Database Design In Gacha Games

Free-to-play (F2P) mobile games are based on a business model which allows the majority of players to play the game for free while only a small percentage (2-5%) is actually paying for the game (mostly through the purchase of virtual in-game items). Monetization is done through so called micro-transactions within the game where players can acquire virtual items and tools. To grow revenue and profit, game makers must motivate the limited amount of paying players to purchase more or to convert nonpayers into payer. This is done by combining an attractive game-play with settings/elements that entice players to make in-game purchases. Especially, the above monetization mechanism could be boosted by the i ntroduction of" game-of-chance" elements, or Gacha in F2P mobile games in Japan. Gacha can lead to irrational overspending among some part of paying players since game developers deliberately (mis-)use its mechanics to increase the ir revenue and profit with these players . This paper first outlines a basic framework of Gacha, its different mechanics and elements as well as its core issues based on literature research and interview research on players and developers. A special focus is on the emotional involvement of paying players and on learning from game developers and game expert about the role of this involvement for revenue generation. There are previous studies related to above F2P games but less focusing on its mechanism and its emotional elements. Artful combination of game design and monetization is especially effective for Gacha which can be found in the most profitable F2P mobile games in Japan. The overall business model is questioned in terms of its sustainability as it depends on limited percentage of payers. This was also confirmed by several developers and analysts who were being interviewed.

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16DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

｜

Exploring the game-of-chance elements in F2P mobile games

フリーミアム型モバイル・ゲームの確率変動要素の考察

―定性分析によるユーザーの感情に着目して―

【Paper】

- Insights of player's emotions from qualitative analysis -

Graduate Student, GSAPS, Waseda University

Koeder, Marco

Visiting Associate Professor

Tanaka, Ema

Professor, Waseda University

Mitomo, Hitoshi

1. Introduction*1

With the increased penetration of smartphones, mobile

gaming apps have been on the rise globally. The mobile free-

to-play (F2P) games space accounts for the major revenue

within the global mobile apps economy. However, despite the

popularity of these games, only 2% of users actually make

in-game purchases (Swerve, 2016). Within the global mobile

game market, Japan occupies a leading position in terms

of revenues, generating $6.2 billion dollars in 2016 and in

terms of spending per player, where it ranks rst in the world

(SuperData Research, 2016). It has been suggested that

one of the main drivers of revenues in the Japanese free-

to-play mobile apps market is "Gacha", a game-of-chance

based in-game payment mechanism. Gacha seems to

motivate players to spend more money in mobile F2P games.

(Teramoto, Shibuya, & Akiyama, 2014). It means that

payers of Gacha accept a kind of price discrimination in F2P

even though the price is a󰮏ected by chance depending on

the setting of winning percentage by mobile game providers.

This is different from typical Western F2P games, where

virtual items can be purchased directly through in-game

currency with a xed price. Japanese games often feature a

"Gacha" in the form of a rened lottery system where users

choose to pay for a chance to enter a real-time "lucky draw"

to acquire these items (See Figure 1). In fact, the behavioral

impact of Gacha upon Japanese game players has been so

signicant, that several controversies have erupted between

developers, players and regulators in Japan because of its

perceived relationship to over-spending. The Japanese F2P

game market and Gacha have been only briefly analyzed

in English-language academic literature. (Askeloef, 2013;

Kanerva, 2015; Yamakami, 2012b, 2013a, 2013b, 2014;

Shibuya & Teramoto, 2015).

Free-to-play (F2P) mobile games are based on a business model which allows the majority of players to play the game for free

while only a small percentage (2-5%) is actually paying for the game (mostly through the purchase of virtual in-game items).

Monetization is done through so called micro-transactions within the game where players can acquire virtual items and tools. To

grow revenue and prot, game makers must motivate the limited amount of paying players to purchase more or to convert non-

payers into payer. This is done by combining an attractive game-play with settings/elements that entice players to make in-game

purchases. Especially, the above monetization mechanism could be boosted by the introduction of "game-of-chance" elements, or

Gacha in F2P mobile games in Japan. Gacha can lead to irrational overspending among some part of paying players since game

developers deliberately (mis-)use its mechanics to increase their revenue and prot with these players.

This paper first outlines a basic framework of Gacha, its different mechanics and elements as well as its core issues based

on literature research and interview research on players and developers. A special focus is on the emotional involvement

of paying players and on learning from game developers and game expert about the role of this involvement for revenue

generation. There are previous studies related to above F2P games but less focusing on its mechanism and its emotional

elements. Artful combination of game design and monetization is especially effective for Gacha which can be found in the

most profitable F2P mobile games in Japan. The overall business model is questioned in terms of its sustainability as

it depends on limited percentage of payers. This was also confirmed by several developers and analysts who were

being interviewed.

Keywords: Gacha, freemium, mobile games, price discrimination, behavioral economics

Figure 1: Di󰮏erence between Western and Japanese F2P monetization: Adding the game-of-chance element to virtual item acquisition

｜

DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

2. Research Question

From the game publisher side, it seems natural to adopt

Gacha as a mechanism for price discrimination allowing

them to maximize revenues for certain mobile game titles.

Gacha mechanisms work well and they are deeply intertwined

within Japanese mobile game design. From the user's

perspective, however, how the game-of-chance element

in virtual environment a󰮏ects users is not well investigated.

One key question here is why do some players pay more

for Gacha drawing and others do not? From an Economics

standpoint of view, the same virtual item obtainable by Gacha

has a different value for different players. To answer this

question, this paper will depict the characteristics of Gacha

based on Japanese mobile game market information and

related regulatory and self-regulatory measures for consumer

protection. Then this paper examines several analytical

approaches followed by the main part, which looks at players

and professionals insights and show issues and possibilities

for further studies. In that sense, this paper is a preliminary

one for further research on how Gacha elements, game-of-

chance or articial uncertainly to obtain virtual goods, a󰮏ect

usage and payment in freemium online services.

3. Gacha as a game of chance element in

freemium services

3.1. What is Gacha - gambling or lottery/lucky draw?

According to previous studies, Gacha in online freemium

services seems similar to either gambling or lucky draws.

Shibuya describes Gacha as "…similar in screen appearance

to vending machines that dispense children's toys, and

lucky players can win valuable gaming items this way…

Gacha can be played for free, however, extremely rare and/

or valuable gaming items can also be obtained through

monetary purchases of online Gacha products." (Shibuya &

Teramoto, 2015, p.3). Yamakami describes it as "Japanese

game vendors have made huge revenues using Gacha.

