Gacha games have well and truly gotten their hooks into the western PC gaming market. I've lost track of how many freemium character-dispenser games Hoyoverse is running at this point, let alone the newer contenders like Wuthering Waves, and people are constantly on the hunt for Genshin Impact codes. The most popular so far have been open world action or turn-based RPGs and the like, but all of a sudden the gacha model is turning its attention to cozy games—and honestly, I'm a little nervous.
For the uninitiated, "gacha" is a monetization style sort of like putting quarters in one of those little prize vending machines at a grocery store—you always get something but you don't know what it will be. Unlike games that have you pay a specific price for specific premium items, gacha games invite you to keep inserting money for a chance to unlock rare in-game items. Like playable characters in Genshin Impact, for instance. Gacha games have been around for years, but didn't properly explode onto the PC scene until Genshin.
This week's Gamescom Opening Night Live event featured trailers for two upcoming gacha games with distinctly adorable pitches. There was the previously announced Infinity Nikki, the upcoming open world dress-up adventure game from what was formerly a mobile-only freemium series. Newly announced Floatopia is an Animal Crossing-inspired game which hasn't fully detailed its monetization yet, but the "lucky tickets" for "standard and pick-up draws" referenced on its site are kind of a tell and players are clocking it as such.
Two trailers in one show is just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure. There have been ongoing rumors that dominant gacha developer Hoyoverse is working on an Animal Crossing-inspired game too. This sudden influx of rumored and confirmed cozy gacha games feels as if my chill corner of gaming is having the Eye of Sauron turned upon it. Which, these days, is actually the Eye of Capitalism.
I wrote late last year that the cozy games trend hasn't even peaked yet, specifically predicting that we would start seeing a lot more official marketing for games using the word "cozy" and that the term would start getting diluted (even more than it inherently is) by more unlikely kinds of games name-checking the cozy trend.
The gacha game publishers have witnessed the rise of cozy gaming and they're here to monetize it with "lucky tickets" and limited-run outfits, and whatever else they can devise. Infinity Nikki's tagline "the coziest open world game" is case in point.
I'm not 'line in the sand' against gacha games—grown-ass adults can do what they want with their grown-ass money and I'm already on record being excited for Infinity Nikki—but some people absolutely are drawing that line, and I don't blame them. We spent years yelling about and attempting to legislate loot boxes only to welcome in its somewhat insidious twin for tea.
Now I'm not here to infantilize or belittle my Stardew-playing siblings, but I do feel very protective of them. The cozy gaming community that's rallied on social media over the past couple years attracts a lot of players who are new or returning to PC gaming. Some may have experience in the mobile game scene where gacha has already been popular for years, but many don't have that vocabulary under their belts. Hell, even I watched two trailers for Nikki and didn't realize what it was until I went to its website and saw that telling slew of in-game currency rewards for its pre-registration event.
I'm fully planning to get into Infinity Nikki and Floatopia and whatever Hoyoverse is doing next with my eyes wide open and credit card safely stashed. I just hope that all my other cozy game enjoyers are equally prepared for the shift.
