California man spent $1M playing Game of War
Most of the core revenue making mechanics are imported from Japanese games, that had a game boom earlier than the west due to abundance of feature phones that were very close to modern smartphones... as well as people bored in trains.<p>One of the core elements is the concept of &quot;gacha&quot; or probabilistic purchase, where instead of selling an item for a price, they sell a low probability of getting what you actually want for a lower price... but in the end people try over and over again and easily lose track of their purchases and end up spending more.<p>Some forms of gacha are no longer legal (e.g: kompu gacha), due to their exceptional ability to make people spend... last time I checked the thing was &quot;box gacha&quot;.<p>Another way of making revenue is through &quot;events&quot;, which are competitions, but their outcome is heavily influenced by how much you spend. They&#x27;re basically auctions.<p>The thing is... in the end people don&#x27;t really win. To win an event in a top grossing game you might need probably a thousand dollars. It&#x27;s not worth it.