Thing mostly used in games where you pay real money to be able to randomly obtain set of digital items. You often don't get the thing you want. It's also worse

Thing mostly used in games where you pay real money to be able to randomly obtain set of digital items. You often don't get the thing you want. It's also worse than gambling as you can't sell or trade the thing you got for real money again. Also known as gacha in eastern countries (origins from gachapon). The games usually use dark patterns to lure people into doing the gambling to get over obstacle faster, or getting the milestone the player wants faster, by having a really long time consuming task otherwise. Before lootboxes, in west these kind of things were offered as micropurchases, but gacha popularized the more toxic approach. Another dark pattern is that, you have to first purchase digital currency before you can roll for a gacha. However, the amounts you can purchase are set amount and you usually will have some left over currency left after all the gacha rolls, and can't use that leftover for anything else. It's there only to make it feel like next time it will be a "bit more cheaper". Gacha games nowadays are very popular with young and adults alike and make millions. We live in a weird world huh?