Gacha is a kind of gambling for special items." (Yamakami,

2013a, p.268) and also as " …a mechanism to provide a

randomly picked item, sometimes free and sometimes as paid

items. Gacha is a great framework to introduce gambling

spirits into mobile social games. It also obscures the high

price to premium items because one attempt of Gacha can

be cheap." (Yamakami, 2013b, p.738) or in more detail "The

price is one or two dollars. Some of the contents come in a

set, and therefore, users continue buying Gacha, trying their

luck at getting a full set (Yamakami, 2012a, p.1233).

Despite its similarity to gambling, Gacha could be

understood as a lottery or lucky draw mechanism in a virtual

world*1 . Gambling is about betting money or valuable assets

to get higher return than the betting amount. Gacha is about

pulling a lottery to get randomly allotted items. At gambling,

player will lose when they get less than their bet. At Gacha

drawing, player will lose when they fail to get an item they

desired. Therefore, in this paper, we would like to understand

Gacha as kind of lottery mechanism. This is also in-line with

the regulatory perspective. The Japanese government had

regulated Gacha through the Law for Preventing Unjustiable

Extras or Unexpected Benet and Misleading Representation.

The law was enacted in 1962 to protect consumers from

misleading labeling of goods and services (CAA, 1962).

3.2. What is Gacha - a lottery system of virtual items

as prize / premium

Lottery is common all over the world. Gacha, however, has

several characteristics which are di󰮏erent from a real world

lottery: low cost for the production and replication of prize

items, exibility of probability setting and a limited scope of

value restricted to the (in-game) online world. In the real

world, there are many kind of lotteries, from government-

run lotteries to marketing promotions which offer premium

goods for winners, which are randomly selected from the

participants. The real-world prize is more costly than virtual

goods. As the prizes are real goods, the probability of

winning is determined by the number of participants and prize

goods. In virtual world, a virtual item could be tremendously

rare to obtain by setting the probability nearly zero. The

value of a virtual item is generally contextual. For example, a

virtual game item is not usable in a di󰮏erent game no matter

how rare and "valuable" the item is.

Real world lottery and virtual world lotteries like Gacha also

have similarities: The variety of offerings of chances to get

items. Both could be obtained through non-monetary and

monetary ways. And the winning possibility is largely determined

by the provider's setting. Both are also often utilized as

marketing promotion tools. Therefore, there are several

elements such as the selection of the winning prizes, probability

to win and opportunity to participate in the lottery which a󰮏ects

the design of the mechanisms of a lottery. By combining these

elements, a variety of lotteries can be created.

3.3. Elements and variation of Gacha in Japanese

mobile games

Looking at the literature, actual gameplay and mobile game

analysis reports (Spicemart, 2016) Gacha can be seen as

being composed of the following points (Figure2):

• It is a key game element and not the game itself (1)

• It is paid for using an in-game virtual currency either by

soft or hard currency (real money) (2)

• It is game-of-chance based including varied and

advanced chance mechanics and probabilities (3)

• It uses elaborate audiovisual experiences during the

draw/revealing process (4)

• It always provides a (virtual) reward (5)

• Plays a role in the game (decorative, functional, social) (5a)

• Available in different levels of rarity/limitedness (5b)

• Non-monetary (no real money trading) (5c)

• Is often collectable (5d)

• There are limited edition items that are often offered

during real time in-game events (5e)

• It is only of value within the game and it is an essential

part of the game ecosystem (6)

• It is mostly used to increase monetization for the game

provider (7)

18DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

｜

【Paper】Exploring the game-of-chance elements in F2P mobile games - Insights of player's emotions from qualitative analysis -

フリーミアム型モバイル・ゲームの確率変動要素の考察　― 定性分析によるユーザーの感情に着目して ―

It needs to be mentioned there are several trigger points of

players emotions in there that help to increase the emotional

state or emotional involvement of the player:

The draw: The way the Gacha draw is presented/animated,

the uncertain, chance based outcome of the draw using

advanced mechanics which will be covered later in this

paper.

The reward: The draw will always result in winning a price

in the form of a virtual item. This item can help the player

to decorate/personalize his character, make it stronger and

also can serve for social functions in the game community.

Furthermore, it comes in di󰮏erent levels of rarity, can often

be collected and can be limited and the draw can be tied to

special time-limited in-game events where these items are

being o󰮏ered. All these components can a󰮏ect the players

emotions and can trigger impulse, non-logical decision

making.

There are several Gacha mechanics which are being

used in Japanese mobile games. Our initial research in the

literature, in reports and games and through interviews have

shown over 10 di󰮏erent Gacha types/mechanics. Here is a

small overview of some of them.

•Kompu Gacha: Players need to acquire a set of items to

unlock a special rare item (Banned in 2012 because of

the issue of unknown probability).

•Box Gacha: Virtual box of set items with known

probabilities (Figure 3) .

•Sugoroku Gacha: Combining Gacha with a boardgame. A

Gacha acts like a dice which then allowed the player to

move on a board to unlock special items.

•Redraw Gacha: Users can do a redraw of a Gacha

(sometimes for free, sometimes for a fee).

Figure 2: Outline of Gacha elements in Japanese mobile F2P games highlighting trigger points of emotional attachment

•Consecutive Gacha: Purchasing Gacha in bulk increases

the overall probability of getting rare items (Figure 4).

•Open/Closed Gacha: A Gacha showing the probability of

acquiring a specic item.

•Discounted Gacha: Special campaigns where users pay

less for a Gacha draw.

(Sources: Yamakami, 2012b; Teramoto, Shibuya, and

Akiyama, 2014; Spicemart Report, 2016; Toto, 2016;

Interviews; Gameplay by authers)

｜

DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

4. How Gacha became controversial and (self-)

regulated in Japan

4.1. Government Regulation: Kompu-Gacha case

Despite the fact that Gacha has existed in mobile games

in Japan since around 2004 with one of the first games

being Maple Story. (4Gamer 2007), complaints to the

Consumer Agency in Japan had increased in 2011 (Machida,

2012). The main issue was the so-called mechanics of

"KompuGacha" which had been previously mentioned in

the paper. The name comes from the word KOMPURETO

in Japanese which means "to complete". This mechanic

requires the player to rst collect a series of items (complete

set) before being able to unlock a specic, rare item without

a clear outline of winning probabilities. The Consumer

Affairs Agency in Japan (CAA) banned the practice of

"KompuGacha" in 2012 for the reason, that it corrupts

the game experience as the system makes it difficult to

understand the probability to win a prize (CAA, 2012). Game

companies had to abandon these mechanics and switched to

other kind of Gacha or invented new ones. Over the course

of time game developers introduced several new Gacha

mechanics (for example the above "Box Gacha"), several

of them with hidden probabilities and hidden total costs for

acquisition by just hinting how rare some items are.

