Everyone eventually succumbs to the allure of Gacha games.

For some, it was the 'Genshin Impact' from the previous year. It was the new pinball RPG 'World Flipper' for me.

"Everyone is just waiting for the gacha crafted particularly for them," a Twitter user said, and I've spent the last week thinking about it and the evil vibe that surrounds it.

Gacha games are similar to packs of Magic: The Gathering or sports cards, or the "blind box" toys found on Target's shelves. They cover a wide range of genres and mechanics, but they're all based on "gacha" vending machines, which offer little, random toys and trinkets.

2020's Breath of the Wild-inspired Genshin Impact was the gacha game that drew in a lot of new players. World Flipper, a pinball RPG that got its "global release" this week, appears to be the gacha game for me. (Mobile games are regularly released in different parts of the world for a limited time before being pushed out to the rest of the world.) In this scenario, World Flipper was first released in Japan in December of 2019, over two years ago.)

By "a lot of people," I mean friends, family, and coworkers, the majority of whom live in the United States, where mobile games are popular but the "gacha" subgenre is not. Gacha games have always piqued my interest because they appear to be time and money sinks. I don't have time, and I despise spending money! But I'm also a reporter whose job is to be inquisitive about all games, and pretending I'm above games like this feels like a dangerous dance of ignorance. Despite the reasonable hand-wringing over the economics driving their design, millions of people enjoy these games.

"We also rarely consider the overlap between earlier eras in games and now," said Dr. Christopher Paul, a communications and media professor at Seattle University who wrote the book Free-to-Play: Mobile Video Games, Bias, and Norms last year. "Arcade games have a lot in common with free-to-play games in a lot of ways (think pay a quarter for your health in Gauntlet). I also believe that some of it has to do with people's views and platform superiority. The people who participate in these games are diverse. More females. There are more people in Asia than in Japan and Korea. There will be more phones and less Master Race on the PC."

In World Flipper, players "pull" randomised characters that fall into star tiers—the first being the worst, and the fifth being the best—much like a slot machine. As you flip those figures across the stunning pixel-built boards, their abilities play off one another in exciting combinations. Playing earns you points for free pulls (more if you win), but you may also pay for more pulls. A "stamina" metre is also included in the game, which is depleted just by playing.

Every game board costs stamina, and when you run out, you have three options: A) use one of your small pool of potions to immediately refill it, B) pay money to keep playing, or C) set the phone down and wait for a push notice hours later that your stamina has been refilled.

With flashing lights and pulsating chiptune music, the game orgasmically honours four-star personalities. With five-star characters, the game switches to a pachinko-style screen, implying that it has pulled a four-star character, but if the bouncing pachinko ball strikes a glowing star, it will transform into a top-tier five-star figure. Even though I know this moment is programmed nonsense and the entire sequence is pre-determined by the game's algorithm ahead of time, I'm on the edge of my seat every time. But that makes no difference to me because I'm here for the drama. Based on the fall of that bouncing ball, I scream in agony or joy, and then it all clicks and I understand.

I sent screenshots to my buddies every time a five-star flashed on my phone. But, more importantly, I never did what's known as "rerolling," in which players wipe their data and retry the game's algorithm in the hopes of better luck, because having a superior starting squad allows you to avoid the grind and payment walls for a bit longer.

In some countries, earlier versions of World Flipper made this process simple, requiring only a few touches. However, the version that went out to a lot more people this week makes it a nuisance, as it requires completely deleting the programme and then dealing with a multi-GB download when reinstalling it.

I have no notion how good, bad, amazing, or terrible my pulls were. But I also knew that things like re-rolling and fretting about a random pull allowing you to continue playing were exactly why I'd avoided these games in the first place. I don't mind unpredictability, but I don't enjoy it when my time is squandered. I kept with the original pulls, and everything was good after four hours. But I've heard I'm going to hit a tough patch, so we'll see!

Gacha games appear to both complement and contradict the way I play games. As a parent who no longer stays up late and spends the most of their time on the couch with a Switch while one child is outside playing and the other is napping, the idea of a game in my pocket that's structured around micro sessions throughout the day appeals to me. But, once again, there's the issue of money.

"Monetization is a touchy subject for most gamers because the majority have grown up with single transactions for a holistic experience," said Borkono Gaming, a YouTuber who specialised in gacha videos. "Traditional single-transaction games and gacha games with many purchases, in my opinion, are both contingent on how a person interprets experiences in general. Microtransactions are regarded as exploitative because they induce people to lose their sense of financial worth. Purchasing $3 dollars is straightforward at first, then purchases become increasingly aggressive as if you've unlocked the Pandora's box of video game spending."

Gacha games, on the other hand, cater to our collective desire to gather everything in a video game. Players are urged to provide 100 percent in more "traditional games," a notion that is becoming increasingly illogical as time goes on. Trophies and in-game tools aggressively encourage and aid players in seeing and doing everything. But with gacha, rarity is the rule, not the exception, and you will never see or do everything.

"In 'conventional' games, there's a great strain of gotta gather them all/meritocracy," Paul added. "That isn't how most gacha games work. Unless you want to back up the Brinks truck, you're not supposed to acquire everything. Not only will your pocketbook help you earn more, but so will your time and skill."

In World Flipper, there's no way I'll ever become a whale. The question is how much the game's economic push and pull will push me into a corner, despite my initial and developing affection for how it plays. World Flipper is a blast, with enough mechanically complex hooks—infinite pairings of abilities, air dashing mid-flight to nail an enemy's weak point—that I'm returning without hesitation every morning (gotta get the daily quests) and every evening (perfect pairing to grind while the latest Ted Lasso is on).

I've had a lot of fun pitting myself against bosses that are plainly higher level than me and squeaking by with the correct combo of special powers and precision striking. Perhaps, ultimately, that won't be possible, and I'll have to resort to using the game's "auto fight" feature, in which the game plays the game for you, just to test my luck against the algorithm. World Flipper and I will part ways at that moment.

But I'm not there yet, and in the year of our pinball lord 2021, I can confidently state that I am liking a gacha game because the gacha built specifically for me appeared.