If you’ve ever spent some time with me that isn’t in the middle of class, chances are more likely than not you’ve seen something on my phone looking like this. 

What we see here is a screen that has become all too familiar to me over the past 7 years. Many people have asked me what game I’m playing or what it is, so what better place to answer every question possible (and more) then right now. 

This screen is a gameplay screenshot of Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan Battle. Now, as you may have established already, this is a complete nerd game (it’s based off of anime). I have linked an hour long video explaining the mechanics of the game if you’re really that curious, but I will also break it down for those who don’t have an hour to spare. There are two phases of the game, the gameplay phase, and the “summoning” phase. The gameplay phase is relatively simple: you click the little orbs and you try and kill the enemy characters before they kill you. The “summoning” phase might be a bit more familiar. The overall structure of the “summoning” phase is one called “gacha”, which essentially entails using in game currency (that can also be purchased in mass amounts for actual money) to roll a chance to get certain characters (think Clash Royale or loot boxes as an example). You use the characters that you get in the summoning phase to beat bosses in the gameplay phase in exchange for in game currency that you can use to continuously summon new characters in the summon phase and so on. 

So, why in the world would I decide to spend 7 years of my life (and an unholy amount of time) playing what seems like a very simple, predatory, money grubbing game.

The answer to that question is pretty simple: I was an addict. A gambling addict.

As a 10 year old, the adrenaline rush I would get when I pulled a rare character gave me an unmatched sense of euphoria. I would put hours and hours into Dokkan, grinding out the raw materials to summon again and again, each and every time looking for that same feeling. The issue was that I never had the time to truly invest into the game, so that meant that the amount of chances I would get to even try to summon a character would become even more sparse, thus making each successful summon all the more greater.

However, the main issue with basing my personal happiness and satisfaction off of a black box spitting out probabilities is that sometimes, probabilities just don’t work out great. While perhaps it is true that the law of large numbers exists, that is completely contingent on me doing lots and lots of samples in order to activate the low (5%) chance of pulling a rare character, and as I have already established, I had very few chances to do so. I also had zero money to spend, so forcibly buying in game resources was also not an option. The final nail in the coffin to these two facts are that I have the worst game luck ever known to man. So, just like that, after a few years of sweating super hard, trying my best to keep chasing the feeling and joy of pulling rare characters, I gave up. I determined that it was no longer worth it to keep playing, as I could enjoy other games which did not require the time sink that Dokkan did.

So how did I go from giving up the game to playing it today? The answer is high school, specifically COVID. At the beginning of high school, my parents got me my first phone. Prior to this, I had a tiny old little iPad in which my parents, in typical asian parenting fashion, would not let me have on the weekends, but a phone, that they wouldn’t take away. So armed with this newfound power, and inspired by some dude I saw in the hallway playing Dokkan, I determined it was the perfect time to start playing again. What I have not explained yet is the system of “dailies” in Dokkan. Dokkan, as with most mobile games, heavily rewards daily logins and playtime, meaning that me not being able to log in and play daily before receiving a phone was a primary reason as to why I could summon so little, but now that had all changed. After a year and a half of not playing, I had so much more to do, and so many more resources to summon with. My addiction came back harder than the 2016 Cavaliers. 

Then came COVID. 

Being stuck at home all day meant there was zero reason to not play every single day. Don’t tell my sophomore year teachers, but I would straight up ignore class and play Dokkan instead. I would watch tons of YouTube content on the game while simultaneously logging in thousands of hours over the course of the 18 month COVID period. I think the first time I left my house after the restrictions died down for a reason that wasn’t athletics was to go to my friend’s house all the way by Nequa so I could play Dokkan with him in person. Even now, I think my login streak is the 900s, and honestly, I think I will probably play this game all throughout university.

(me playing Dokkan during Hoco)

The only main thing that is different now than from 7 years ago is the fact that I now hate summoning. As I said before, probabilities can be brutal, and nowadays, I am much more addicted to the novelty of new characters than the actual act of summoning, so at least there’s proof that I’m not a total gambling addict.