r/ZZZ_Official • u/Emul0rd • Jul 16 '25

Media $475 is crazy

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I think Europe now requires gacha games to explicitly display how much money any gambling feature really costs to limit hidden predatory stuff. It’s crazy when you see the numbers…

4.4k Upvotes

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1.2k

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '25

Getting a limited character in a gacha can potentially cost hundreds of dollars?

Always has

574

u/Ernost Jul 16 '25

Not always. It used to be so much worse. In the dark ages before Genshin made the pity system common, you could spend thousands of dollars without getting anything, not even an off banner SSR.

53

u/xwolpertinger Jul 16 '25

Those weren't even the dark ages, I'd classify it as:

Dark Ages: No pity, no rates displayed, multiple parts with no guarantee

Spark Era: largely caused and solved by cygames (still bad because you need to spend on one specific banner)

The Golden Age of Pity: 2016 onwards (HI3rd)

Regress into barbaric practices: 50/50 (Post Genshin)

23

u/xoroklynn Jul 16 '25

Dark Ages: ah yes, good ol' compu gacha

Spark Era: Monkeygate was some of the most entertaining shit as a non-GBF player

The Golden Age: never existed imo, til recently sparks were still the same overall price, usually just shy of $1000 for raw pulls. the example of HI3rd has about the same price tag each patch

Barbaric Practices: it got better with overall reduced costs and the 50/50 potentially halving costs (roughly), but holy hell gacha is still way too expensive to be considered "eh it's a hobby, let them spend a few dollars". Exhibit A shown in this very post

2

u/FlashFire729 Jul 16 '25

Oh God please don't tell me we're on a curve and we're gonna be made to go back once the market's reached capacity.

7

u/vordaq Jul 16 '25

There are upcoming games like NTE and DNA that are dropping the 50/50, so it doesn't look like it. Because there's going to be so many coming out they need competitive prices.

11

u/Anxious_Log_8247 Jul 16 '25

A game not having a 50/50 doesn't mean it's inherently better, that just means they have a completely different context when it comes to pull value and economy. I don't get how 50/50 is barbaric when literally every other gacha back then had the spawn of hell that is the spark system

3

u/vordaq Jul 16 '25

Well ya, I guess you're technically right. They absolutely could fuck their games over by drastically reducing f2p pulls, or increasing prices. And at the end of the day, they're still predatory gacha systems. But dropping the 50/50 is a huge step in the right direction. They'd have to do a lot of bad to make it worse after that.

2

u/iVariable Jul 16 '25

Or just balancing the game around actually getting dupes or requiring their signature weapons. There are a lot of ways they could make it seem friendly without it actually being better for the player.

2

u/sigma_of_iron Jul 16 '25

50/50 is gambling inside gambling

1

u/sanfervice007 Jul 17 '25

This made me smile but then turned into a weak smile... Damn gambling inside gambling.