Free-to-play Sonic Rumble won’t have gacha mechanics because the west doesn’t like them

Sega has confirmed that Sonic Rumble won’t have any gacha or play-to-win mechanics when it’s released this winter, because they’re not popular in the west.

In an interview with Automaton, the game’s director Makoto Tase and Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka stated that the game won’t feature gacha mechanics, where players pay money to obtain randomly selected items (similar to a capsule machine).

According to Iizuka, this decision was made purely to appease western audiences, because Japanese players would have had no issue with gacha mechanics.

“In the Japanese and Asian markets, it’s common to have to spend tens of thousands of yen [in a game] until you draw a rare character and finally get to move on,” he explained.

“But this is not the case in the global market, especially for an action game like Sonic Rumble, where players should be able to enjoy the game on an equal footing.

“The starting point of this project itself was to make it a mobile game that would sell globally. Therefore, the monetisation model was designed from the beginning based on global standards.”

Tase added: “Monetisation models that use gacha mechanics have not been very successful when it comes to games targeted towards worldwide audiences of all ages. Also, such mechanics tend to be shunned overseas, so we didn’t think it was the right choice for this project.”

Instead, the game will feature a Season Pass structure, which will mostly revolve around character skins and emotes, as well as a daily updating Ring Shop where players will be able to exchange rings (earned through gameplay or purchased with real money) for cosmetic items.

The multiplayer party game, which sees up to 32 players players taking control of toy versions of Sonic characters, was originally revealed in May for iOS and Android.

During the fourth annual Sonic Central presentation last month, however, Sega confirmed that Sonic Rumble is also coming to PC.