Just a ramble

Some people don't accept gacha otome games, but the genre is genuinely huge, and that doesn't make it inferior. There's nothing wrong with spending money on gacha games, either. In fact, a lot of gacha games are really high quality. The mainstream buy-to-play otome games are made by Otomate, and their stories aren't necessarily all that great. When it comes to sexy content, Chinese gacha games definitely can't go too far, but gameplay-wise, gacha games are more fun. The exception is Koei's otome games—though even Koei has jumped into gacha, which proves gacha is what capital and the market have chosen. Ordinary buy-to-play otome games don't get much investment, and the ones that did get big investment never went anywhere—like Capcom's Toraware no Palm series and Konami's Girl's Side. One good thing about gacha games is that you can openly play for free and no one gives you crap, whereas with buy-to-play games, if you don't pay, people will accuse you of freeloading or buying pirated copies.

 

[Hinakochan]

Some people don't accept gacha otome games, but the genre is genuinely huge, and that doesn't make it inferior. There's nothing wrong with spending money on gacha games, either. In fact, a lot of gacha games are really high quality. The mainstream buy-to-play otome games are made by Otomate, and their stories aren't necessarily all that great. When it comes to sexy content, Chinese gacha games definitely can't go too far, but gameplay-wise, gacha games are more fun. The exception is Koei's otome games—though even Koei has jumped into gacha, which proves gacha is what capital and the market have chosen. Ordinary buy-to-play otome games don't get much investment, and the ones that did get big investment never went anywhere—like Capcom's Toraware no Palm series and Konami's Girl's Side. One good thing about gacha games is that you can openly play for free and no one gives you crap, whereas with buy-to-play games, if you don't pay, people will accuse you of freeloading or buying pirated copies.

I totally get what you say but I have to disagree a bit. Free gacha otomes are nice for people who want to play for free and have no means to buy at all and can't get free copies. I used to play free mobile otome games for years when I was in middle school, the ones with 5 tickets per days lol.
But the thing is the base game is free yes, but it's inherently pay to win. For the 5 tickets per day type game, I was never able to get the best ending, only got normal ones as you had to pay for better clothes, some cgs were locked behind paid diamond clothes.
The last gacha I played wasn't so much better in that case (love and deepspace) but at least the paid contents are entirely skippable and not really important to the story, except for the myths cards but they are easily obtainable for free. My issue is that the companies focus on milking the players. I stopped playing Love and deepspace because of that. And I was not free to play at all, I put like 1000 dollars in that game. They only really release gacha pulls and events but rarely updated the main story. I was happy with what I got with the money I paid, I wasn't forced to buy so I won't blame them for that, even though it gets quite expensive for a single limited 5 stars card.
Also Gacha aren't necessarily funnier to play. It's subjective of course, but the thing is that gacha works like gamble, because in the end that's what it is. It's just playing on dopamine and Companies know that. And I think most otome game players, don't really care about the gameplay aspect tbh. We're mostly here for the story, cgs and if it's voiced for the voices too. I personnally treat my otome games like romance novels but with choices and visuals and sounds.

The reason we complain is because even if we pay we can't get the story and as for the 5 tickets per day type games, it's even worse. Most of the games I used to play and love are now complete lost media and their ToS made it unable for us as a playerbase to record and upload on internet for other people. And the thing is we will never be able to play or watch it again.

I think some people might be elitist and think gacha otomes are bad because it's "mainstream" (Only love and deepspace because it used to male lots and lots of money) and bad quality. But the reality is that most of us just don't like how greedy companies are and anti-consumer. It's not something inherent to otome games, it's just because we live in a capitalist society. Every companies want to make profit to a point that it's completely indecent. Bought games are not owned anymore and you could have your games removed from you just because. Xbox want to implement ads in games you bought. I think we people are just tired because rich people get richer and poor, poorer.

And yeah once again it's all tied down to politics because it's just how it is.
The young me love playing mobile otome games but felt sad not being able to fully experience the story and the adult me just feels sad because now that I can pay I cannot most of the games I liked became lost media. I think that's also something that prevents people for putting money into the games and criticize it. We put money into something that we don't know how long it will last.

I'm sorry for the big answer and yap lol. I hope I was able to share my thoughts clearly. As someone who has been playing otomes for more than 10 years now (omg) and experienced both free mobile otomes and paid console otomes, I hope my experience and thoughts on this matter will be relevant lol. I can't wait to see what you think of my answer!