Gachapon Transparency, Age Restrictions, and Regulatory Compliance: Comparing Mainland China and Japan

Le résumé fourni par la source

Gachapon, also known as gachapon, is a type of vending machine that sells random capsule toys. A similar monetization approach, called gacha (also known as “loot boxes”), allows players to spend real-world money to obtain randomized virtual items and has become prevalent in mobile games worldwide. Comparable mechanisms in physical products, such as blind boxes and card packs, have also raised concerns about their gambling-like characteristics due to the randomized outcomes. However, despite the long history and wide diffusion of gachapon, empirical studies on their product characteristics and the transparency of information disclosure remain limited, particularly in different regulatory contexts This study explores the transparency and regulatory compliance of gachapon in Mainland China and Japan. We first take photos of the information posters displayed on all the gachapon machines at an official Bandai shop in Shenzhen, China. We then retrieve corresponding original Japanese posters from Bandai’s official website and construct a dataset of 100 paired Chinese and Japanese posters from the same gachapon series. Our analysis focuses mainly on the age rating, production distribution (or probability disclosure) of rarity, the virtual presentations of items, and the accuracy of descriptions. We also intend to conduct exploratory analyses on other relevant aspects of gachapon presentation and marketing that emerge from the data. In addition, we collect 50 photos of gachapon posters from physical shops of other non-Bandai brands in Shenzhen to assess their information disclosure and compare them with Bandai’s.

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