When Genshin Impact exploded in 2020, it didn’t just popularize gacha -- it redefined the niche business model. A Chinese developer most people have barely heard of convinced investors that gacha anime games aren't just mobile cash cows. HoYoverse showed that a free-to-play game with a sprawling open world and console-level visuals can be sustained through randomized character pulls, with quality rivaling even premium AAA releases from the likes of Nintendo and Activision.
However, five years later, competitors are starting to rewrite the rules. Upcoming anime games like NetEase's Ananta and Pan Studio's Duet Night Abyss are starting to drop the gacha business model. The 'Anime GTA' game will let players unlock all characters through gameplay and monetize purely through cosmetics -- outfits, apartment decorations, vehicle skins -- rather than gacha draws. The same goes with the latter, which took things further by removing the commonplace stamina system that limits how often people could play a game for free.
Even established gacha franchises are experimenting with ditching the RNG monetization mechanic. Sci-fi epic Tower of Fantasy from Hotta Studios debuted a 'Warped Server' in China in August. The regional server removes weapon and matrix gacha while introducing open player trading, creating an economy closer to a traditional MMORPG.
Gamers around the globe are treating this change as a win for the consumer. A Japanese X user cheered, "[Ananta] has no character gacha, so this could be a god-tier game." On r/gachagaming, one user celebrated by saying, "The market is healing." However, it's hard to believe that this shift is purely driven by generosity alone.
What's Really Driving the Change Then?
While the cracks have been showing up for years, Final Fantasy's studio decision might just be the straw that broke the camel's back. Square Enix's move to shut down two of its long-running mobile hits -- Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius and Dragon Quest of the Stars -- is a reminder of how difficult it is to survive under the gacha model now.
Veteran developer Suemaru described the situation on X (via Automaton-Media) as 'like the Titanic.' He warned that staying in gacha development is comparable to 'clinging on a sinking ship.'
"As someone active in the industry, I once again feel that gacha games are becoming like the Titanic. Staying in this industry means clinging to one of the limited spots on a sinking ship. I don’t think all of it will go under, but the number of seats that can stay afloat will keep shrinking."Suemaru via Automaton-Media
Japan's domestic online game market, which relies heavily on gacha, fell to $7.4 billion in 2024 from $10.8 billion, according to figures from the Japan Online Game Association. At the same time, the average cost for mobile game development increased fivefold from 10 years ago to $3.33 million. To make things worse, the spending doesn't stop even once the game ships.
Visual Arts, publisher of the now-defunct Itsuwari no Alice, revealed that simply keeping the servers' lights on costs a whopping $13,600 per month. Those numbers entail cloud server, maintenance, chat infrastructure, and customer support. It even displayed a 'server cost counter' in-game before it retired, giving a rare glimpse into how much gacha actually costs behind the scenes.
After all, the top spots are already locked down by juggernauts, which only adds to the pressure. Based on GachaRevenue, only Fate/Grand Order, Pokémon TCG, and a handful of other mega-hits dominate player attention and wallets at the Top 5. Other games, new and old, have to keep fighting for crumbs of half their revenues.
Industry trackers also show the hard-to-miss market imbalance. Sites like GameBiz, 4Gamer, or community efforts on Reddit keep tallies of gacha launches and shutdowns. New games pop up by the dozens every week from Korea, China, and Japan, but many are gone before they even hit the half-year anniversary. Both figures paint not a thriving marketplace but more of a revolving door, where the biggest hits stick around while everyone else quietly flops away.
Why Gacha Thrives for Anime Games Until Today
The answer is simple: Genshin Impact's triumph quickly turned into a double-edged sword for the whole industry. Players now expect every new gacha title to match its fully 3D production values, massive maps, and rotating cast of characters voiced by top-tier actors. All of that equals spending of $900 million from its release to maintaining updates for four years. No doubt that standard is brutally expensive and nearly impossible to sustain.
This contrasts with the early 2010s golden age of gacha. Back then, a small team could launch a competitive mobile or social game for under a million dollars and survive on modest monthly spenders.
The original gacha godfather, Puzzle & Dragons, for example, raking in an estimated $75 million a month and became a billion-dollar juggernaut with a fraction of today’s overhead. It only had four designers at first, then the team grew into 40 developers and artists by 2014. Servers were also cheap, as content updates themselves were light and never took gigabytes of downloads.
For that reason, many followed suit, flooding the market with 2D auto-battler, character card-collecting RPGs. Big publishers like Bandai Namco even turned carefully crafted arcade and home console experiences, such as The iDOLM@STER, into a deck-builder with hundreds of characters to choose from. China's popular domestic Wukong-themed MMO, Fantasy Westward Journey, too, was transformed into a hit mobile gacha by NetEase.
But pumping out character illustrations and hoping your userbase is satisfied with it is no longer viable.
Why Gacha Shouldn't be the Be-All and End-All of Anime Games Monetization
The collapse of 'easy-money' gacha for anime games doesn't mean players have stopped spending. It just means the method of spending has shifted, as mentioned above. With the novelty of random pulls wearing off and development costs climbing, studios are looking back to older, steadier revenue streams. Something reminiscent of the heyday of Xbox LIVE for Xbox 360: one-and-done add-ons.
If anyone doubts that basic microtransaction purchases can sustain a game in this day and age, look no further.
GTA Online's long-running success with Shark Cards proves that straightforward digital currency sales can thrive even inside premium, full-price games. Fortnite and Warframe also prove that selling cosmetics can generate a steady income for free-to-play games that last for a decade.
Sure, in the end of the day, most anime-styled mobile games will still live and die by character gacha pulls. But rising contenders like Ananta and Duet Night Abyss are daring to prove there's always another way. If this gamble pays off, they won't just grab headlines -- they could set a new standard for free-to-play anime games. Just like Genshin Impact used to.