Hi all,
Two weeks ago, The Boys published their video on gacha games. This inspired me to conduct a survey on this subreddit on your thoughts and experiences with gacha games. Thanks to your support, there is a lot of data to sift through and a lot of interesting results so far. Due to IRL deadlines, I wasn't able to examine the data in full capacity, so I will be posting results in two or more sections.
This first section will primarily deal with the surface-level headline data. I will also cover some of the reasonings and inner workings of what went into the survey and results (for those interested in the data scientist portions of things). A subsequent post/posts in the near future will cover topics I wasn't able to get to as well as more technical analysis of the data (regression, model-building, etc.)
These posts will be presented in a semi-formal fashion, i.e., I'll lay out the posts like a research paper but I'll add personal interjections from time to time. (If you want to really get into the meat and potatoes, you can just skip to the "Results and Discussion" section.) With that said, allow me to introduce my initial findings:

Our Trash Taste in Gacha Games: An Informal Community Survey Analysis on the Nature of TrashTaste's Experience Regarding Gacha Games

Abstract
The recent rise of "gacha games" has been bolstered by a number of intersecting trends. These include the mass popularity of anime or anime-like products, the increasing ubiquity of smartphones, and introduction of lootboxing mechanics by game publishers as a means of profiting off "free to play" or "freemium" games in the digital sphere. A recent episode from the anime-centric podcast "Trash Taste" explored their experiences and opinions regarding such games. This post intends to further explore the general sentiment of gacha games through the podcast's official subreddit, TrashTaste, and discuss the results.
Motivation
A little bit about my background. Anime, anime-like products, and manga have been a huge part in my life. I remember watching Detective Conan, Pokemon, and Keroro Gunso and being introduced to Gundam and MapleStory when I was young. Since it seems to be a trend on this subreddit, I'll throw my hat in the ring and show my 3x3:
[If you want further discussion about these and other related series, feel free to comment below or DM me]
From left to right, up to down: Ah! My Goddess, Hayate the Combat Butler , The World God Only Knows, Carnival Phantasm (+ Fate franchise), Pastel, Q.E.D.: Shoumei Shuuryou, Yandere Kanojo, Accomplishments of the Duke's Daughter, The Gamer
As I mentioned in my first post about the survey, I am a graduate student working on my masters for data science. I also completed a bachelors in economics. All of this combined made me not only interested in gacha games as an avid consumer, but also as a research subject. The Boys simply were the catalyst for spurring this project.
Data Collection and Survey Construction
Data was collected via Google Forms on the TrashTaste subreddit. The post that contained the survey was released several hours after the video was posted. Survey responses were collected for a period of 1 week from January 22 to January 28 (though there was a massive decrease in the rate of respondents after the fourth day).
The survey was constructed based on my own experiences with gacha games as well as general demographics that would be useful to examine on a macro scale.
Regarding demographics: asking respondents on several aspects of demographics is a tricky subject since not only does it mean divulging a group of variables known as protected classes, these could be markers that could reidentify anonymized people; thus, I stuck to "safer" questions (age and gender). I then asked which otaku material was preferred.
The next set of questions dealt with those who were currently playing gacha games. I asked the number of currently played games, which ones (with an open-ended aspect since I knew I would miss some) and the top 3 games.
For each of the top 3 games, I asked how long they have played, which server, how long the game was around, how consistent did they play, how far they were, their current level of commitment, how much they spent (open-ended), spending title, whether the game had PVP, hype moments (some open-ended), and why they play (some open-ended).
Finally, based on the central theme of The Boys' video, I asked whether games should be regulated and what their policy recommendation would be (open-ended).
Limitations and Oversights
This survey is, obviously, limited by the research environment and my experiences. Academic papers have pondered about the effectiveness regarding survey reliability using subreddits, which may be interesting and impactful from a statistically-minded formal research. In addition, there were a total of 678 respondents which, while certainly plenty in any regular volunteer statistical number crunching, pales in comparison to the 104K members in this subreddit alone; this is going to affect the power analysis of these results. Submitting the survey hours after the video was posted (when the user activity likely peaks) likely limited user exposure. Therefore, this post will be much closer to the next video.
Then there are questions I didn't ask due to oversight on my part - I'm only human.

1. The biggest oversight, pointed out by u/Mareek, was

Welp I answered that I don't play any gatcha games, but it didn't give me a chance to say why I don't play them or if I played any before.
There should at least be a question for why/why not play them.

I probably would have asked something like:

If you responded "no," why do you not play gacha games?
- Not interested
- Not trying to get addicted
- Trying to stop gambling addiction
- Bad luck/greed sensor
- Used to play, but lost interest

2) As pointed out by u/Paoda and u/gzavwunt, I forgot to add visual novels into the "primary source of otaku source material" question! As a Fate fan, this was a massive oversight I regret (don't worry, I did at least watch the full visual novel playthroughs of Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Hollow Ataraxia).
3) There were a few questions that were open-ended that in hindsight definitely backfired. The biggest ones were the "how long has the game lasted" ( u/ShinyMilo ) and "how much you spent" questions. They are a mess to deal with, even with all the regex expressions I know, so I ultimately had to throw them out. The former in the end was merely a curiosity and the latter was somewhat salvaged by the "spending title" questions, so I'm not too bothered by it, but something I'll keep in mind in the future.
Results and Discussion
Here are the initial results, and I think there's some interesting trends we can look at.
First, let's look at the demographics.

