The Light and Shadow of Gacha: The Psychology of "One More Pull" and Healthy Design

Opening something without knowing what's inside brings anticipation and anxiety at once. In the Edo period, tomikuji lotteries raised money to repair temples and shrines, and the "Ebisu bag" sold by the Echigoya dry-goods store is said to be the origin of the fukubukuro, the New Year's lucky bag. The thrill of chance and taking part is no modern invention.

But being old doesn't make something automatically safe. Making the spending ceiling behind the fun visible is what businesses are asked to do today.

For someone who's happy with any character, randomness is a game that widens the chances of meeting new ones. For someone who wants to bring home one particular oshi for a birthday, not being able to choose is a heavy burden. Same product, but the value of chance changes with the reason for buying.

Before buying, fans can make it easier to know when to stop by asking themselves whether they want the fun of unboxing or one specific item. Operators should let people check, on a single screen, not only what might come out but the full lineup, the chance of duplicates and whether single items are sold. For gifts, the label should also tell the recipient that the product is random. If you hand it over knowing the result can't be chosen, the surprise doesn't leave the other person with a burden.

In 1977, Bandai entered the market with a ¥100 "Gashapon" (the capsule-toy machines Japan calls gacha), when ¥20 machines were the norm, and grew the market around characters. The Japan Capsule Toy Association reports that the Japanese capsule toy market grew from about ¥115 billion (roughly $770 million) in fiscal 2023 to about ¥141 billion in fiscal 2024.

The trading card market grew too, from about ¥122.2 billion in fiscal 2020 to about ¥234.8 billion in fiscal 2022. Collecting and trading turn a market into a community, though scarcity can also fuel overheating.

The market rests on more than the moment of sale. What fans do after opening, such as lining items up by series, bringing them along to trade and photographing them to show others, gives them a reason to wait for the next product. Companies need to look beyond how well an item sells to the experience that continued after it was opened.

Collectors will want to judge whether a series is one you can't enjoy unless you complete it. Operators can post trading etiquette and warnings about counterfeits and, at venues, set aside places and times for trading. Chance results should become safe conversation, not disputes between individuals. Trade conditions include whether an item is unopened, whether it has scratches and whether it will be shipped or handed over. Because people of different ages and places of residence gather, it's reassuring when the official side offers a template and a procedure for reaching agreement without making personal information public.

In game and card lotteries, the drop rate of rare items is sometimes displayed. Once you know the odds, you can weigh expectations and cost before you buy. Industry bodies such as CESA, a game-industry association, have built self-regulatory rules to raise trust without relying on law alone.

Add what it costs on average to collect everything, whether items can be traded and whether they'll be restocked, and fans can decide for themselves. Show not only the odds but the total cost of completing the set.

Even with odds displayed, though, what you'll spend before the one item you want comes out isn't fixed. Fans can decide in advance the limit for this round and when to switch to trading if it doesn't come. The basic principle is to keep the hope that "the next one might be it" separate from what you can afford to pay.

Instead of cramming information into small print, a company should make the price, breakdown, odds, limit and restock plan readable just before the purchase button. When an item sells out, knowing the next way to get it keeps fans from rushing to expensive secondary markets. Transparency is needed not only right before buying but after failing to buy. In online sales especially, show the product price separately from shipping, and keep the number you can buy at once and the cancellation terms after payment close by. The chance of unboxing and the confusion of an order process must not be blended into the same thrill.

With oshi-katsu goods, the bigger the joy of a hit, the bigger the drop when you miss. Keep trading and buying more without being able to choose the character you want, and love turns into fatigue.

A company that cares about its fans should explain carefully how to play and how to trade, rather than run ads that stir up the thrill of chance. Being able to decide for yourself when to stop is the premise of continuing to take part.

The drop from a miss carries over into trading and handing items on. Beyond a fair price, people can avoid hurt feelings by settling in advance whether the other person collects with the same enthusiasm and who bears the shipping or the in-person handoff. If operators provide an official trading desk or time slots at venues, rather than leaving everything to direct deals between individuals, even people who didn't get the one they wanted have a next step. Fans, for their part, can avoid wearing down their love by estimating up front what trading can solve and where to draw the line at giving up this time, instead of piling up unplanned spending to make up for a miss.

For people who skip lotteries, offer regular products through which they can meet the work and its characters. When the entrance is wide, even people who like chance can invite friends with peace of mind.

Fans who buy knowing what they're getting, trade happily and rest when they need to: designing that whole sequence of experiences will support the gacha market's next stage of growth.

The appeal of gacha and random goods isn't only the moment of unboxing. The value extends to trading with friends, talking about memories and the time spent carefully displaying what you have.

To protect that value, businesses need to shift from asking "how much can we make people buy?" to asking "how safely can they come back?"

For the next project, we want to look back not only at how quickly it sold out but at what the inquiries said, where trading was hard and who was asking for restocks. Listening to the reasons of people who quit partway, not just those who had fun, turns chance into an experience nobody dislikes. After a series ends, you can also record how leftover items were traded and which notices reduced the rush toward resale. For the next round, deciding the product mix from behavior after sale, such as whether to make every design the same quantity or mix in choose-your-own sets, feeds fans' experience back into improvement.