Pity System and Gacha Mechanics: When Game Publishers Simultaneously Set Rules and Reap Benefits

An empty server is not always the end. Sometimes, it is just a pause between two banner rhythms — a musical rest that the publisher cleverly places to make players think about their accounts, then wonder if they should "invest more" before the new version opens. In Vietnam's gaming community, the story of the gacha system and pity mechanics is no longer unfamiliar. The concept of "90 pulls without a 5-star" has become part of gaming culture, mentioned in group chats, livestreams, and even in business analysis articles. But behind these numbers lies a lesson about how power is distributed — and who holds it. Three years ago, sitting in an internet cafe in Nha Trang, I heard a young player exclaim: "I've already pulled 89 times without getting it, the next one must be certain!" That statement, to me, was the perfect summary of a system designed to make players believe in "the next pull" — even though the actual probability never changes. The gacha system, in its basic definition, allows players to spend real money or in-game resources for a chance at random rewards. In Genshin Impact, this system operates through banners — or "wish phases" — with characters or weapons limited to specific periods. With each new version, the publisher announces the banner schedule, and the community begins the race to save resources, calculate the number of pulls needed, and — sometimes — decide whether to spend real money. What is notable is that the structure of this system is not random. The soft-pity floor at 90 pulls — meaning if a player doesn't get a 5-star character before that, they are guaranteed to get one at the 90th pull — is an intentionally designed feature. It creates both the feeling of "luck will come" while ensuring no one can pull forever without receiving a major reward. But the key point lies in the 50/50 mechanism. When a player starts pulling on an event banner, they have a 50% chance of receiving the featured character and a 50% chance of receiving a random standard character. If unlucky in the first instance — receiving a standard character — the next pull guarantees 100% the featured character. This structure, based on my experience tracking many gacha games, is a masterpiece of psychological design. It creates emotional oscillation — from disappointment to excitement — strong enough to drive spending behavior, while simultaneously being fair enough that players don't feel completely scammed. But the story doesn't end there. In recent versions, the publisher added a new variable: splitting banners into two phases, each lasting about 21 days. This means players face continuous decisions: should they spend resources on phase one with a newly released character, or save for phase two which might feature a rerun — an older character returning after an absence? The non-fixed rerun schedule is a detail many players overlook. Some characters can be absent for over a year before returning, while others are prioritized. This is not randomness — it is a calculated FOMO (fear of missing out) mechanism. When players don't know when their favorite character will return, they have stronger motivation to spend on the current banner, fearing that the next opportunity is further away. Then, to address the issue of "forgotten" older characters, the publisher introduced a new mechanism: Chronicled Wish. This is a separate banner with different rules, allowing players to access characters who haven't appeared on main banners for a long time. Essentially, this is a "lane" for the publisher to monetize old content without affecting the cadence of new banners. From a business perspective, this model demonstrates a very clear principle: the publisher is simultaneously the rule-setter, the beneficiary, and the announcer of changes. There is no separation of power as in traditional sports models, where there are federations, referees, and clear legal regulations. Here, a single entity controls the entire system, from deciding which characters appear, when, with what probability, to how information is disclosed. This reminds me of an old debate in Vietnam's esports community about how much publishers should intervene in competitive games. Many argued that when the publisher is both the "owner" of the game and the "owner" of the tournament, conflicts of interest are inevitable. In the gacha system, this conflict exists from the start — and players, despite making spending decisions, actually have no real power to shape the rules. Another technical detail worth noting: pity is shared between banners of the same type. This means if a player has pulled 50 times on an event character banner without receiving a 5-star, those pulls still count toward other event character banners at the same time. This reduces the marginal cost of switching between banners — a seemingly small feature but with significant impact on spending behavior. Players are no longer "locked" into a single banner for fear of losing progress, but can be more flexible in their decisions. But this flexibility is a double-edged sword. When players have more choices, they also become more vulnerable to hasty decisions. A newly launched banner with an attractive character, combined with accumulated pity from the previous banner, creates a perfect combination to drive impulsive spending. From the perspective of someone who has followed Vietnam's gaming industry for over a decade, I notice that the gacha model is gradually influencing how Vietnamese people think about value in games. Previously, when buying a single-player game, players knew exactly how much they were paying to receive how much content. But with gacha, value becomes vague — you might spend 200,000 VND or 2 million VND for the same character, depending on luck. And in a context where many Vietnamese families are still hesitant about gaming expenses, this uncertainty can become a financial burden for young players who lack spending control. Nevertheless, I don't think the gacha system is entirely negative. In a market where many players cannot afford AAA games at 60-70 dollars, the free-to-play model combined with gacha has opened opportunities for millions to access content. Not everyone needs every character; many players can complete games with only free characters or 4-star characters. The issue lies in how thin the line is between "voluntary spending" and "encouraged spending" in this system. When I sit back and reflect on the whole picture, one thing becomes clear: the story of gacha is not just a story about video games. It is a story about how technology can create new power structures, where the rule-maker is also the primary beneficiary of those rules. And in a society where more and more of our activities are digitized, the question of how we — as consumers — can demand more transparency and fairness from the platforms we use will become increasingly urgent. Each banner pull is a small decision. But collectively, these small decisions build an ecosystem where the publisher has total control, and players — though seemingly free — are actually moving within a pre-designed space.