Gacha Mechanics in GameFi

5 min readDec 28, 2021

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Introduction

With the new round of popularization in Decentralized Finance (DEFI) it is logical that many solutions come from the traditional system. But some of these solutions are unfamiliar to most people. One of such synthesized trends — Gacha mechanics in GameFi (Games based on Blockchain and decentralized technologies). Let’s take a look at what it is.

History

USA

At the beginning of the 20th century, an American company first created a machine to produce gum in balls — the GumBall. The mechanism is intuitive — you put a certain coin into the slot and you get a ball of gum. Every kid’s dream! Buying gum without being supervised ;-) Did you recognize it? Yes, today these machines also stand in almost every mall and large store.

Japan

Because the idea was simple and practical, given the close cultural exchange between the U.S. and Japan in the 20th century, the GumBall was about to evolution. Thus GashaPon was born, machines with identical mechanics and one significant difference. It could also be called GachaPon. Instead of gum, the machines could have been anything. Stickers, toys, cards, candy, chocolates. Everything for every taste and color, absolutely everything that is so to the kids’ liking and not only kids, everything that you can collect and use ;-)

This trend does not stop even today, as the idea can be developed infinitely, changing trends and improving the details.

DeFi \GameFi

I think you can almost guess what blockchain and these cool machines with collectibles have to do with it. Let’s take decentralized finance in the form of coins of all kinds, add “farm simulator” style game mechanics, and mix it all up with random algorithms. Well — our explosive cocktail for adults with lots of money is ready. The kids are already growing up in the blockchain world, so we need to show them the familiar patterns.

Meet Gacha Machine in the “play and earn” model of gaming

Example

FaraLand is a fairly well promoted blockchain game project. This is a typical battle between warriors of different races with the ability to equip their fighters with all kinds of boots, swords, dresses, etc. clothing.

Already guessed where there is a place for our miracle mechanism?

After the initial placement separately balls from the gacha — chests with a random drop of heroes of varying rarity, the project has launched on its website gacha machine. You buy a certain amount of tokens. You put the tokens you bought into a blockchain slot, make a turn, and get a random item for your hero of random rarity. At that all things are your property (NFT token) and have material value. Next — dress up your character and play, or trade on the market.

Chance of dropping various NFT (game items) in the Gacha Machine FaraLand

Conclusions

The development of blockchain and NFT brings long-standing problems to the gaming industry. Large open-world games like World of Warcraft or EVE Online have millions of gamers with advanced and complex economics at the level of traditional systems, but no way to truly own their game assets — buy, trade, and sell for real money. Huge markets have been created, but campaigns prohibit transactions based on real money. Of course, it’s a gig that only they have all the money. The NFT is an elegant solution. And metamorphosis like GACHA is just educating and making it easier for anyone to understand all these mechanics. Not really, still playing with the emotions in your inner child — buy, spin and don’t think about what you’re spending money on. Spend money — get picture on screen…

It also puts a serious responsibility on the users of blockchain gaming products. Emotions plus game mechanics, randomness generators — isn’t this a casino? The answer is no. If the randomness generator is done honestly and has an audit. The casino has a negative mathematical expectation. But at the current stage of blockchain development be sure, many projects take advantage of hype, anonymity and the ability to avoid responsibility. Be careful, and if you still want to spin the lever to get the mythical sword — do it consciously and with pleasure in serious projects, because behind this fun your real savings. Have a desire to discuss? Do it bravely in our community in Telegram. Everyone is welcome! See you soon!