1. Let's start with age distribution:

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Figure 1
There were 678 respondents. There appears to be a considerable right skew (aka a skew towards a younger audience). There are a lot of zoomers among the respondents, though there are a considerable number of millennials as well.
2) Next, take a look at gender distribution:
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Figure 2. Male: 87%, Female: 9.3%, Nonbinary: 1%, Prefer not to say: 2.7%
Well, somewhat not surprisingly, of the 678 respondents, an overwhelming 87% identified as males. Connor as "the 93%"? More like the survey as "the 9.3%."
3) For the final aspect of demographics, let's look at the distribution of answers for "What is your preferred consumption of otaku source material?"
Figure 3. (to the nearest tenth of a percent) Anime and Manga Equally: 33.8%, Anime: 32.4%, Manga: 16.7%, Anime, Manga, and Light Novel Equally: 9.7%, Manga and Light Novel Equally: 4.1%, Anime and Light Novel Equally: 2.2%, Light Novel: 1.0%
Of the 678, respondents, 32.4% prefer to watch anime, 16.7% prefer to read manga, and 33.8% prefer to consume anime and manga equally. Light novel readers (either as the preferred choice or read it equally with other mediums) amount to about 17%.
Hot take here: I am one of the 16.7% that prefer to read manga/manhwa (pitchforks in the comments), but only because there are so many series that I like that either have only become adapted recently (Horimiya, HameFura) or haven't been adapted yet (Shuumatsu no Valkyrie).
Next, let's look at gacha by the numbers.

1. First, let's look at the number of gacha games people play:

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Figure 4
Of the 678 respondents, 232 did not currently play and gacha games, 194 did currently play 1 game, 117 did currently play 2 games, and so forth. The most surprising finding was that there are a few people that currently play at least 10 games, with one even playing 17!
2) Next, let's look at the top 20 games that were the favorite, second favorite, third favorite, and overall most popular:

"...Yet in most companies, the so-called “80/20 rule” applies: 80 percent of a data scientist’s valuable time is spent simply finding, cleansing, and organizing data, leaving only 20 percent to actually perform analysis." - IBM

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Figure 5
Holy cow, the quote above really hit for this particular question. There were about 75 replacements I had to do to make the game title uniform, with 15 related to Princess Connect alone!
As for the analysis: you read that correctly. There are a whopping 103 total gacha game titles that the 446 respondents play. Genshin Impact comes as the clear frontrunner for the most favorite game, second-most favorite game, third-most favorite game, and overall most popular game. However, the top 5 games in each category are the same: Genshin Impact, Fate/Grand Order, Arknights, Azur Lane, and Fire Emblem Heroes.
Garnt is certainly attracting his Fate peers here, including me.
As a side note, I have to give props to respondents who were honest about their stances. There were a few that put 'H***** Gacha Game,' 'Taimanin,' and 'AGA' (Anti-Gacha Army).
3) Next, let's look at the distribution of how each person categorizes themselves terms of spending:
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Figure 6
This is a very interesting finding. For their most favorite game, about half of the respondents were free to play, a third were minnows, about a sixth were dolphins, and the small bit left were whales. As we move towards less favored games, the number of F2Pers increase and the number of whales decrease until there's none left for the third-most favorite game. It's an important lesson for natural resources and gacha game publishers alike: overfishing can lead to less species diversity.
As an aside, I am personally a dolphin for Fate GO. I have no qualms sharing that I spend some cash rolling for (ironically) Gilgamesh and NP5ing Sheba during Gilfest 2018 or even spending some New Year's allowance on Spishtar last month. fite me
4) Next, let's look at what aspects made the gacha game most "hype:"
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Figure 7
The top answer was the introduction of new characters, anniversary events, and animation/art. It seems that many go for the "Anni is the Planni" strategy.
5) Next, let's look at the reasons why respondents play or continue to play their gacha game(s) [Note: I aggregated the numbers from favorite/second favorite/third favorite, so some users are double or triple counted, so numbers may look a little inflated. I will work on this for a future post]:
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Figure 8. Top 15 answers.
The top answer for why respondents play or continue to play their gacha game was for "the waifus/husbandos" followed by "I enjoy this as a standalone game" and "I love the source material." The 114 of you who chose "Because jokes are the deepest lore," I see you Fate fans.
Probably the most interesting and concerning reasons that were not shown here are the sizable number of people who responded with either learned helplessness of their situation or frustration with the gacha-industry complex. These include "Sunk cost fallacy" (shown on the graph), frustration over rerolling, feeling like it's "a second job," stating that they're "addicted and can't quit," or flat out "dunno, it's kina there."
The Future of Gacha Games
Learning about these trends are good and all, but how do we consolidate these opinions into actionable thoughts? This is where the last half of The Boys' video about what to do comes in. Here's the community's reaction.

