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Penny Arcade - Comic - Members Only
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - Comic - Members Only
Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.
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They could still do it. Gacha is a RL thing - machines that randomly dispense a ball containing a prize, toy, or other 'collectible'.
Paper is cheaper to make, and evidently it doesn't stop them from overcharging.
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Yeah but it makes it harder for Timmy to charge their parent's credit card when they have to actually take it to the store instead of pressing a button for an in app purchase.
(And before anyone gets their knickers in a knot - I damn well know not every player is going to be a kid. Grow a sense of humor.)
Magic boosters are the OG Gacha. This is in that same family.
I thought that was a guy from The Trenches at first
Surely Gashapon is the OG Gacha?
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If a local game store is gouging it's customers because they got treated to an early release, then fuck 'em. Wait two weeks for them to show up at Target, and treat yourself to a Starbucks frappe while you're there.
It's frustrating because it plays into the "often times" false assumption that local businesses are more expensive than big box. A few bad actors, especially if they get press on the Internet, ruins it for everyone.
Magic started in... the early 90's, right?
The Gashapons machines where popularized in Japan (though not invented) by Kinnikuman toys in the 80s, indeed making them the earliest of the two.
Of course there where other stuffs like Athletes cards that existed earlier than that if i'm not mistaken.
Also, despite how bad some TCGs or gashapons can be, i still consider gacha games far worse and misnomed.
Depending on where you want to draw the line... In the 1800's cigarette packs would have collectible picture cards in them. Pin-up girls, famous people, artwork, monuments, all kinds of stuff. Before that playing cards from a few brands would sometimes have special kings or jacks. Going back even further symbols of the Catholic saints would in some places be sold in something like a party cracker on feast days - and because the saints are all associated with some profession, sin, illness location, etc they intercede on, people were encouraged to buy more or trade to get ones relevant to their lives = Saint Blaize can't help you if you don't have a sore throat, and Saint Clement only helps blacksmiths.
The whole concept of opening something and discovering if there's something good inside taps into something incredibly primal in the human brain, and humans are good at redirecting instincts designed to feed and protect us into mindless diversions and entertainment. If we some day find that ancient humans were trading random rocks hidden in leather I would not be in the least surprised.
Gacha wasn't games back then, was it? Just random toys, same as thousands of other random collectibles, from baseball cards to Kinder eggs.
Magic was the first game to use the collectibles as game elements. But a lot of the same people worked on MTG, Pokemon, and other CCG/TCGs. They were all just one big clusterfuck of greed.