Glossary

A featured-item guarantee in which each non-guaranteed top-rarity result has a 50% chance of being the featured character, and a loss makes the next top-rarity result guaranteed.

A gacha pool, usually time-limited, that features specific characters or items at boosted rates; the basic scheduling unit of a gacha game's release calendar.

A limited-time crossover between a gacha game and an external franchise, usually run on a separate banner with its own pity pool and permanently exclusive characters.

The mechanic that converts duplicate copies of a gacha character into upgrades, such as Constellations or Eidolons, typically capping at six extra copies.

The permanent shutdown of a live-service game's servers, after which purchased gacha characters and currency typically become inaccessible.

A business model in which the game itself is free and revenue comes from optional in-game purchases; in gacha communities, also the identity of players who spend nothing.

A monetization mechanic in which players spend in-game or real currency on randomized draws for characters, weapons, or items, named after Japanese capsule-toy vending machines.

A video game, usually free-to-play, whose character acquisition and monetization revolve around randomized gacha draws presented through rotating banners.

Japanese capsule-toy vending machines in which a coin and a crank turn dispense a random toy in a plastic capsule; the physical ancestor and namesake of digital gacha.

A gacha variant, banned in Japan in 2012, in which completing a set of randomly drawn items granted a rarer prize, ruled an illegal "card matching" scheme under Japanese premiums law.

A purchasable in-game container or draw with randomized contents; the umbrella term regulators use, under which gacha mechanics fall.

A top-rarity gacha result that is not the banner's featured item; called a spook in some communities. Systems differ on whether it grants any protection toward the featured item.

A gacha mechanic that limits how unlucky a player can get, either by guaranteeing a top-rarity result at a fixed pull count (hard pity), by raising the rate after a dry streak (soft pity or escalation), or both.

The gradual process by which newer gacha releases outclass older characters, pushing players to keep pulling to stay current.

The in-game currency that buys gacha pulls, purchasable with real money and usually also earnable slowly through play, such as Primogems or Saint Quartz.

The publication of a gacha's draw probabilities, whether voluntarily, under platform rules, or by law as in China (2017) and South Korea (2024).

The boosted draw probability assigned to a banner's featured items, carved out of the overall top-rarity rate rather than added to it.

A repeat run of a previously featured limited gacha banner, giving players another bounded window to obtain a character they missed.

A gacha exchange ceiling in which every pull grants a token and a fixed token count, classically 300, can be exchanged for a chosen item from the banner, capping the worst-case cost.

A player who spends large amounts of money in a gacha game; lighter spenders are called dolphins and minnows, and non-spenders free-to-play.