No, the Devs Aren’t Greedy. Here’s How Gacha Is Supposed to Work

You've probably seen the comments.

"This game has so much potential, but the devs are greedy."

"The developers only care about money."

"They made the rates terrible because they want people to spend."

I saw a comment like this just this morning:

It's an accusation that appears beneath almost every discussion about gacha games, particularly when a new character arrives, a premium bundle seems overpriced, or players discover that obtaining their favorite character could cost considerably more than expected.

And sometimes, the frustration is completely justified.

Gacha games can feature expensive monetization, frustrating progression systems, and limited-time mechanics that encourage players to spend more than they intended. Those systems deserve scrutiny, especially when they make meaningful progress difficult without opening your wallet.

But there's a problem with the way we talk about them.

The people programming character abilities, animating combat sequences, writing quests, and fixing bugs aren't necessarily the people deciding how much a character costs.

Game development and game monetization are connected, but they aren't interchangeable. Understanding the distinction requires looking at what gacha actually is, how its underlying mathematics work, and why businesses use it in the first place.

And perhaps most importantly, it means asking a question that gets lost in the arguments:

What is gacha supposed to accomplish when the system is designed responsibly?

Yes, you read that right. We made a simulator for you to try.

Give it a whirl when you're done reading.

First, What Exactly Is Gacha?

Gacha is a randomized reward mechanic inspired by Japanese capsule-toy vending machines, commonly known as gashapon.

Instead of purchasing a specific item directly, players spend a resource for an opportunity to receive one of several possible rewards.

In video games, those rewards might include playable characters, weapons, equipment, cosmetic items, or upgrade materials.

The basic structure is straightforward. A game offers a pool of possible rewards, assigns probabilities to those rewards, and lets players perform a draw, often called a pull or summon.

A reward might be classified as common, rare, or exceptionally rare. Different categories have different probabilities, and featured banners may increase the likelihood of receiving particular items.

Many games also introduce a pity system, which guarantees or increases the chance of obtaining a high-rarity reward after a certain number of unsuccessful pulls.

None of these mechanics inherently requires real-money spending.

A game can distribute the necessary currency through quests, events, achievements, and regular play. Spending money may allow players to acquire additional pulls more quickly.

That's where gacha becomes a monetization model rather than simply a randomized reward system.

And that's also where the controversy begins.

How Gacha Is Actually Programmed

Despite how mysterious a disappointing pull can feel, the underlying mechanics aren't particularly magical.

A typical gacha system begins with a collection of possible rewards and a probability assigned to each one.

Imagine a fictional banner with three rarity categories: common rewards, rare rewards, and ultra-rare rewards.

Common rewards make up the overwhelming majority of possible outcomes. Rare rewards appear less frequently, while ultra-rare rewards are deliberately difficult to obtain.

When a player performs a pull, the game selects a result according to those probabilities.

In a simplified implementation, the system generates a pseudorandom number and maps that number to the appropriate reward category. It then selects an eligible reward from that category.

Production systems can be considerably more complicated. They may account for featured characters, previous pulls, pity thresholds, duplicate protections, or other published banner rules.

For online games, the authoritative result is commonly determined by a server rather than trusting the player's device. That helps prevent players from modifying the client to award themselves whatever they want.

The game also needs to verify that the player has sufficient currency, deduct the appropriate amount, update the player's inventory, and record the transaction.

Those operations must be handled carefully. A network interruption shouldn't result in a player losing currency without receiving a reward, nor should retrying a request accidentally award the same reward twice.

In other words, there's real engineering involved.

But notice something important: implementing a 1% probability is not the same thing as deciding that the probability should be 1%.

An engineer may be responsible for making sure the system follows its specifications. The choice of what those specifications should be can involve game designers, economy specialists, product leadership, and business decision-makers.

Sometimes those roles overlap. Sometimes they don't.

That's why blaming every developer for a banner's rates is an incomplete explanation of how the system came to exist.

The Math: Why a 1% Drop Rate Doesn't Mean You'll Win in 100 Pulls

Here's where a lot of frustration comes from.

Imagine a banner with a fixed 1% chance of awarding its featured character on every pull. Assume there's no pity system, no increasing probability, and no additional guarantee.

You might reasonably think that performing 100 pulls should get you the character.

Unfortunately, that's not how independent probabilities work.

So, let's go to fourth period math class, shall we?