4.2. Self-regulation: Through probability guidelines

Then in 2015 another Gacha related issue became public,

this time associated with a specic game (Grandblue Fantasy,

for example) and its lack of providing correct probabilities/

costs for acquiring specific items (Nakajima, 2016). As

a reaction to this, the Association of Japanese game

developers (CESA) issued a guideline in 2016 asking their

members to provide more transparency for Gacha mechanics

within their games. The guidelines require game makers to

implement one of the following 4 standards:

(a) The limit on the estimated price (the price calculated

as an expected value according to the set distribution

rate) to obtain any rare Gacha item should be within

100 times the price of a single paid Gacha, and in the

case that this limit is exceeded, that estimated price

or its multiplying factor needs to be displayed on the

Gacha page.

(b) The estimated price limit to obtain any rare Gacha item

should be within 50,000 yen, and in the case that

this limit is exceeded, that estimated price needs to be

displayed on the Gacha page.

rare Gacha items are to be displayed.

(d) The distribution rates for each type of rare Gacha item

are to be displayed.

(Spicemart 2016, p.6)

CESA member game companies only had to fulll one of above

conditions since it did not require to adhere to of all of them.

Figure 3: Examples of Box Gacha Mechanics

Figure 4: Consecutive Gacha Mechanics

20DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

｜

【Paper】Exploring the game-of-chance elements in F2P mobile games - Insights of player's emotions from qualitative analysis -

フリーミアム型モバイル・ゲームの確率変動要素の考察　― 定性分析によるユーザーの感情に着目して ―

5 Analytical Framework consideration

5.1. Previously applied frameworks in the virtual

item / F2P context

In the eld of (Western) Free-to-play games and virtual item

purchase several analytical frameworks have been applied

so far in studies. The most frequent being the Technology

Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989; Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw,

1989) which can be found in several studies on virtual item

purchases (Mäntymäki, Salo, 2011; Shin, 2008; Cheon,

2013;Hsu, 2004) and the Unied Theory of Acceptance and

Use of Technology (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis & Davis, 2003)

which had also been utilized for virtual world and virtual

item purchases (Mäntymäki, & Salo, 2013; Guo, & Barnes,

2011; Guo, Barnes, 2012) followed by papers applying a

value based theory framework. (Han & Windsor, 2013; Kim,

Gupta, & Koh, 2011; Park, & Lee, 2011).

The role and function of virtual items have been outlined by

several authors such as Lin and Sun talking about their roles

as functional tools and decorative tools (Lin, & Sun, 2007)

or Lehdonvirta dividing them into separate categories based

on functional, emotional, and social attributes (Lehdonvirta,

2009).

Virtual items and virtual worlds have also been studied

recently more from an economic perspective leading to

the concept of virtual economies put forward mainly by

Castronova and Lehdonvirta. According to them a virtual

economy can be analyzed similar to a real economy. Users

treat virtual goods and virtual money similar to real goods

and real money (Lehdonvirta, & Castronova, 2014).

Yet these above studies have not covered Gacha and its

possible e󰮏ects because research has been mostly focused

on Western game titles.

5.2. Behavioral economics and probability weighting

function

One of interesting theoretical angles comes from Behavioral

Economics on lottery analysis. The topic of Behavioral

Economics bias elements and how they might impact (mobile)

Free-to-play-games have already been briefly outlined by

Hamari (Hamari, 2011) and have been discussed for the

games/mobile app environment (Paavilainen et al., 2013;

Reiners & Wood, 2015; Stockinger et al., 2015; Heimo,

Harviainen, Kimppa, et al., 2016; Zagal et al. 2013). As

these thoughts are based on Western games, they did not

look at Gacha game-of-chance elements. On the other hand,

Behavioral Economics have shown that game-of-chance/

lottery elements in general can help change or enforce a

behavior better than xed incentives (Kearney, Tufano et al,

2010; Kimmel, Troxel et al, 2012; Goette, Stutzer, 2008;

Nvqvist, Corno, et al. 2015; Volpp, Troxel, et al. 2008) .

Basically, Behavioral Economics explains the reason of

lottery buying through the "probability weighting function"

(Gonzalez, & Wu, 1999). Game players might be less inclined

to pay for acquiring specic items or content when they are

associated with Gacha mechanisms rather than a xed price.

Gacha, however, is di󰮏erent from lottery as payers seem to

value rarity or collectability of the virtual items itself which

could be obtained by Gacha and not an actual monetary

value it represents. Gachas have a rarity element which

makes a virtual item more attractive for players. Additionally,

the probability of Gacha for obtaining a certain rare item is

not static but changeable by the game providers. During so

called "real-time events" game providers o󰮏er an increased

probability of obtaining specific rare items or introduce

limited edition items for this event. How this kind of articial

probability and rarity could a󰮏ect users needs more analysis

as serious research has just started for its short history.

How Gacha is perceived by players and game professionals

provides another interesting opportunity to look at the topic.

6. Gacha perception by users and developers

To learn more about the underlying emotional elements

related to F2P games and Gacha, interviews with players as

well as game industry professionals had been conducted.

In previous studies, interviews with Japanese mobile F2P

players and professionals in English academic literature are

still rare. (For example, in the thesis by Askeloef, 2013;

Kanerva, 2015)

6.1 Methodology

To achieve a better understanding of the above and

to unearth more in-depth insights, the authors applied a

qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews. This

decision was shaped by the following antecedents:

1) In F2P games only around 2% of players pay for virtual

items according to a study of Swrve (Swrve, 2016).

This makes it very costly and time intensive to collect

quantitative survey insights from paying players.

2) Quantitative methods sometimes do not allow an insight

into deeper issues and it is necessary to take a more

explorative approach (Schensul, Schensul, & LeCompte,

1999; Bernard, 2017; Harrell, & Bradley, 2009). When

it comes to F2P, recent research has pointed out that

quantitative surveys among F2P players on in-game items

(re)-purchase do not always reflect their true intentions

and motives well. Instead researchers should look more

into actual game data and unconscious motives (Lee

at al., 2015).

3) Game companies are rather reluctant to share their

game data with outside parties because this data is

most valuable to them for their monetization and they

do not want competitors to know about their data

(Sifa, Drachen, & Bauckhage, 2018).

4) The authors wanted to also learn more about the

professional's perspective. While looking at the limited

F2P research literature they found that a qualitative

interview approach has already had been successfully

used for understanding Western players as well as

game developers insights (Paavilainen et al., 2013;

Alha, Paavilainen, Hamari, Kinnunen, & 2014).

After talks with one game industry analyst and two

players the authors developed two semi-structured interview

guidelines. One for player and one for game industry

professionals. The interview length was set to 60-90 minutes

for each participant. Because of privacy concerns the

interviews were not recorded and instead the interviewers

took notes during the session and the names were replaced

｜

DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

by initials in this paper. The subject was asked if he or she

was comfortable to do the interview in English. If not the

interview was done in Japanese and English notes were

taken and then reconfirmed with the subject in Japanese.

