You pay for a random pull at a character, and the best ones are rare on purpose.
The whole game is built around paying for random chances at characters, with the rarest kept deliberately scarce: slot-machine design at its most refined.
Probability, not product. A 'pull' costs real money and returns one random item from a weighted table, with the rarest characters kept deliberately scarce. You aren't buying a character; you're buying a chance to love one.
The name comes from gashapon, the capsule-toy machines; the odds come from slot machines. Mobile free-to-play had already made the download free, and across Asia every yen had to come from inside the game, so gacha sold probability. A small minority of whales (the heaviest spenders) fund the game for everyone else. Design followed the money: rarity tiers, banners that vanish (featured-character offers that last only days), and collection sets engineered never to quite complete. When Japan's regulator banned the most extreme version in 2012, what survived came back with disclosed odds and pity timers (a guaranteed top prize after enough tries).
Not recommended for children. If a family allows one, it is the free-to-collect kind with published odds, a pity guarantee and spending limits switched on.
Gacha grew out of mobile free-to-play and Asian app-store economics. Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency ruled 'kompu gacha' (complete gacha) illegal in May 2012, outlawing schemes where the final item in a set became exponentially harder to pull than the first. Monster Strike (Mixi, 2013) reportedly passed $7 billion in lifetime revenue by around 2018. Fate/Grand Order reportedly grossed several billion dollars by 2023 on a system criticised for stingy drop rates, and one player told the press he had spent $70,000 chasing characters. Genshin Impact (28 September 2020) reportedly grossed about $2 billion on mobile in its first year, funding console-quality production largely from pulls, and Honkai: Star Rail refined the formula. The idea then travelled west as loot boxes.
In May 2012 Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency ruled that 'kompu gacha' (complete gacha), where the last item in a set became exponentially harder to pull, was illegal. What survived has disclosed drop rates and pity timers.
In Australia, since 22 September 2024, games with in-game purchases linked to chance (including paid loot boxes bought with in-game currency) can't be rated G or PG: they get at least an M. The rule isn't retrospective, so older games may still carry lower ratings.
ESRB (North America) and PEGI (Europe) added a 'paid random items' notice in April 2020. Under PEGI's updated criteria announced in March 2026, games with paid random items default to PEGI 16.
Historical prices and revenues are in US dollars at the time unless marked A$.
Monster Strike (Mixi, 2013) reportedly passed $7bn in lifetime revenue around 2018, briefly reported as the highest-grossing mobile game of its time.
Fate/Grand Order had reportedly grossed several billion dollars in lifetime revenue by 2023; one player told the press he had spent $70,000 chasing characters.
Genshin Impact launched on 28 September 2020; its mobile version alone reportedly grossed around $2bn in its first year.
Covered in Video Games & Money: Ep 30 · Gacha, Ep 24 · Mobile f2p.