Genshin Impact quickly became a top-grossing gacha game worldwide upon its release, generating over $400 million in revenue within four months of its launch.
The game was released for Android, iOS, Windows, Sony’s PS4, and later the PS5 in 2020. By the end of 2022, the game had made over $4 billion in total revenue, a testament to its ever-growing popularity and a well-designed gacha system. Here are the top 5 gacha games just like MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact.
Fate/Grand Order
Fate/Grand Order paved the way for most of today’s gacha games in the industry. While it’s not the first gacha game, it provided a template for most of the concepts implemented in the genre’s games that came after it. It was initially released in July 2015 in Japan for Android and iOS.
FGO features turn-based combat and story campaigns based on the Fate franchise created by Kinoko Nasu. The game receives regular updates to this day, which include new events, seasonal content, and the ever-growing expansion of its story. Just like Genshin Impact, the characters in FGO can be acquired via the gacha mechanic.
Arknights
Arknights brought a unique mix of tower-defense, tactical role-playing, and gacha mechanics to the mobile gaming space. It’s gacha system is often praised for not being as brutal as other titles in the genre. Created by the Chinese developer Hypergryph, it was released in China in May 2019 and later published globally in 2020.
Arknights’ main gameplay revolves around tower defense, but it also features a base-building mini-game, which helps in upgrading characters and their skills. Additionally, players can farm for upgrade materials in the cleared stages and events, like in the usual gacha game. A roguelike game mode was recently added to Arknights called “Integrated Strategies.”
Goddess of Victory: Nikke
Goddess of Victory: Nikke is created by the South Korean developer Shift Up, the same company responsible for creating the critically acclaimed PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade. Similar to the company’s AAA title, this gacha game is set in a post-apocalyptic future where surviving humans fled underground and created artificial soldiers called Nikkes. The game was first released in late 2022 and is available on Android, iOS, and Microsoft Windows.
Goddess of Victory: Nikke is a third-person shooter RPG where you play the role of a commander who controls five interchangeable characters (Nikke) in each battle. Players can recruit new Nikkes through the game’s gacha system to expand their collection, like in a typical game in the genre. The game also features a cooperative multiplayer mode where you can team up to five players to challenge the environment.
Dragon Ball Legends
Akira Toriyama’s iconic franchise, Dragon Ball, has spawned a multitude of video games in the last two decades, and Dragon Ball Legends is one of them. This gacha game was developed by Dimps and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game features several fan-favorite characters from the franchise and receives new events regularly. It’s been available on Android and iOS since 2018.
Dragon Ball Legends’ combat is inspired by fighting games and uses card-battling mechanics. It also has some elements from the RPG genre. These cards, akin to TCG games, are drawn from a deck that you can customize. Although the game has a story mode, its main focus is its PVP (player vs. player), where players can battle it out for dominance.
Honkai Star Rail
Genshin Impact developer miHoYo created Honkai Star Rail following the success of Honkai Impact 3rd. This game features several elements introduced in Genshin Impact and, of course, some from its predecessor. HSR was released on Windows, iOS, and Android on April 26, 2023, and was ported to PS5 on October 11, 2023.
Honkai Star Rail features a turn-based combat system with four characters in your team on a battlefield. The game’s combat requires players to focus more on strategy than brute force. Besides this and its gacha, the game uses several mechanics from Genshin Impact.
What Inspired the Gacha Mechanic in Video Games?
The gacha mechanic is recognized for its resemblance to gambling, as they both appeal to the player’s sense of luck and desire to chase rare rewards.
The monetization style used in gacha games came from “gachapon,” a type of Japanese vending machine that dispenses valuable toys often licensed from popular characters from Japanese pop culture, such as manga, video games, or anime.
Gachapon machines come in a variety of themes and feature various collectible items similar to games in Bovada casino online, where slot games have a jackpot as their grand prize. While not everyone can win the jackpot, there are other rewards to satisfy players. Both gachapon machines and slot games leverage the Random Number Generator (RNG) algorithm to determine the outcomes based on a predetermined set of rules and probabilities.
Slots have an RTP (return to player percentage), which calculates how much a player can win over time depending on the funds he has deposited. Similarly, gacha games use a “pity system” that determines a guaranteed return after they make a certain number of pulls. The currency required to make pulls in gacha can be purchased with real money, just like games at an online casino.
In both gacha games and online casino slots, players can typically purchase in-game currency or credits using real money. This monetization strategy capitalizes on the psychological allure of instant gratification and the excitement of potentially acquiring rare or highly coveted items or rewards.
To sustain player engagement and investment, gacha games and online casinos employ various tactics. These may include time-limited events, special offers or promotions, and the regular introduction of new content or features. Such tactics aim to cultivate a sense of novelty and continuously pique players’ interest, fostering a desire to continue participating in the games.
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