What is a gacha game? How hundreds of games stay free to play

Gacha games are everywhere now. They’ve been filling Google Play and the App Store for years, and now you can play plenty of them on PC or even console. The gacha game “genre” is stronger than ever, and it’s leading people to ask one, simple question: what is a gacha game? Unlike other game “genres” which are typically defined by the type of world you explore, how you interact with that world, and from what perspective (like “open-world first-person shooter”), gacha games are primarily defined by the way the game makes money. “Gacha” is a Japanese onomatopoeia taken from “gachapon,” which refers to the capsule machines that dispense small, random toys in exchange for a coin or two. You’ve probably bought a toy from one of these machines as a youngster, or have at least seen a few of them in a shopping center or a toy store. These machines exchange a small amount of money for a random prize, and that’s how gacha games make money too. Instead of giving you a physical toy, gacha games make money by giving you d