Every pull has a 1% chance of success and a 99% chance of failure.

The probability of failing 100 consecutive times is approximately 36.6%.

That means the probability of obtaining the character at least once in 100 pulls is approximately 63.4%.

Even after 100 pulls, more than one-third of players would still have nothing to show for their attempts at obtaining that specific reward.

Here's how those odds develop.

These figures assume every pull is independent and the probability remains fixed at 1%.

It's also important to distinguish an expected value from a guarantee.

With a fixed 1% success probability, the expected number of pulls until the first success is 100. But that average doesn't mean success becomes certain on the hundredth attempt.

A player could get lucky on the first pull. Another could go hundreds of pulls without success.

That's the nature of randomness.

And it's precisely why guarantee systems matter.

What Pity Systems Are Supposed to Do

A pity system exists to limit, or at least reduce, the uncertainty associated with randomized rewards.

Consider a hypothetical banner that guarantees an ultra-rare reward within 90 pulls.

That changes the experience by a lot.

Instead of facing an unlimited streak of unsuccessful attempts, players have a defined maximum number of pulls before receiving an ultra-rare reward, assuming the guarantee functions exactly as described.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll receive the particular featured character they want.

Some systems guarantee a rarity rather than a specific reward. Others have separate featured-character guarantees, and some carry pity progress between banners while others reset it.

These differences matter enormously.

A system that guarantees any ultra-rare character after 90 pulls is not equivalent to one that guarantees the featured character after 90 pulls.

Similarly, a system with a rising probability after a certain threshold behaves differently from one with a fixed probability until the final guaranteed pull.

Players deserve to know exactly which rules apply.

A well-designed pity system should make those rules understandable, not bury them behind vague terminology or confusing interfaces.

Who Actually Makes the Monetization Decisions?

Game development involves more than one department, and gacha monetization often crosses several of them.

• Software engineers implement the technical systems, maintain server infrastructure, manage inventories and transactions, and ensure that the code behaves as intended.
• Game designers develop progression mechanics, reward structures, character systems, and other elements that determine how the game feels to play.
• Economy and monetization designers may work on currency distribution, pricing structures, reward availability, and the relationship between spending and progression.
• Product managers and live-operations teams may coordinate banner schedules, events, player engagement goals, and ongoing updates.
• Publishing, finance, and executive leadership can influence revenue targets, commercial strategy, budgets, and the broader business requirements that shape the game.

These are general responsibilities, not universal job descriptions. Different studios organize their teams differently, and some developers have substantial influence over monetization choices.

At an independent studio, the person writing gameplay code might also be the founder deciding how the business earns money.

At a larger company, an animator might have absolutely no authority over banner pricing.

And even when an individual employee disagrees with a monetization decision, they may still be responsible for implementing the work assigned to them.

That doesn't mean nobody is accountable.

It means accountability should be directed toward the decisions, teams, and organizations that actually control the system.

Why Gacha Games Use This Business Model

A large-scale live-service game can be expensive to operate.

Development doesn't end when the game launches. New characters require artwork, animation, gameplay design, writing, voice acting, testing, localization, and ongoing maintenance.

Servers and support services also have operating costs.

A free-to-play game needs some way to fund those activities.

Gacha offers one possible approach: allow players to access the game without an upfront purchase, then earn revenue from optional spending on randomized rewards.

In theory, that creates an arrangement in which players who don't spend money can still enjoy the game, while those who choose to spend help support its continued operation.

But there's an important distinction.

A business needing revenue does not automatically justify every method it uses to generate that revenue.

Development costs can explain why a game needs monetization. They cannot, by themselves, prove that a particular price, probability, or spending incentive is reasonable.

And the fact that a game is free to download doesn't mean its monetization is beyond criticism.

So How Is Gacha Supposed to Work?

There isn't one universally accepted definition of fair gacha. Different games have different audiences, economies, and progression structures.

But a player-respecting system should follow several principles:

• The base game should be genuinely enjoyable without spending. Free players should have meaningful access to gameplay, progression, and core content rather than feeling that payment is required to participate.
• Probabilities should be clearly disclosed. Players should be able to understand the chances of obtaining a reward, how guarantees work, and whether those rules change between banners.
• There should be meaningful limits on bad luck. A transparent guarantee provides a more predictable path toward desirable rewards than an unrestricted system of repeated attempts.
• Premium currency should be understandable. Players shouldn't need to navigate several confusing conversion steps just to determine how much a pull costs.
• Spending should be a choice rather than a punishment for not paying. A game can reward purchases without deliberately making ordinary play miserable.
• Progression should respect players' time. Earning rewards through gameplay should feel meaningful, even if spending offers convenience or additional options.
• The game should avoid exploiting vulnerable players. Randomized rewards, limited availability, and emotional attachment can combine to encourage excessive spending. Responsible design needs to account for that risk.

