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Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they’ve been chewing over. Today, how Tim learned to love the lottery…
When I first played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 upon its launch, I was ecstatic to once again bond with memorable characters and explore open expanses teeming with powerful beasts. Then I was faced with a foe more repugnant to me than any other encountered on my Alrestian journey: Core Crystals.
To explain why I gawked at this pseudo-gacha mechanic, I first need to recount my writer origin story as a mobile gaming journalist.
I got my start in early 2009 at the now-defunct website Slide To Play where I honed my writing skills and—more importantly—became enamoured with the experimental and communal nature of the early iPhone gaming scene. Developers were constantly discovering genius ways of interacting with the touchscreen and gyroscope, and because in-app purchases weren’t yet allowed in free games, this trailblazing mentality was unburdened by the temptress of cynical monetisation.
This all changed in October of that year when Apple reversed its policy on in-app purchases in free apps. Over the next few years, I witnessed the slow decline of originality as the most lucrative business models began taking shape. Free-to-play proved to be the mobile gaming market’s Big Bang, and the star of paid games died in its wake. Along with it went the need for the mobile gaming sites I called home. I left Slide To Play in 2012 feeling disillusioned as gacha rose to prominence.
Jump forward to 2016 when Nintendo released Super Mario Run. It was exactly the type of premium product I wanted out of Nintendo’s mobile initiative. Boiling Mario platforming down to auto-runner mechanics may not have been groundbreaking but it was simple fun under a single price tag. Many gawked at its high $10 price tag but I couldn’t get enough. Yet its sales underperformance meant I wouldn’t be getting more.
Cue Fire Emblem Heroes in 2017, Nintendo’s first gacha game, and from one of my favourite franchises, no less. Even with my deeply ingrained distaste for the business model, I had to at least give it a fair shake. I averted my eyes from its storefront so I could stave off the guilt of ceding to my enemy as I attempted to enjoy the shrunken-down turn-based battles. Alas, it didn’t work, and I abandoned ship for Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia two months later.
By now, the Switch was out and my excitement for a prosperous new era of Nintendo was thriving. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the franchises I wanted to see take root on the hybrid console. Chief among these was Animal Crossing.
You can thus imagine my dismay when that franchise’s only sign of life was the gacha-infused Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. I reluctantly downloaded this pared-down chill-with-animals sim and deleted it days later when I realised my addictive personality was already caving to its FOMO tactics.
“I’m never playing another gacha game,” I told myself in some phrasing or another. This lasted for all of a week as Xenoblade Chronicles 2 launched and changed my perspective forever.
That moment in Gormott where Rex first resonates with a Core Crystal was exciting to many players, but it sunk my heart. I immediately went to the eShop dreading the Core Crystal packs I’d find, dooming about how Nintendo’s bright future was tainted by mobile game monetisation. To my pleasant shock, no such microtractions existed. I even checked twice assuming there was some sort of mistake but nope. Nothing.
This completely reframed how I thought about Core Crystals. I could sate my innate Skinner Box appetite without the urge to spend a single cent. Obtaining Rare Blades became an innocent joy. Sure, a specific rabbit woman I almost immediately pulled tried to shake that innocence, but you get the idea. I found myself wholeheartedly enjoying gacha mechanics for the first time since the earliest days of the Pokémon Trading Card Game in my youth, a time when my inherent lack of spending money was a stopgap from indulgent purchases.
While Xenoblade Chronicles 2 didn’t compel me to give gacha games another chance, it opened my bittered heart to the concept and planted a seed. While I very briefly tried Dragalia Lost on the basis of it being a new Nintendo IP, I completely ignored the likes of Dr. Mario World and Mario Kart Tour. It wasn’t until a need for routines during COVID lockdowns that the seed bloomed in the form of returning to Fire Emblem Heroes.
Everything that makes gacha games great came together for me here. It was a vessel through which I could engage with all the characters I adored, providing daily doses of glee. Events that portrayed them in seasonal costumes and gave them non-canonical roles kept the franchise fresh and the online communities that formed around it all gave me a different flavour of the nostalgia I had for perusing mobile gaming forums in the old days.
This isn’t even to mention all the characters from Japan-only games that I came to appreciate through Heroes; I’m more primed than ever for Nintendo to bestow upon us new English localisations or remakes. All this franchise celebration is something that gacha games are specifically primed for, and it certainly boosted my Fire Emblem fandom far beyond what any single mainline entry could achieve.
It’s also worth noting that Intelligent Systems is pretty generous with the game’s myriad currencies, meaning I could typically get what I want without paying. In instances where I did choose to pay, I never felt coaxed or preyed upon. This is something I’ve noticed to an even greater extent in the most recent Nintendo-adjacent mobile game Pokémon TCG Pocket. It’s provided a free way to relive the childhood thrill of opening Pokémon cards and enjoy a franchise that’s not had a game in a while (relative to its usual release schedule, at least).
I don’t want to paint a picture that gacha games don’t prey upon players—my current mainstay Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is certainly proof of this—but rather that Nintendo brings a consciously sensitive approach to its efforts. It’s kind of a shame then that most of the company’s gacha games are shutting down and future prospects beyond Pokémon seem unlikely. This space is much better with Nintendo helping to dictate its boundaries.
Things have recently come full circle with Nintendo soon releasing a ‘Complete‘ version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp after its end of service. The existence of this premium experience brings me back to the experimental era of mobile games that sparked my desire to become a writer. In equal measure, it’s once again given me a chance to reflect on how essential Nintendo was toward my personal growth. Through the likes of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and a return to Fire Emblem Heroes, I was able to let go of my disdain toward a business model that sabotaged the publications that gave me my start and embrace the new.
Even if that ‘new’ is still constantly eyeing my wallet.