If possible, interviews were done face-to-face. As the goal

of the interviews was to unveil more in depth insights into

players and professionals thinking and perspective, the overall

framework of the questions was supposed to be used in a

exible manner to allow respondents to express themselves

freely and to also touch upon topics mentioned by them that

were not part of the questions but were seen as valuable in

discovering new findings. The interviews were conducted

over a period of 24 months from April 2016 - April 2018.

The authors tried to replicate the gender distribution of

smartphone players in Japan by including an equal amount

of male and female players. According to a study by Sega

51.9% of smartphone players are male and 48.1% are

female (Sega, 2017). Players were recruited through the

authors personal networks as well as through social media

and online game forums with the goal to identify F2P players

who had experience in playing Gacha games and have had

experience in paying for Gacha. In total 10 players were

interviewed. Out of them 9 had experience with paying

for Gacha. Interviews for 6 interviewees were conducted

in Japanese and 4 in English. 6 were identified as casual

gamers and 4 as hardcore gamers. All interviews were

conducted face to face (Chart 1, Chart2).

The player interviews were structured into 5 main sections.

The rst section explained about the overall research goals

to make the participants understand the setting. The second

section focused on collecting basic demographic data and

then in the third section the players were asked in an open

setting about their past gaming experiences including mobile

games and their game preferences, to build rapport and to

learn more about their gaming behavior. After that the in the

fourth section the interviewer focused more on their mobile

gaming and Gacha experiences including what games they

play, where they play, why they play as well as how they

found out about the game and how they got into that game.

Based on the games they play or have played the questions

then focused on their experience with Gacha and paid Gacha

as well as their emotional attachments to the games and to

Gacha. This also included their very personal thoughts about

Gacha in general, why they purchase Gacha and when/in

what setting they purchased it. The interview then closed

with the fth section asking the participants if they had any

other thought or comments to add.

Chart 1: List of interviewees of players and basic attributes (anonymized) with interview date

Name Gender Age Interview done in Company Profession Interview Type Date Player Type

I.Y. Male 52 Japanese Ad Agency Planner F2F 1/10/17 Gamer

Y.K. Male 31 Japanese Event Planning Client Services F2F 11/16/16 Casual Player

T.I. Male 25 English IT Services PR Department F2F 11/10/17 Gamer

M.T. Male 50 Japanese Agency Planner F2F 8/10/17 Casual Player

C.K. Female 41 English Health Company Client Services F2F 10/25/17 Casual Player

M.S. Female 38 English IT company Planner F2F 9/20/17 Casual Player

M.W. Female 36 English Health Services Counsellor F2F 2/5/17 Gamer

S.I. Male 35 Japanese Production House Planner F2F 7/19/17 Casual Player

M.A. Male 36 Japanese IT company Client Services F2F 3/4/18 Gamer

C.W. Female 31 Japanese Beauty Company Director F2F 2/5/18 Casual Player

*F2F:Face to Face

Chart 2: List of interviewees of game professional and basic attributes (anonymized) with interview date

Name Gender Age Interview done in Company Profession Interview Type Date

Y.O. Male 37 Japanese Mobile Game Analysis Company Game Market Business Analyst F2F 5/4/16

C.T. Male 32 English Mobile Game Developer F2P Game Developer F2F 11/6/17

Y.A. Male 35 Japanese Mobile Game Developer F2P Game Developer F2F 11/10/16

G.K. Male 37 English Mobile Game Developer F2P Game Developer/Planner Skype 12/2/16

S.T. Male 42 English F2P Game Analysis Company Game Analyst F2F 5/28/16

K.N. Male 39 English Japanese Newspaper Game Journalist F2F 11/21/17

J.D. Male 52 English Financial Analysis Company Game Industry Analyst F2F 7/31/18

22DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

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【Paper】Exploring the game-of-chance elements in F2P mobile games - Insights of player's emotions from qualitative analysis -

フリーミアム型モバイル・ゲームの確率変動要素の考察　― 定性分析によるユーザーの感情に着目して ―

Also, Japan market game industry professionals were

selected through looking at online articles, research reports

and blog entries published by them or about them. The

focus here was on their expertise in F2P games and Gacha.

The authors then reached out to them explaining about the

research and asking for an interview. 10 professionals were

contacted and 6 initially agreed to be interviewed. Four of

the interviews were conducted in English and 2 interviews

were conducted in Japanese. Except for one interview all

were conducted face-to-face. An additional industry expert

interview had been conducted in July 2018 after receiving a

belated positive agreement for an interview.

The professional interviews were structured into 5 sections.

The first section explained about the overall research, the

second section asked for basic demographic data. The third

section asked about the persons past career up to now for

rapport building and to learn more about their roles and

experiences. In the fourth section the interviewers tried to

have an open talk about the professional's exposure to

Gacha in their career, their thought on the role of Gacha

in monetization in Japan, issues they see, if possible a

comparison to other markets in Asia and the West, and their

outlook of Gacha in general. The fifth section then asked

about any additional insight they would like to share that had

not been covered in the previous discussion.

6.2 Player Insights

An insightful interview was with a 52 years old Japanese

male player who, according to this own statement, was

spending over 100,000 Yen per month on Gacha in mobile

games. When asked why he is spending this amount

of money he mentioned that Gacha is a self-rewarding

experience for him that helps him to unwind and that

he would feel less excited about Gacha if it was free of

charge. He does not care about looking at the probability

of acquiring a specic item yet he is acquiring most of the

paid Gacha during real-time events when the game offers

increased probability and/or special limited items. But he

also mentioned that he is becoming tired of Gacha as he

proceeds in the game and acquires rare items as there is not

so much to look forward to anymore.

On the contrary, a 31 years old male player pointed out

that he is not willing to pay for Gacha. He saw Gacha as a

tool to try and challenge his own luck and he gets excited

about the upcoming result and it makes him feel good to

acquire a rare item by chance. If he was to pay for it he

wanted to know the chance of winning specic items to make

sure if it is worth it or not.

In an interview with a 25-year-old male player he pointed

out that for him one of the key attraction points of items

he can acquire through Gacha is their rarity and the fact

that some of them are only available for a limited amount

of time. Owning a (virtual) item that is rare and only a few

other people have, was seen as a valuable asset for him. He

also stated that for him this was one important motivation to

spend more money on acquiring these items. If the chances

to acquire these rare items increased during special events

he was more willing to invest his money into it because of

the increased chance of acquiring them.

A 50 year old male player who used to spend around

50,000 yen a month on Gacha pointed out that he got into

a specic game because of the characters featured in there.

There was also an Anime series with these characters and he

started watching it and purchased also several merchandise

articles. His main motivation for Gacha purchase was to

acquire new limited-edition outts for the in-game characters.

