Gacha Game - Wikipedia

Due to the randomized nature of gacha games, many original gachas are often strategy games or feature elements of strong strategy considerations, encouraging the player to improvise their own solution to problems while also being attentive about new additions to the roster of obtainable characters/items that can add more flexibility to a player's strategy in late/post-game modes such as boss raids and tower-styled challenge rooms.

In many older games, gacha rewards are essential for players to make progress in the game, although certain newer gacha games allow for more flexibility on progression through core content.[6] While players can earn the "premium" currency during gameplay, it is available in controlled amounts at the developer's discretion, with holidays and special events usually boosting the amounts given.

Banners are "pools" of available items (characters, loot, cards, etc) that players can "roll" on. Offered banners can be perpetually available or can have a limited duration. Games generally have some of both, with player retention efforts and in-game advertising in some games emphasizing the limited availability of some or all of the items in the latter. Many kinds of virtual items can be in the loot table for a banner. Gameplay units such as cards, characters, equippable gear, or more abstract loot such as "experience" are all possible. Sometimes, these banners are limited, such that specific prizes can only be obtained within a specific event time-frame.[3] Sometimes, games lift the limited status of certain items to be "commons" or even free, but this is not seen often.

Stamina is a resource that is required for, and consumed by, core in-game actions such as engaging with the game, like beginning combat encounters in a fighting-oriented game. It regenerates over time, often only up to a cap. It can typically be regenerated or gained instantly through some form of currency spending, either premium microtransaction or earned in game. The name for this resource is usually different on a per-game basis, but stamina is typically the general term used for this type of currency in general across games. Stamina is not always treated as the basis of progression, sometimes only being required for side content. Other times, Stamina burnt is often translated into experience points for an player's entire account in more quick, casual oriented games. In more competitive games such as online trading card games or non-live service RPG games such as Xenoblade 2, they are generally not used for play.

Some gacha games often feature several in-game currencies with intricate conversion methods, obscuring the actual value of non-premium currencies. In some games, players are generally given free or discounted gachas in low amounts on a regular schedule, in exchange for logging in or doing in-game tasks.

Because of the nature of the player-developer relationship, the free to play experience is often a case-by-case basis dependant on a developer's attitude towards the development of their game and their player base as well as how well they implement luck mitigation mechanics such as sparking systems that allow the player to obtain the item within a limit, which are also case-by-case implementations of reliability and frequency, assuming they are implemented at all.