than the pull price. So people get VALUE, but not necessarily the item they might want.

Currently I do two kinds of gachas. One type is at a regular sales venue event where there are many types of items sold and most are not gachas. In those I offer transfer gacha items AS WELL AS full sets that are COPY. I sell both well; it just depends on the customer and their wants and needs.

The other are events that are ONLY gachas and ones that give rewards after so many pulls (15-20). When that happens the customer gets the prize shown. No gambling at all in this case.

I have only been doing this second type for a couple of months.

The "grand prize" is supposed to be spectacular, and my first time out I had a house. A fair amount of folks played the machine 20 times to get the house -- which of course matched the furniture. But here is the interesting part -- to me at least. I noted that many to most of the "old time" creators there had less than exciting prizes for their multiple pull gifts. Some were downright -- well the word "lame" comes to mind. Noticeably so. What was that about?

Well those grand prizes have to be retired after the event, never to be sold again. So that is part of it for sure. The other fairly curious part from the gambler's viewpoint is that from watching my sales records I could see that many people seemed to have a budget for their gacha "madness" (sort of a two drink rule so to speak).

No matter what price I put on my machine, many people pulled up to a US dollar. I suspect this was on EACH machine they chose to play, but I can't of course know that. I have only seen one gal play and play and play -- trying to get a teacup lamp. I have my sales turn on the viewer and I watched all the pulls she was doing. I wrote to her and asked her what she was trying for and if she was playing for herself or for resale. She told me she HAD TO HAVE that lamp. I wrote back telling her she had played enough and sent her the lamp. She was thrilled and I felt better so it was a win-win.

It is true that each person chooses the machines they want to play. Some creators are pretty sneaky though making some of the "wins" unusable without a second part. I try to curb my judgement there -- as it IS the customer's choice to play, but for me -- that just seem wrong some how. Sneaky.

Personally I make more money on gacha sets than I do on regular releases of grouped furniture and decor. I also like making them, so they work for me as a creator.

But as a player? Nope, not my thing.

[Kaylee West]

I am probably in a minority here, but I won't play (is that the right word?) gatcha. I guess I just don't get it. If I want / need something I don't want to waste my time playing a game of chance in the hope that I might get it. In the ten years I have been in SL like many others I have spent hundreds of RL dollars buying all kinds of marvelous (and some less so) creations. I will continue to spend and look forward to discovering many more amazing creations, but if I see gatcha in a shop or display, I walk out.

[Dusky]

A world gone gacha is a nightmare. Gacha actually ruined SL shopping for me. I miss buying what I want, the color and style that I want, right away, without having to think about missing out on anything because everything was always in stock whenever I wanted it. I didn't have to trade with others for anything. It was less complicated. I used to shop every day while exploring the grid. Now I might shop twice a year.

Gachas, exclusive body mesh, limited clothing and accessories for exclusive body meshes, are three changes that have ruined shopping fun for me. The flip side is that I have managed to save a lot of money as a result.

[QD]

Back when Gachas were new in SL they cost me between 1 and 30 lindens per go, with mostly similar items in varying colours and styles. Alas, over the years, they've rocketed to now often stupid prices (recently saw some over 150 lindens a go) and the widespread use of split up outfits and furniture really puts me off.

I know some people can afford to throw cash at a machine to get the full set, but a lot of people can't, especially with the seeming average new norm of 75 lindens a go.

I tends to hit up the market place for things I really want from events now, but even then I feel bad leeching off people who can afford to play and it's not really fun.

As Dusky said, Gachas have sort of ruined shopping, especially when that flashy piece of no copy furniture gets eaten by some rezzing glitch.

It's out of control when playing to get a full set costs more than the stand-alone would have been.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

"We All Gacha Down Here"

But srsly, the fact that SL has gone a bit gacha-goo-goo ironically places it closer to being a game. Many games with some aspect of online function now have such gachas in one form or another. There is something to be said for a firmly fixed product at a firmly fixed price, but the frisson of excitement from pushing one's luck with a run at a gacha one wants is about as good as it gets for younger people and folks who live in states barred from the gaming sims of SL.

Having said that, I've always recommended budgeting tightly for your pulls - never more than what you can afford. If you need something really badly, check the Marketplace for resales.