Gacha & Its Regulation

Twelfth-century church law, Empress Jito's ban on sugoroku, Edo-period bans on karuta — this band of the map has always traced a chase between the play of chance and the law. This is its latest chapter. On May 18, 2012, Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency issued an interpretation that complete gacha fell under the Card Matching provision of the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations, and it took effect on July 1. What was decided was a single interpretation of how sets of pictures could be completed. And that alone was enough to move markets: around the announcement, social-game stocks fell sharply on the Tokyo exchange, in what came to be called the comp gacha shock. An interpretation of a prize inside a game had moved a company's price. In 2016, a controversy over the drop rates of a popular title led industry groups to draft guidelines. ⚠️ Even then, though, disclosing the exact probability of each individual item was not made mandatory. Ban it, tax it, interpret it, decide it voluntarily — the shape keeps changing, but the chase is still going.