Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-34368958-20190510023202/@comment-31661832-20190514220301

Gachas don't have a per card cost, but rather a constant server and operation cost. Trading cards are printed and that's the end of it. Gacha players are technically racking up bills every time they log in. But both printing of trading cards and server costs are miniscule compared to compensating the artists/developers that are churning out more and more. There are likely hundreds of Bandai employees involved with Dokkan, all of whom need liveable wages for every hour they work. For example, if that liveable wage is $20 (probably low for most), Bandai could be paying upwards of $100k in Dokkan wages a week. Each pack of 91 stones sold might only pay for 2 hours of one employee's time. It's very hard to estimate how many packs of DS Dokkan sells a week since it depends on the banners, but I doubt any more than 5% of the total player base actually pays on a week to week basis.

All that being said, Dragon Stones are too expensive imo. It is extremely easy to binge spend because a single character can cost hundreds of dollars. Bandai isn't legally culpable for that though, because ultimately it's the player's choice to overpay. Bandai makes the only "supply" of Dragon Stones, but ultimately players make the demand. Bandai (or any company for that matter) is gonna charge as much as they can get away with, and you can't blame a business for wanting as much profit as possible. I'd prefer that they invest the extra back into the game, but that's outside of our control as players.

What is more of a concern is that Dokkan, gachas, and online shopping as a whole are making binge spending easier for everyone, children included. Children need to learn financial responsibility at a much younger age, rather than it being an afterthought when they enter high school. But this is America, so rather than fixing the broken education system they'll likely just end up restricting gachas, loot boxes, gaming, online shopping, and anything else to compensate for poor personal discipline. "Land of the Free (so long as my neighbors aren't idiots)" as I always say.