The game pays out at random, with near-misses and big wins dangled in front of you, like a slot machine.
Random payouts, near-misses and big-win celebrations are how slot machines hold attention, and some games use the same structure for real money.
Spins, pulls and draws: the chance of a reward, not the reward. Sometimes the slot machine is hidden inside another game, such as village-building.
Rewards arrive on an unpredictable schedule, so each try feels like it might be the one. Near-misses, where the result looks like an almost-win, and big-win celebrations add to the pull. Gacha games borrow the odds from slot machines and the name from capsule-toy machines; loot boxes put a paid random reward into the middle of a full-price game; and collection sets are engineered never to quite complete. Heavy spenders, the 'whales', fund most of it.
Seldom. A free spin that costs nothing, never connects to purchases and never touches a currency is the mild end.
Zhengtu Online (China) turned its gear drops into a reward wheel in a 2007 scandal that previewed the industry's gambling problem. Gacha (from 2012) sold the dice roll itself. Coin Master wrapped a slot machine in a village-building game, with a sliver of whales reportedly driving most of its billions. Loot boxes carried the structure into £60 Western blockbusters, and patents have since been filed for loot boxes whose odds track your spending (a patent shows intent, not that the system is in use).
In April 2018 Belgium's Gaming Commission ruled that paid loot boxes in FIFA 18, Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive were unlicensed games of chance. In May 2012 Japan banned 'kompu gacha'.
Since 22 September 2024, Australian games containing simulated gambling are rated at least R 18+.
Historical prices and revenues are in US dollars at the time unless marked A$.
Team Fortress 2's Mann-Conomy Update (30 September 2010) introduced crates, paid keys and the Mann Co. Store, bolting a paid-random-reward loop onto an existing full-price PC game for the first time.
EA's own reporting valued FIFA Ultimate Team at roughly $1.6 billion in net revenue for fiscal year 2021, more lucrative than the base games it lives inside.
Find games without slot-machine mechanics (variable rewards)
Covered in Video Games & Money: Ep 17 · F2p asia, Ep 24 · Mobile f2p, Ep 26 · Loot box, Ep 30 · Gacha, Ep 36 · The game is a sensor.