1. First, it was asked "In your opinion, should gacha games be regulated?" 678 respondents responded:

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Figure 9
83.8% of respondents said "Yes," 5% said "No,", and 11.2% said they need to do more research to come a conclusion.
2) Finally, I asked respondents an open-ended optional question that "If you could have a serious discussion about gacha games with a gacha game developer or lawmaker, what is the one policy recommendation you would suggest?"
Surprisingly, 473 people responded to the question. In the given timeframe, I could not read through all of the suggestions made; I will make sure to point out the most salient ones in the next post. In lieu of this, I decided to resort to a "quick and dirty trick" in natural language processing: n-grams! Simply put, I first removed common stopwords such as "you," "have", etc., and tokenized each response (i.e. separated each response into a list of word "units"). I then counted the frequency that each set of consecutive words appeared in each response. I counted frequency of the top 20 unigrams (one word), bigrams (2 words) and trigrams (3 words). Here is the result:
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Table 1
This is incredible stuff. The top two unigrams are "limit" and "spending," and other frequent unigrams include "gambling," "amount," and "time." Bigrams tell a broader story, with the top bigram being "(spending, limit)." There are other bigrams that expand upon policy recommendations such as "(hard, limit)", "(gambling, addiction)", "(drop, rates)," and "(pity, system)." Finally, looking at trigrams, we get an even fuller picture: the top trigram is "(limit, much, spend)." Other prominent trigrams include "(hard, limit, spending)," "(thing, connor, said)," and "(treat, like, gambling)."
While the suggestions of limiting spending are quite frequent (following the footsteps of Connor), this is a fairly well-researched topic in the realm of behavioral economics. In particular, it looks at the encompassing topic of intertemporal choice. This is a pretty complex and field-specific topic that is too long to discuss in entirety in this post, but I'll boil down the critical points relevant to gacha games. [WARNING: some math ahead]
First, say that you have a set budget that you're going to spend over several periods of time. When we spend money in a time period, get gain joyfulness (called "utility" or simply "U") at that time period.
Second, we typically discount the amount of utility we get in the future. We usually assign this as a set rate called the discount factor ( δ ) . Thus, we get the following equation:

∑ (U_t) * (δ^t-1) = U_1 + δU_2 + δ²U_3 + ... + δ^{T-1 \}) U_T

This simply means the total utility we get over a time period is the sum of all utilities of all periods based on today. All the above is considered in "classical economics" as exponential discounting. This assumes that

• people have a constant discount factor and are impatient (δ < 1),
• that people treat amounts as "bursts" of consumption," and
• that utility is linear in amount.

However, economists that study behavioral economics show that some of these assumptions are flawed through though experiments and empirical results.
One way this has manifested into policy action is the concept of "nudge theory" by Richard Thaler. This suggests that consumer behavior can be influenced by small suggestions and positive reinforcements; the argument is that it reduces market failure and encourages desirable actions. However, this is hotly debated ethically as being paternalistic and may not even work.
Another theory brought about via behavioral economics is the idea of "present-bias preferences" by Ted O'Donoghue and Matthew Rabin. The idea is that when people consider tradeoffs between two future moments, present bias gives more weight to the earlier future moment. In this scenario, we have two types of people: naifs and sophisticates. Sophisticates know that they'll have self-control problems in the future, so they plan ahead while naifs do not see the self-control problems. Depending on if there is a cost or a reward, these two types of people will "cave in" at different times.
In general, the utility function (called β-δ preferences) is as follows:

For all t, U^t (u_t, u_(t+1),...,u_T) = δ^t u_t + β ∑ δ^τ + u_τ |t+1 < τ < T
where 0 < β, δ <= 1
β is the present bias, and β=1 makes equation exponential discounting.

How do these relate to gacha games? Well, the former (nudging) is like the third party (iTunes store, Google Play) directly intervening on your behalf saying that you can only spend so-and-so this month. The latter (present bias) puts the self-imposed limit in your own hands, which a third party adds as a restriction.
Consider these aspects in future discussions regarding regulations surrounding gacha games.
[it's been a year since I've been fully immersed in this stuff, so econ folks please check if the explanations are suitable]
Ending Remarks
I hope these initial results illustrated some fascinating aspects of how our subreddit has viewed gacha games. I know that there are a few questions that I haven't covered here due to lack of time, so look forward the next part of the survey results!
Let me know if there are specific statistical analyses you would like for me to examine in the comments.
If you want to put friend requests for the gacha games I'm playing [Fate GO (JP), OPTC (JP) Dokkan (GBL)], DM me.
In addition, I'm thinking about releasing a clean and anonymized version of the data in csv form not only as a measure of transparency, but also if you want to do your own data manipulation. If you (the community) approve at over 75%, then I will publish it in the next post.