I would really like to hear from SL merchants regarding income from gacha vs just selling items. But based on my experience running a gaming place for a couple of years, skill games, gambling, whatever you want to call it are extremely popular among a subset of people. They enjoy the excitement and they play over and over again. Gacha provides the same thrill. I therefore suspect that selling via the gacha format is VASTLY more profitable -- but I would love to see evidence to back up or refute my hypothesis.
Anybody can make a new item and sell it. It’s hard to create buzz around new release items, unless they are in an event. Hence the popularity of events in general, but making those events gacha amps up interest even more. Gacha creates artificial scarcity and that’s going to make people buy things even if they are not sure they actually want them.
Nothing in SL is a "need" per se, but most gacha items are cute rather than useful. For example, if you’re like me you can’t help but want the adorable little animals in many of the machines, but how many of them from two or three years ago do you have out on your land? They're collectibles to buy just to have them, and chances are you'll forget about them a few weeks later. This category of shopping didn't really exist before gacha, because there was no "collect them all" concept -- except with breedables, which are also highly profitable and also gambling-adjacent. Are you seeing a pattern here? People love taking chances on things, and at least with gacha you always get something for your money.
I very rarely play gacha machines, in fact I chose to stop playing them because I found I was spending large amounts of money compared to what I would have otherwise. I now only play at charity events and if I want anything else I find it on the marketplace. I can’t stand the machines that make you collect pieces of an outfit, and then sometimes they’re not even for the body type you have etc. I wouldn’t say they are a scourge, however, because they are probably the main thing keeping the SL economy going. They seem like one of the only ways to make significant real life income from SL these days, especially for someone who is newer to the platform.
When LL nerfed skill gaming it hurt the economy and put the gaming income that remains in the hands of only a few people, who mostly cash it out. That reduced the contributions of people with smaller game places who wanted to also be part of the community, who gave some of their earnings back through hiring musicians and DJs, running RP sims, shopping etc. If gacha went away I think the consequences would be even more severe at this point. I understand hating on gacha, but as far as banning it, be careful what you wish for because SL is a shrinking platform and longtime merchants are already tired of LL wrecking every viable business model available to us. Many would just throw in the towel and that is not good for the future viability of SL.
