I wrote the article title to get ideas and then remembered a manga.

Gacha Gacha is a manga series by Tamakoshi Hiroyuki with two specific arcs from 2002. It actually did get published in english by Del Rey, who doesn’t do manga anymore. My teenage self sure didn’t read it that way, I didn’t have that allowance nor the self actualization, confidence, and maturity to own a physical book of it that might be seen by an annoying or asshole parent. The..the guy character turns into a girl! I’ll be made fun of for having this! At least that’s what my feeble brain back then that couldn’t connect dots for shit did. Gacha Gacha - Secret is the one that has stuck into my memory despite it. The first one is sci-fi comedy shounen romance. Stuff happens, I think that one the girl is weird. In Secret, highschooler Akira crushes on Yurika and is an idiot mc type. He enters a machine (VR ish? I’m mostly working from memory here.) that’s a game or something with a character select thing and it malfunctions. Now when he sneezes he turns into the girl character he saw and changes back and forth. He gets closer to his crush in girl mode. Comedy happens. I think.Both parts end in “oh well, some stuff is resolved but more hijinks can happen! The End.” It’s hard to think of more because while I do remember it and it clearly did something back then it’s that minor inclusion in my media consumption history textbook under the pile of better gender bender and other height gap couples in there. (As in, just read the even more dated but probably overall better Ranma ½.)

I felt sorry for a two very expressive mascots I have no context for.

Gachapin and Mukku are two… full suit furry mascots??? Something like that. Anyway. Gachapin and Mukku are two mascots from children’s and  comedy shows that Cygames’s Granblue Fantasy pulls in and builds their special gacha game roulette around during special events. Their googly eye faces looking at you as you roll a roulette to see how many free rolls you get that day (JST) and then maybe get more through rock paper scissors. It changes a little but basically there’s a chance to get progress to a big bonus if you roll really bad and don’t get any SSR. For some reason, the last event had everyone with the same rolls. Each day a skit would play out. Good physical comedy. Then later RPS to let us know if it was doubled. Sure, that might ensure an average but the progress on the bonus rolls to make up for not rolling well was still uneven. So some people got disappointed, or mad, that they rolled well enough to say get duplicates but not any new characters. Oh and granblue has a 300 roll target to just choose the featured thing you want. The overspend protection. Most rolls are done in sets of 10. So let’s say we get 10 rolls on tuesday. Technically not a lot, especially in freebie season. What if they got low numbers multiple days on the roulette? Well… Now it’s not your luck. It’s Gachapin’s luck. Mukku’s there too. And since everyone got those low rolls, who gets to bear the boiling rage of one of the largest player bases so there's going to be angry people online attached to it? Not just the official, and Japanese, twitter account. Gachapin. Mukku. It’s like if some years ago Clash Royale did something and got some portion of their player base to make memes of them choking Big Bird and Elmo. It doesn’t seem like there’s been a huge fallout, but I hope they reconsider next time. Gachapin and Mukku are not customer service. They’re cute (gambling) mascots.

I play a few gacha, boostery games still.... but...

Gacha has taken too close to gambling. Services in games with limited resources. Games with loot boxes. Subscriptions. Something with uniqueness, value and luck. Hell, even something old like Magic is getting more gambling in it’s booster pack stuff. They’ve now got separate collectors boosters, at least before some people like me could go glassy eyed and say ‘you’re not supposed to buy boosters to collect… it’s for sealed formats.” and lie to ourselves a little about it. But now there’s random product to gamble on what fancy shiny paper you can get. I will get. Dammit they got me. Thankfully there’s a thriving second hand market where one can buy cards individually. What’s that? Huh? Oh you’re telling me the increased financialization, securitization, and speculation reached Magic the Gathering a Richard Garfield game and increased the prices on some things to higher levels that the game overall has a slightly to greater financial risk into getting into than before? Oh my. Maybe they should sell directly… Oh they do that too? You’re expected to pay what? 

It feels like speculation and financial stuff has pushed me out of portions of my hobby. This isn’t just inflation and wages still not keeping up with it. My entertainment has become a service subscription or resale value. Wish it wasn't a focus.