For him this experience was very emotional making it

sometimes hard to control his spending.

A female player in her early 40s who mostly played casual

F2P titles mentioned she did not like it when games make

players wait until they pay to be able to move forward in the

game. The game she played were introduced to her through

her friends and colleagues. She sometimes pays for Gacha

to get limited edition items and characters but she is worried

about overspending and getting into nancial troubles.

The worry of spending too much was also brought up by

another 36 year old female player. Her worry was that she

would get into a game too much and become too attached

and then ends up spending more than she can a󰮏ord. In her

case she was playing a more casual F2P game and a more

complex F2P RPG game. The spending on the RPG game

was, what she was worried about, as she mentioned it keeps

her much more emotional involved and attached and she

cannot trust herself anymore in such a state.

Another male player in his mid 30s who was also a big fan

of mobile F2P RPGs stated that he stopped playing a specic

game because of time restraints but also because he heard

in the news about the game company behind the game

telling lies to players about the chances of acquiring specic

rare item. He felt cheated by that company and felt they had

been tinkering with his enjoyment and love for the game.

Furthermore another male player in his 30s talked about

his worry about F2P games in general. He always needs to

be online to play. There are so many F2P games out there.

Some are gone after less than a year. He is worried about

losing all his achievements and items he paid for once a

game is no longer popular and the game servers were shut

down. He was worried the game provider would let him down.

7 out of the 10 players interviewed were introduced to

the game they played through their friends. Game progress

and achievements were a popular discussion topic for them.

Especially for the male players

8 out of the 10 players interviewed stated "rarity" and

a temporal increased winning probability during special

campaigns as their key motivators for paying for Gacha.

When being asked what increased probability means for them

they mentioned they "feel" their chance of winning will be

higher, they will be double or triple but none of them was

talking about any percentages.

｜

DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

6.3 Professionals Insight

According to a 37 years old Game Market Business

Analyst, Gacha is used mainly for increasing the spending of

the few paying players and the different Gacha mechanics

and frequent new (rare) item content combined with in-

game real time events help to increase the spending. Players

enjoy the "luck" moment of the Gacha draw, which is a

di󰮏erent emotional experience from simply paying for an item.

Developers are becoming more creative about inventing new

item designs to increase their sales. But also it is important

to be more clear about the cost and/or chances of acquiring

items in the future to not upset players.

A 32 years old former F2P Game Developer emphasized

that Gacha, game design and payment are closely intertwined

and cannot be separated. He called it 'The holy trinity' of

F2P game design in Japan".

He also stressed that Japanese players want Gacha in their

games as an extra level of entertainment. Without the Gacha

element, item acquisition would lose its attractiveness. A 35

years old former Mobage Developer supported this statement

mentioning that without Gacha players would not see it as

entertaining.

Furthermore he pointed out that many Japanese game

developers got addicted to making quick money with Gacha

in the past. Back in the early days the main devices were

feature phones and the game developers also owned the

platforms. Making money with F2P games was easy and

cheap. But with the success of smartphones the situation

had changed. Game development costs have increased

drastically, and developers need to give away 30% of their

revenue to Google or Apple. So some developers feel they

want to get their money back and start to look for many

new ways to increase the spending of players and increase

their own profits. Sometimes these practices can become

dangerous and hurt the player and also the game developer.

The social element is also important for monetizing Gacha.

Peer pressure can motivate others to pay for Gacha and to

aquire unique items others already got.

Another F2P game designers in his late 30s stressed

that Gacha takes a lot of hints from Pachinko (a popular

Japanese Slot-Machine variant). He mentioned that lights

and other mechanics that announce something will happen

are important including exciting animations before special

results. He pointed out that the top monetizing games

feature very elaborate Gacha animations. Visual feedback

and visual experience is important to players. He explained,

that Gacha animations are usually for heavy spenders only.

Also, if players purchase Consecutive Gacha (for example 10

Gacha in a row) the Gacha animation is also di󰮏erent.

According to him Japan was the rst country in the world to

develop the concept of Games as "Software as a Service".

Games are built to last for about 2-3 years and so called

"gates" are built into the core concept of these games as

artificial borders for players to drive monetization. In the

end it is about collecting as much money as possible from

players. He also brought up the fact that around 90% of

Gacha purchases happen during the beginning of the month

as this is when people get their salary.

When the discussion came to recent regulations and ways

how to improve monetization one former developer mentioned

that currently game maker have become very careful about

playing around with probabilities or new types of Gacha

mechanics. Instead they are focusing on developing a

broader variety of rare items as well as limited edition items

and o󰮏er them through in-game campaigns. According to him

this was seen as a very protable approach as the demand

for these items is high and players are willing to invest more

to acquire them.

Another F2P developer mentioned that without Gacha

players would not see the game as entertaining. Playing a

Gacha creates an extra level of sensation and of high stakes.

This is something very emotional and has nothing to do with

any logical process. It is more like a skinner box. So showing

the odds of wining items does not matter to players. He also

said he thinks they cannot understand what a probability of

0.001% means. He compared it to buying a lottery ticket.

The buyer thinks of winning the lottery but not about the

chance of winning it. Similar to this several Gacha payers are

in for the thrill of winning.

A F2P Game Analyst pointed out that in Japan Gacha

is a purely money-making phenomenon. Companies try to

come up with many ways and mechanics to get more money

from the paying players. Once a player is hooked on a

specic game it is easy to make him pay again and again.

The developers come up with new items, special purchase

events. They have a clear picture of what is needed to make

players buy more. Often the player is not aware how much

he needs to spend to get some especially rare goods. This

lead to several issue and government had to intervene. But

according to him not much had changed. Yet Gacha only

works if the game design, character design and story is

good. If players stop enjoying, they stop playing.

Talking to a Japanese game journalist he mentioned that

the gambling aspect is the key attraction behind Gacha.

People can feel excited about it but game makers take too

much advantage of it. Gacha can be very frustrating if players

want to get an item but cannot get it. Youtubers in Japan

often take videos of their desperate attempts. This is also

what lead to the GrandBlue scandal. To get a rare character

or item chance is only about 1%. The bad fact is that

players could pay an unlimited amount of money. With Gacha

being more like a challenge of luck it can create addition

friction in players leading to overspending. According to

him, paid Gacha is an unhealthy business model and should

be replaced with other business models. He suggested a

monthly subscription model for F2P games but he feels game

companies are too greedy to do this. He also plead that

there should be a spending cap on games per month.

