Rate-up is a lie
is a popular phrase within the gacha community. Players use it to mock their failed attempts to get their desired character from the gacha pool, blaming it on the shining lettering on the banner, "rate-up".
Of course, we all know that what we play is dependent on RNG. That's why we say it jokingly. But imagine if rate-ups were a lie?
It is a preposterous thought, and people would definitely be outraged, but what if I were to tell you that it did happen? Veterans are very much familiar with this case IтАЩm about to talk about.
The game was alleged to deceive its player base and subsequently changed the industry forever. The game in question is Granblue Fantasy by Cygames.
It is the year 2016. CygamesтАЩ second consecutive year on the market and New Year is around the corner, so why not celebrate by introducing a new limited character for players to pull.
Amidst all those players, there is a livestreamer, Taste, who shared his attempts. However, his efforts were in vain and went viral after he obtained Andira after 2,276 pulls (5358,50тВм in monetary value [exchange rate as of 31.12.2015). [1]
More reports of other players were coming in, confirming that they needed to spend a high number of pulls to get her. As time passed, it became clear that something was fishy.
Remember the saying from the beginning тАУ rate-up is a lie? Well, someone put in the effort to collect data and put it into numbers. [2] Suddenly, it dawned on the community. The rate-up wasтАж not a lie! Instead, it was misleading.
Andira, as a featured character, had indeed a rate up, but other units had a higher rate up and therefore were more likely to be summoned.
Understandably, this caused a massive outcry which the developers denied the allegations, but to appease the crowd, they had to apologize and compensate everyone with in-game currency. To prevent further escalations, Cygames preemptively introduced a new system to cap the playersтАЩ spending as well as showing the probabilities of all items for more transparency.
Overall, Yuji Nakamura argues that it could have dealt a massive blow to the market share of the mobile game industry, which lost 1 billion dollars. [4] Not only that, it also garnered mistrust from consumers.
Apparently, it even attracted some regulatory bodies. One is JOGA (Japanese Online Games Association) [1], the other is CESA (Computer Entertainment SupplierтАЩs Association). [3]
Both have released guidelines on the matter. Although I cannot confidently say much about JOGA due to the language barrier, if you are interested and able to read Japanese, you can find their guidelines under the categorie April 2016.
Nevertheless, according to Koeder et Tanaka, CESA has announced a guideline for more transparency for gacha item probability. [3]
ItтАЩs worth noting that JOGA and CESA are not regulatory bodies from the government. So those guidelines are not legally binding. According to TsujiтАЩs article introduction on Columbia Academic Commons, in Japan video game regulations are handled by third parties тАУ basically self-regulation. [5]
In the end, the incident shaped the industry, compelling subsequent games to adapt to the guidelines. A win for consumer rights.
Sources (under the cut):