These principles won't eliminate every disagreement about monetization.

But they provide a much better framework for evaluating a gacha game than simply asking whether it makes money.

Where Gacha Goes Wrong

The biggest problems often arise when a game's systems are designed to encourage spending at the expense of player well-being.

Limited-time banners can create urgency by suggesting that a desirable character may disappear for an unknown period.

Duplicate systems can make obtaining a character feel like only the beginning of an expensive progression process.

Complicated currency bundles can make it difficult to calculate the real cost of repeated pulls.

Powerful characters or equipment can become effectively necessary for competitive success or demanding content, creating pressure to spend.

And when several of these mechanics overlap, a game can become considerably more expensive than its initial free-to-play presentation suggests.

It's worth recognizing that not every limited banner or duplicate mechanic is automatically exploitative. Context matters, including how much currency players earn, what alternatives exist, and whether paid advantages are necessary.

Still, these systems can create incentives that conflict with the player's interests.

A business may benefit when players spend more. Players benefit when they receive enjoyable, understandable, and reasonably priced experiences.

Good monetization design has to navigate that tension.

Poor monetization design simply exploits it, and that sucks.

Can Developers Be Responsible for Bad Gacha Systems?

Absolutely.

Some developers help design monetization. Some lead studios. Some own the companies making these decisions.

And a team that knowingly implements misleading probabilities or deceptive systems can bear responsibility for its conduct, depending on the circumstances.

The point isn't that developers are always innocent.

It's that "the devs are greedy" is too vague to explain what went wrong.

Was the advertised probability inaccurate?

Was the featured-character guarantee changed?

Did the publisher impose a revenue target that encouraged aggressive monetization?

Did the game's economy make free progression unnecessarily difficult?

Did leadership approve a system that relied heavily on spending pressure?

Those questions lead to meaningful criticism.

They also help distinguish an ordinary business model from specific practices that deserve scrutiny.

You Can Love a Game and Criticize Its Monetization

One of the strangest arguments in gacha communities is the idea that defending a game's creative work means defending every decision made by the company behind it.

It doesn't.

You can admire a game's combat system while disliking its banner structure.

You can appreciate its character designs while questioning the cost of obtaining those characters.

You can recognize the effort that went into its music, worldbuilding, and animation while believing its monetization needs substantial improvement.

Those positions aren't contradictory.

In fact, they're often the reason players criticize a game so passionately.

They see something worth preserving.

They want the game to succeed without relying on systems that make players feel manipulated or excluded.

And that criticism is more useful when it identifies specific problems rather than treating everyone who worked on the game as equally responsible.

Ultimately, Criticize the System, Not the Entire Team

Gacha isn't just a mysterious machine that occasionally hands out rare characters.

It's a combination of software engineering, probability, game design, economic incentives, and business strategy.

Its mechanics can be implemented correctly while its monetization choices remain questionable.

Its business model can help support a free-to-play game while still creating incentives that deserve criticism.

And its developers can produce extraordinary work without having final authority over how that work is sold.

None of that means players should stop demanding better.

Quite the opposite.

Demand transparent probabilities. Question confusing prices. Push back against progression systems that punish free players. Hold companies accountable when their monetization practices become manipulative.

But understand who makes those decisions and how the systems actually function.

Because when someone says a game has enormous potential but "the devs are greedy," they're often describing a real frustration with the wrong explanation.

The problem isn't always the people making the game. Sometimes, it's the business decisions shaping how we're allowed to enjoy it.

Try It Yourself: The Morganyte Gacha Simulator

Reading about probability is one thing. Experiencing it is another.

A 1% chance sounds straightforward until you start pulling and discover just how unpredictable a streak of results can become.

That's why we've created a place for readers to experiment with the numbers themselves.

Our interactive simulator will let you perform fictional gacha pulls, compare results, and see how probability and pity systems change the experience.

No real money. No premium currency purchases. Just the mathematics behind the mechanics.

Take it for a spin and see what results you get.