Completely mature in their 20s?

It's down hill after that.

Sounds like avocado toast-ian blame-shifting to me. Just like the rest of these pieces, they ignore the obvious, horrible conditions of life, and choose to tut-tut at the abused for 'improperly' using their free time. Look *away*, reader, from the terrible low wages, high cost of living, and soul-crushing work hours japanese people are forced to endure. Focus your attention on these 19% of young people, who admit that **once**, they *almost* couldn't cover their expenses!! Don't take my word for it! Let's look at the article. >Interestingly enough, while these results indicate that the popularity of in-game transactions may be increasing, **the average amount of money spent on them is actually decreasing**. Hmm, could it be the *actual* problem is the immense increases to CoL young (and all) people have been under? I wonder why the article doesn't even bring it up? So curious Oh well. So like, **how much** money are we talking about on gacha? How much are these 19% of young folks spending? Must be a ton eh? Article doesn't say, but we do get *these* numbers In 2024, young people spent an average of around 5,138 yen ($35.85 USD) on microtransactions per month while this year’s survey results state that the average amount of money spent on microtransactions is 4,247 yen ($29.63 USD) per month. So it's not a lot, not really. I say again, this article is slop created to take your eyes away from the real problems of the world and victim blame the ones suffering under them.

Is this just the 80/20 rule?

Yes. Completely mature.

These kids are wasting $30 on a game that they play 20-40 hours a month! They should instead go see 2 movies or go to one concert or eat at a restaurant once

concert tickets for 30$? sweet


Average spending is not a good metric for addictive behaviors - spending/consumption tends to be extremely concentrated in a small fraction. My go-to example for this is alcohol where, in the US, 10 drinks/week is the population average, but also enough to get you into the "top 10%" or "heavy drinker" bin, where the average consumption of that bin is 74 drinks/week. In both alcohol and gacha, a huge fraction of the population don't pay anything. I mean, even if the article's $30/month average spend is entirely within their 20% "problem" spenders, it would only be $150, but it's a little easier (for me) to see where $150/month gacha habit could be a problem for young people already on the financial edge. Not the fundamental problem that skyrocketing rent and stagnant wages are, but more in the last-straw sense.

Sure, not Taylor Swift, but most shows are $30 or less

By design. That's... that's literally what these games are for. You're supposed to be addicted and frustrated until you fork over real money. All the mechanisms that games use to make your brain do the happy juice are kept behind the part where you pay real money over and over.

I ways hate when a new game comes out and it's a gacha game. I have no self control, so I always have to keep them at arms length.

Nothing inside a video game should cost real money. Ban the entire business model. Entertainment is a tool for emotional manipulation - usually toward enjoyment. Fiction seeks suspension of disbelief and attachment to completely artificial interests and goals. Charging actual currency for anything under that fiction is an abuse. It's exploiting your brain's fuzzy separation of wants. However much you *desire* a goal in soccer, it's just a ball going through some posts. It has no economic utility. There is no exchange rate between score and hamburgers. Maximizing that mistake is the entire driving force of this industry-swallowing abuse. It's half of all revenue. Boycotts don't work. It's in $70, flagship-franchise, *single-player* games. It costs nothing to add, even in games you already bought. Only legislation will fix this. Now the usual excuses. 'Just don't pay them.' The entire game is expertly crafted to make you *crave* whatever they're charging for. Games make you value arbitrary nonsense - that's what makes them games. Gently convincing you over time is the developer's *job.* 'You want it for free!' *You* want it 'for free.' I want people to *buy games.* Like how it worked for forty years straight. 'But servers need money.' This shit's in World Of Warcraft - a subscription MMO. You think Blizzard is hurting? 'But arcades--' were renting someone else's machine. Your own phone doesn't get to charge you a quarter per minute. 'But cosmetics--' are still an engineered desire which can be denied until you pay more money. 'But budgets--' follow revenue, always always always. It has never been easier to make *a* game. Companies choose to spend millions because they expect to make billions. 'Well it's better value.' This bullshit makes them more money... and they get the money from you... so this "free" bullshit costs you more money. You get it? In no reality should it be possible to pay the price of a whole-ass game for one imaginary hat.

Dat avocado toast excuse, every time.

The article admits this isn't true and the money spent on these games is decreasing. This is another corporate article blaming individuals for systemic economic failures.

Are you talking about Gensin Impact? The game that even on PC looks and plays like a mobile game? With grindiness and awful animation quality? Surely you can't consider that top notch stuff? Or is gameplay time of 100+ hours and anime girls really that convincing to you? Genuine question.

Motherfucking young people and their fucking hobbies. How irresponsible.

I never said it was a great game. In fact I literally said: > Genshin has a lot of other problems even gacha aside I just said it wasn't *garbage*. There is plenty of other actual garbage out there. It looks and plays like a mobile game because it *is* a mobile game. It's a mobile game you can play on your PC if you want. But it's still a 5-year-old mobile game. expecting it to look like AC Shadows or something is silly. Besides, the BOTW-ripoff-meets-anime art direction really seems to appeal to a lot of people, and art direction is much more important than graphical fidelity anyway. The soundtrack and score is genuinely very good and varied, with each area having its own feel and sound to the music. The game is huge and has lots of different areas to explore, each with its own characteristics. The world has lots of little details and puzzles, some that are extremely simple dopamine hits and some puzzles that are somewhat challenging. There is like a hundred hours or whatever of story content to go through that at least quite a lot of people seem invested and engaged in. There are new events every month or so with various things to do. Let be clear: I don't like Genshin personally. I don't play Genshin. I think there are a lot of problematic elements in it not just with monetisation but with grind, RNG, retention/addiction mechanics, unskippable cutscenes and probably more I'm forgetting off hand. It's still blatantly unfair to call it "garbage".

Young people do young people shit, always have and will. I ate beef and vegetable soup for 3 months straight to buy a new engine for my race car 20 years ago...

I haven't heard of addictive design in the business model of avocado toast.