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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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You're gonna need to explain what you think the difference is, because most people think they're synonymous
There isn't a meaningful difference; gachas are just a subset of lootboxes, and anybody claiming otherwise is a player lying to themselves or is a game publisher defending themselves from these predatory practices.
I feel like the difference is the loot "box", itself. Granted, I've not played any loot box games since Team Fortress 2, but in that game the box was an actual inventory item you could store and open whenever you wanted, and those items would always be from the same pool.
With Genshin, you're basically just pulling from a singular, infinite loot box that rotates its reward pool. So you can't, as a player, decide to open a Year 1 item when it's not in the current rotation.
It's a small difference, but I feel like that's why we have separate terminology for "gacha" and "loot box" games.
My apologies if I'm getting this wrong, as I don't play Gacha games, but isn't that worse?
As in, if the players know that a certain reward they're trying to get will be rotated out soon, won't that drive up the FOMO even more?
It depends. I'm not sure how current loot box games handle it, but with most gacha games, there are determined odds for the prizes, so they have a "pity" system. So after a certain amount of pulls, you're always guaranteed to get the top reward. RNG will make it so that you'll typically pull all the way to nearly the end of that pity timer before you get the top reward, but you'll eventually get it.
I'm not sure if traditional loot "boxes" have such a protection in place. I dunno if it's any better or worse since they're both pretty manipulative tactics, but it's different.
not all gacha games have a pity system, and a pity system is not part of the definition of a gacha game. For example, Puzzle and Dragons, one of the first major gacha games on mobile, whose gachapon system is literally modeled off a gachapon machine, does not have a pity system. It's not different. Having a pity system is not a requirement for being a gacha. For example, Fate Grand Order for the longest time, did not have a pity system. You would not suddenly call it a gacha game after it got a pity system, as it was already one before hand.
That's still just gambling in another costume 😭