A social game is very popular in Japan, but it's a hot topic now because of its charging system called "Complete Gacha". It makes young people's speculative heart fun and young people use a lot of unexpected money.
Media reported that Comp-Gacha( Complete Gacha) which is used by two major company called Gree and DeNA(DNA) has the possibility in violation of truth-in-advertising law.
Gacha is the new charging system in social game that players pay money and collect some designated virtual cards to get virtual item. Then in Complete Gacha, players collect a particular set of virtual cards including more rare cards in order to obtain rare "grand prize" items. This system is used in the game called "Exploring the Doriland(Dream land)" and 90% of their profit comes from this system.
The etymology of the word "Gacha" comes from so-called "Gacha-Gacha" (Capsule toy in the U.S) which players insert money into vending machines to get a capsule containing a random toy. It reminds me that I spent my meager allowance until I get my target toy and then I was warned by the person in the shop when I was a kid. Probably, I wouldn't stop because I thought that it should have come soon or I was worried about if I stop now, next guy must get it instead of me. Thinking back now, it was waste of time and money.
The problem now is the same situation that the last card which players are looking for to complete the set never show up. Players have to pay in each try, so there is no end to the number of kids who spend over one hundred thousand yen without thought. Besides, game companies seems to control these odds.
In addition, people use real money to get this rare cards on Yahoo auction so-called RMT(real money trade). I saw the price tag on one rare card for one hundred sixty thousands yen!! Also, some people copied this item illegally and sold them in this auction. Someone made over thirty million yen in only one month.
In fact, there is the same business already in Japan and it has been already forbidden by the law. Simply put, companies must not conduct the prize which let people show more than two kind of cards. The reason why this law started which was from the famous snack so-called Pro-yakyu Chips(professional baseball potato chips) where chips come with one baseball players trading card. The system that if people complete few hit cards, they can get the mini-bat made most of the kids addicted. After that, this problem became big issue and finally, Japanese government banned this system.
It's the same situation with the problem which is happening in a social game world. I think only different point between two is that Pro-Yakyu Chips gives us of course potato chips, but social game doesn't. In addition, people are allowed to exchange their cards in case of duplication with Pro-yakyu Chips, but not in social games. To make matters worse, Yakuza will intervene in this business and it could be in their valuable income source like in Korea.
There is same style charging game in the U,S too. However, " The internet gambling prohibitive law" was conducted in 2006, and RMT act was prohibited.
eBay decided to remove all related RMT items in their auction site. It became a big issue and Korean government established "The law about the game industrial development" to prohibit RMT comprehensively. All of games are checked strictly about gambling-related presence before it's released.
I personally don't think that young people shouldn't play games. However, I feel disgust about recent social games, because these games only focus on making money from players. The relationship between game companies and consumers became disrupted that game companies provide nice games and they give fun experiences to players by their big effort and consumers pay for this value.
With this in mind, I don't agree with "Complete Gacha" and RMT system.
Gree and DeNA released that they will discontinue "Comp-Gacha" but they didn't say "including Gacha too" . It seems to be a just performance to avoid from their stock price going down after all. It can't deal with the issue anyway.
To say my opinion from this standpoint, I support to Nintendo who said that we don't think to use "Gacha" system. I hope they will make a new concept game to make players gather and excited or to make stage family-ties like Wii. I hope Nintendo will suggest the concept proactively to avoid games to be bad image. Of course, we consumer keep in mind this common rule that we need to pay for valuable game as in compensation.
No comments:
Post a Comment