A recent interview with a financial analyst for the game

industry added some extra insights. He stated that most F2P

24DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

｜

【Paper】Exploring the game-of-chance elements in F2P mobile games - Insights of player's emotions from qualitative analysis -

フリーミアム型モバイル・ゲームの確率変動要素の考察　― 定性分析によるユーザーの感情に着目して ―

players who use Gacha do not pay for it. They use "free"

Gacha draws. He also explained about Japanese Gacha

games abroad. According to him many Japanese Gacha

games have failed abroad. Only some are successful. The

ones who are successful are the ones who have a good

balance between game play and payment. If the game is

focusing too much on paywalls and making players pay to

get ahead in the game it's not fun anymore The game-of-

chance element adds another barrier for players. But if the

game itself is entertaining then this barrier can activate some

players who are prone and weak for gambling like experience

and help with increasing the overall games revenue with them.

6.4 Findings from Interviews

We can see that for paying players rare and limited-edition

items, collectability combined with campaigns and events has

an impact on their Gacha purchasing behavior. Also Gacha

seems to be an extra emotional experience for them to test

their luck. Further more their social peers play a role in what

game they play, how long they play it and if they invest in

paid Gacha or not. But at the same time the game itself, its

design, content and their emotional attachment to it appears

to be a key shaping factor in their commitment to invest time

and money into a game. Some players are worried about not

being able to control their spending and some felt remorse

about overspending.

From the professional perspective it seems like developers

are very well aware of the emotional impact Gacha has on

paying players. The desire to increase prots lets developers

experiment with many new limited edition items and elaborate

animations to hook players into paying. One developer

even called Gacha an elaborate skinner box used by game

companies to increase individual payments.

Also analysts seem to be worried about the future

sustainability of the business model. Short term prot games

might scare away players in the long term. So striking a good

balance between monetization desires and gameplay can be

a key factor of long term success.

7. Summary

Free-to-play (F2P) mobile games are based on a business

model which allows the majority of players to play the game

for free while only a small percentage (2-5%) is actually

paying for the game (mostly through the purchase of virtual

in-game items). This requires the game providers to focus on

the monetization of a small group of users.

Gacha -as a special game-of-chance based purchase of

virtual in-game items- has been outlined as one of the key

drivers for this monetization in Japan. While some Gacha

draws do not require the payment of real money, some do.

In the eyes of several Japanese researchers Gacha can be

seen as a virtual lottery system. Di󰮏erent from a real lottery,

it offers a flexible probability, (virtual) prizes items can be

expanded and reproduced at very low costs and only have

a value within the game ecosystem. Similar to real lotteries

there are free and paid options and the provider sets the

probability of winning and the range of items to be won.

Because of its virtuality it is possible to develop and

experiment with many different types of Gacha mechanics

as well as changing rarities to help increase the games

monetization. Some of them without providing any probability

of winning/acquiring a specic item.

These mechanics have led to issues and intervention from

regulators. In terms of regulation for Gacha, Japan moved

from regulatory to self-regulatory activities.

Japanese game developers and analysts see Gacha as

a fundamental element of Free-to-Play mobile games in

the market, helping to monetize these games and there

are players who spend considerable amounts of money for

Gacha. The elements of rarity, limited time o󰮏ers and change

of probability help with the monetization.

There are already several frameworks which have been

applied to virtual items, F2P games and virtual worlds. Gacha

has not been considered in these studies. In the F2P game

context Behavioral Economics has been briefly discussed

to help explain some of the behaviors of players. Given the

lottery mechanics of Gacha, applying Behavioral Economics

can add a new angle to the discussion.

This paper found from qualitative analysis that the

emotional attachment some players have to paid Gacha can

be seen as problematic and these attachments are being

artificially nurtured and intensified by the game developer

for prot optimization (Figure 5). These issues seem to be

inherent to the current major F2P monetization model. While

it can be seen as a "good game design" to emotionally

engage and motivate players to keep playing a specic game

title, exploiting this engagement for monetization by using

game-of-chance mechanics can be seen as controversial or

as a "bad game design".

｜

DHU JOURNAL Vol.05 2018

8. Further analysis and discussion

This paper just gives a preliminary overview of Gacha and

the di󰮏erent angles involved from the Gacha mechanics side

and its uncertainty element, the regulatory side, developers

side and players side and how Gacha could a󰮏ect freemium

online services.

In future papers these different items should be looked

at more closely in combination with more quantitative

data analysis. Given the fact that Gacha is also gaining

momentum in Europe and the U.S. due to the launch of

several Japanese mobile games titles with Gacha elements it

would be interesting to take a closer look at the regulatory

angle and how this could inspire or impact regulation or self-

regulation in these markets. Also, the discussion of Gacha as

a gambling mechanism could be worth investigating further in

this setting from a more global and general perspective.

Another angle that should be investigated further is the

effect of Gacha on player's attitude and behavior as this

can help to shed more light on the underlying causes of its

impact from a consumer's perspective.

【Note】

*1 This paper is based on a conference proceedings paper

presented at 14th ITS (International Telecommunications Society)

Asia-Pacic Regional Conference, Kyoto 2017.

*2 The origin of "Gacha" naming is a real toy lottery machine,

"Gacha Gacha" or "Gacha Pon", capsuled small toy lottery

machine. Players of "Gacha Gacha" can turn the machine's lever

to get a capsule by paying a few hundred Yen (several dollar) for

a turn. The sound of the turning lever is like "Gacha Gacha" and

the sound of opening a capsule is similar to "Pon" thus giving

it its name "Gacha Pon". Generally, Gacha Gacha toys cannot

bought anywhere else but through the Gacha Pon machine.

Therefore, people who want a Gacha Gacha toy have to try their

luck by paying real money and then turning the Gacha Gacha

machine lever.

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｜

【Paper】Exploring the game-of-chance elements in F2P mobile games - Insights of player's emotions from qualitative analysis -

