Social communities in gacha gaming and adolescent problem gambling risk: a mixed methods study

Gacha games are free-to-play mobile games featuring randomized-reward mechanics to acquire characters and items. These games have grown into a multi-billion-dollar global industry, yet their relationship with adolescent problem gambling remains largely unstudied.

This mixed methods study examined the extent to which gacha game spending predicts problem gambling severity among adolescents (RQ1) and how social gacha game communities influence spending behavior (RQ2). A survey of 265 adolescent gacha players recruited from online gacha gaming communities on Reddit used the DSM-IV-Multiple Response-Juvenile (DSM-IV-MR-J) to measure problem gambling severity alongside gacha spending, traditional gambling participation, and demographic covariates. Thematic analysis was conducted on 77 open-ended survey responses and 20 follow-up interviews.

Three quantitative analyses (Spearman's rank correlation, Mann-Whitney U test, and Firth's penalized logistic regression) found no significant relationship between gacha spending and problem gambling severity, contrasting with prior loot box research reporting significant associations. Given the low prevalence of at-risk and problem gambling in the sample, this finding should be interpreted as preliminary. Qualitative findings revealed that while social communities can amplify spending through fear of missing out (FOMO), normalization, and competitive pressure, community discouragement of spending and free-to-play (F2P) identity emerged as meaningful counterweights, reported by 13 out of 20 interview participants.

These findings raise the possibility of heterogeneous pathways among adolescent gacha players, in which some experience gacha spending as fandom-oriented and socially regulated, while others remain vulnerable to community dynamics that amplify risk. Given gacha's rapidly growing global market and the varied international regulatory responses it has received, understanding how spending behavior and community dynamics shape adolescent gambling-related risk holds increasing real-world relevance.