フリーミアム型モバイル・ゲームの確率変動要素の考察　― 定性分析によるユーザーの感情に着目して ―

【論文】

フリーミアム型モバイル・ゲームの確率変動要素の考察

―定性分析によるユーザーの感情に着目して―

マルコ・クーダー 1 ・田中絵麻 2・三友仁志 3

（1 博士候補生, 早稲田大学大学院アジア太平洋研究科・

2客員准教授, デジタルハリウッド大学大学院・

3教授, 早稲田大学大学院アジア太平洋研究科）

無料プレイ（Free to play: F2P）のビジネスモデルを採用するモバイル・ゲームでは、ごく一部の利用者（ユーザーの2 ～ 5% 程度）が課金して

いる（そのうち、多くの場合がアイテム課金である）。モバイル・ゲームの収益は、マイクロトランザクションと呼ばれるプレイヤーによるゲーム内で

の仮想アイテムや機能の購入（この購入行為はプレイヤー側からもゲーム開発者側も「課金／課金する」と呼ばれる）により発生する。収益拡大

のためには、限られた人数のプレイヤーがより課金するか、もしくは、非課金者に課金させるかの方法がある。そのため、より魅力的なゲーム・

プレイ経験と、ゲーム内課金へとプレイヤーを誘導する要素を接合することが行われている。特に、収益化メカニズムは、日本の F2P モバイル・

ゲームにおいて「ガチャ」と呼ばれるくじ要素の導入によって強化されうるものである。ゲーム開発者が収益を拡大するため、意図的にガチャの

メカニズムを利用し、一部のプレイヤーの非合理的な支払い過多の状態を引き起こしている。

そこで、本論では、文献調査とインタビュー調査から、最初に、F2Pのモバイル・ゲームにおける確率変動要素である「ガチャ」の基本的な枠組み、

さまざまなメカニズムと要素、主な課題を概観した。中でも、プレイヤーとゲーム開発者や専門家へのインタビューから、課金プレイヤーの感情

的な没入に注目し、この没入が収益化において役割を果たしていることを明らかにした。F2P にかかる先行研究では、メカニズムや感情要素に

着目したものは少ない。多くの収益性の高い日本の F2P ゲームにおいて、ガチャと呼ばれる巧妙なゲーム設計と収益化の組み合わせが効果的に

用いられているといえる。一方で、このビジネスモデルは、一部の課金者に依存するという意味で持続可能性が疑問視されている。このことは、

ゲーム開発者やアナリストへのインタビューでも指摘された。

キーワード：ガチャ、フリーミアム、モバイル・ゲーム、価格差別、行動経済学

... Sementara, barang virtual dengan kelangkaan yang lebih tinggi cenderung lebih sulit untuk didapatkan tetapi bisa didapat dengan lebih mudah melalui transaksi mikro. Oleh karena itu, dapat dikatakan bahwa mekanisme Gacha didesain agar pemain merasa terdorong untuk mengeluarkan uang lebih banyak demi mendapatkan barang virtual dengan kelangkaan yang sangat tinggi (Koeder et al., 2018;Neely, 2019). ...

... Penelitian yang berfokus pada pemain gim seluler sebagai subjek penelitian masih sangat sedikit. Dua artikel yang mengangkat masalah pemain gim seluler dengan pembelian barang virtual di dalam gim berfokus pada perbandingkan antara pemain yang aktif melakukan transaksi mikro dengan pemain yang belum pernah (Gainsbury et al., 2016), komentar pemain gim seluler terkait mekanisme Gacha, dan alasan pemain untuk terus bermain gim seluler dengan mekanisme Gacha (Koeder et al., 2018). Maka, dapat disimpulkan bahwa penelitian terdahulu masih terlalu berfokus pada mekanisme Gacha dalam gim seluler serta kontroversinya, tetapi penelitian yang secara khusus berfokus pada pemain serta faktor yang memotivasi pemain untuk tetap memainkan dan mengeluarkan uang dalam gim seluler masih sangat minim. ...

... Penemuan teknologi perangkat seluler dan peningkatan penggunaan smartphone dan tablet menyebabkan perkembangan pasar aplikasi perangkat seluler. Hal ini berdampak pada ketatnya kompetisi antar pengembang aplikasi untuk menarik perhatian pengguna baru (Hamari et al., 2017;Koeder et al., 2018). ...

Amelia Yeza

This article elaborates how parasocial interaction in freemium mobile game may motivate users to spend money for Gacha, an in-game virtual lottery mechanism in which users will randomly get one or several in-game items with different levels of rarity. The literature review method was used for this article which began with thorough explanations of the main concepts, such as freemium seluler game, microtransactions, Gacha mechanism, and parasocial interaction. This article concludes that seluler game developers creatively designed the game characters to be well-liked by the players through characterization and visual aspects that aesthetically pleasing in hope that gamers may experience parasocial interaction and relationship with one of the characters, which may turn into character attachment. The interaction and attachment will then encourage the players to keep spending money through microtransactions to get the characters or virtual cosmetic items they want through Gacha.

... Regardless of whether actual money was invested in to the game, every player shares the desire to collect characters but with slight differences. Paying players, after taking into account of high rarity and limited-edition items alongside collectability, would have their purchasing behaviour be impacted (Koeder & Tanaka, 2018). For F2P players, a determining factor would be whether they liked the character but it does not ensure that they draw gacha. ...

... Although it was concluded to not be significant enough to provide a clear explanation, it still served to be a possible explanation in this study, especially when considered with the finding on extraversion in the previous hypothesis. In an interview from a previous study, one of the participants reported that their main motivation for gacha purchase was to obtain limited-edition outfits for the in-game characters (Koeder & Tanaka, 2018). This observation may be tied with the idea of collectability. ...

Background: Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents is prevalent and its rate has increased in recent years worldwide. The role of parents on adolescents psychological wellbeing is evident in numerous literature, however little is known on the relationship between helicopter parenting and NSSI in a representative sample of adolescents from Malaysia. Aim: The present study aims to identify the relationship between NSSI and helicopter parenting among adolescents in Kedah, Malaysia. Furthermore, the study also examined the gender and place of living differences related to NSSI behavior. Method: A cross-sectional study consisted of 230 adolescents (31.0% male and 68.2% female; Mage 19.4 SD=2.12) completed the helicopter parenting and NSSI questionnaires. The respondents of this study were selected using a convenience sampling method from a private college located in the Kulim district of Kedah, Malaysia. Findings: Analysis revealed that 129 (56.1%) out of 230 respondents reported having engaged in at least one incidence of NSSI in the previous 12 months with females reportedly engaged in a higher frequency of NSSI behaviour (M=14.12, SD=5.42). The finding also demonstrated a large positive correlation between helicopter parenting and NSSI behavior among adolescents. Significant differences in NSSI were found between adolescents from urban and rural areas with higher frequency of NSSI behavior for adolescents from urban areas. Conclusion: NSSI behavior is found to be common among adolescents in Kedah, Malaysia. The development of prevention and intervention strategies should focus on parenting style as an important indicator for preventing or reducing NSSI among adolescents in Malaysia. Keywords: Helicopter parenting, Nonsuicidal self-injury, NSSI, Adolescents, Malaysia Page (431)

... The Complete Gacha, where multiple items are available and rare items can be obtained, has been banned, and since July 2012 the Consumers Affaires Agency has decided to apply for administrative sanctions under the Premiums and Representations Act. [4] The large charge problem, however, still continues [5]. Users complain that "the rare item is not set despite the large charge" and "the emission rate is set to a low level unreasonably." ...

... Their main targets are not purchasing with Gacha system. A study about Gacha users [5] qualitatively analyzed perception of users and developers with interview. Guidelines are introduced, however, the influence of them is not analyzed. ...

... In 2014 and 2015 RRMs, in the form of so-called "gacha," were first examined as an integral part of the monetization strategy for Japanese F2P mobile games (Shibuya et al. 2014(Shibuya et al. , 2015. Koeder et al. (2017) and Koeder, Tanaka, and Sugai (2018) identify 10 types of gacha mechanics used in Japanese F2P games and explore how players and developers think about them. The term "gacha" originates from Japanese toy-capsule vending machines ("gachapon"), where an individual inserts money in the machine to receive a randomly selected toy. ...

... For other implementations, a great variety of procedures was observed. Based on typologies by Koeder, Tanaka, and Sugai (2018) and Toto (2016), we sorted the mechanisms employed in the random procedures into several categories. Where the observed implementations did not fit into existing categories, we developed new ones: ...

In this paper, we propose a comprehensive and empirically grounded taxonomy of monetized random reward mechanisms (RRMs), which we created through an examination of over one hundred free-to-play and paid-to-play games released in the US, Germany, and Japan. RRMs have recently gained increased attention within game studies. However, few attempts have been made to clarify the structure and implementation of RRMs and their cultural and societal influence. We offer an evidence-based classification of RRMs, aiming to contribute to a wide range of related academic research activities and social debates and to facilitate cross-disciplinary discussion. Borrowing from recent literature, we deconstructed the way RRMs are implemented in 108 games. We identified three major strategies and 40 types of implementation. In particular, this taxonomy covers the majority of RRMs implemented in publicly available mobile games worldwide and will play an essential role in facilitating constructive discussions about RRMs.

In this article, we expand on the models available for defining various different business logics relevant to video game development, especially those concerning free-to-play games. We use the models to analyse those business logics from an Aristotelian virtue ethics perspective. We argue that if an individual wishes to follow the Aristotelian virtue ethics code in order to develop the virtues inherent in his or her own character (as in the personal character of the developer, not a character in the game), how he or she chooses to try and generate revenue from the fruits of his or her labour is not irrelevant. Moreover, we argue that some of these methods are in fact vices, which are damaging to the character of the developer, and should therefore be avoided.

People do not always think and behave rationally. Behavioral economics has produced theories to explain when and why people make such allegedly irrational decisions, for example if it comes to spending money. However, humans tend to use reference points to judge and decide. Nowadays, mobile devices can work as flexible tools to create reference points thus supporting decisions without being explicit about it. We discuss if and how mobile apps can influence decision making. As a consequence, apps can be built to better fit into the decision making progress. We argue that applying concepts from behavioral economics can increase user experience in a subtle manner.

Toshihiko Yamakami

The hype surrounding the mobile social game business started in 2009 and peaked in 2012. This rise and decline provides two sets of lessons learned in the game business in Japan. The author provides a retrospective view of the mobile social game business during this period of hype until its decline. From the lessons learned, the author presents the challenges of service engineering in the era of social services.

This study provides an exploratory analysis of the effects of the various characteristics of users, games, and repurchase behavior of users in an online game context. Many previous studies considered intentions to purchase and repurchase game items; however, few examined repurchase behavior. Our analysis included a sample of 2,060,685 observations (out of a total of 84,434,287) in one year based on the field data of purchase behavior from a game company. Analysis results show that users' purchase behavior is the most significant factor, and time-related characteristics such as the recency of purchase, purchase frequency, and purchase cycle are important factors that influence repurchase decisions. In contrast, it is found that purchase amount, game characteristics, and user characteristics are not significant. Our findings imply that any analysis of repurchase behavior should address "unconscious" purchase behavior, such as habits, immersion, and impulse buying, in addition to conscious purchase behavior.

The in-game sale strategy is considered one of the most promising business models for mobile gaming application industry. However, little knowledge has been found about the antecedent factors of a smartphone user's consumption intention. We integrate the hedonic use perspective with value based theories to investigate the effects of influential factors on the smartphone user's in-game purchase intention IGPI. We find that a user's perceived playfulness and the user's perceived added value of gaming applications on smartphones both have significant positive effects on the user's IGPI. We also instantiated five factors according to the mobile fun framework and empirically validated their influences on the user's perceived playfulness of gaming applications. The findings will contribute to the future gaming application commercialisation research, and provide several practical implications to gaming application developers.

Eunyoung Cheon

Virtual marketplaces for products and services have become major profit sources in virtual worlds (VWs). The large quantity and growth of virtual product transactions and their platform providers' profits have made it critical to understand consumer purchasing behavior in VWs. However, as open-ended VWs such as Second Life have environments that differ from those of other online communities, the underlying mechanisms of consumers' e-commerce behavior may not explain their VW behavior. Therefore, this study examines consumers' VW behavior by considering three categories of factors influencing their purchasing behavior: the platform context (i.e., technical characteristics such as interactivity and vividness and social characteristics such as involvement), product context (i.e., product value), and virtual experience (i.e., flow and satisfaction). This study examines how these factors affect consumers when they purchase virtual products. Its results highlight the importance of flow experience in consumers' VW behavior. Interactivity, vividness, and involvement are found to affect consumers' virtual experience--flow, and involvement exhibits a significantly stronger influence on flow. Flow and involvement are found to affect product value, and flow exerts a stronger influence than involvement on product value. Flow and product value directly impact consumers' willingness to purchase, whereas satisfaction with the virtual world experience, which is significantly affected by flow, is not associated with willingness to purchase. The results further indicate that product value is more influential on willingness to purchase than is flow. After describing the study's contributions to both research and practice, I conclude the paper by presenting avenues for future research.

Toshihiko Yamakami

The Internet is famous for its fast-incubating capability. Mobile social service engineering is one of the fastest examples of that capability. The dynamism of mobile social service engineering has discouraged any reasonable systematic analysis. The author attempts to parse the dynamism using an historical approach. Mobile social service engineering in Japan has only 4 years of evolutionary history. However, retrospective analysis is one of the only feasible research approaches to analyze the massive repercussions of this evolution. The author gives a descriptive analysis of changes of industrial landscape over the last 4 years. Then, the author discusses six different view models to parse the three landmark mobile social games in Japan.

Toshihiko Yamakami

As the mobile social game business heats up, it is crucial to establish a systematic methodology that can deal with the globalization of mobile social games. There are many challenges that come from this globalization. One of them, is the cross-cultural analysis of user behavior in mobile social game contexts. Many Japanese vendors had difficulties with hidden cross-cultural issues in 2012. The author analyzes the cross-cultural lessons learned from the endeavors to globalize mobile social games. Then, the author discusses a basis for the systematical analysis of cross-cultural challenges.

Database Design In Gacha Games

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333993897_Exploring_the_game-of-chance_elements_in_Japanese_F2P_mobile_games_Qualitative_analysis_of_paying_and_non-paying_player's_emotions

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