{"id":1553,"date":"2025-07-22T20:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T03:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=1553"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:00:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T03:00:43","slug":"video-game-spending-is-less-attractive-for-a-lover-than-gambling-japanese-survey-says-but-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=1553","title":{"rendered":"Video game spending is less attractive for a lover than gambling, Japanese survey says, but why?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-707908\" src=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/SS-1-1.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"479\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><span>Gambling regularly tops lists of unattractive behaviors in Japan, so how did one of the country\u2019s most notable hobbies surpass it?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t buy love, but that doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s no connection between financial matter and matters of the heart. If a relationship is going to progress and two lovers are going to link their lifestyles, one person\u2019s attitude regarding money will eventually start to affect the other, and to get a closer look at the situation Japanese staffing service <strong>Biz Hits<\/strong> conducted <strong>a survey asking respondents asking what sort of spending habits make a romantic partner less attractive<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The poll collected responses from 505 participants (363 women and 142 men), with 23.3 percent between the ages of 20 and 29, 41.7 percent in their 30s, 23 percent in the 40s, 11.7 percent 50 or older, and 0.4 percent under 20.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if a romantic partner\u2019s spending and saving habits influence how they feel about a relationship, <strong>63.7 percent said they have a major effect, and another 31.9 percent say they have a moderate one<\/strong>. Just 3.8 percent said the effect is only minor, and a negligible 0.6 percent said they don\u2019t affect the atmosphere of a relationship at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So what kind of spending makes someone look unattractive? The number-one response, chosen by 13.3 percent of respondents as their biggest turnoff, is \u201cspending money on video games.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-707911\" src=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/SS-2.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"431\" \/><\/p>\n<p>That might be kind of surprising, since while there are still niche genres and specific titles, video games in general have become a pretty mainstream entertainment option in Japan nowadays. Even more startling is that r<strong>espondents who said spending money on video games makes a romantic partner unattractive outnumbered those who had that complaint about gambling, which was the number-two response, from 9.1 percent of survey participants<\/strong>, followed by a non-specific \u201cspending beyond their means\u201d (6.7 percent).<\/p>\n<p>Gambling has long ranked at the top of survey results in Japan for behavior of any kind that\u2019s considered unappealing in a prospective romantic partner, not just within the field of spending habits. <strong>So how video game spending end up at the top of this list, and by a considerable margin?<\/strong> Possibly because of changes in recent years within the video gaming and gambling industries in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>Starting with gambling, Japan has venues where you can bet on horse, bicycle, motorcycle, and motorboat racing. However, in terms of the number of gambling facilities, <strong>pachinko<\/strong> is by far the most common type, and also the one most people have the easiest geographic access to. Yet while it\u2019s still relatively easy to find pachinko parlors, they\u2019re having a harder and harder time pulling customers in, and it\u2019s especially losing popularity among younger demographics, so it\u2019s becoming less likely to be on the deal-breaker radar than it used to be.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, video games are no longer limited to their original format in which you paid a set price for a complete game. The hobby now includes a vast array of<strong> free-to-play games<\/strong>, including many such mobile game titles. As anyone who\u2019s dipped their toes into that model can attest, though, free-to-play games are generally designed in such a way that you have to spend money to access to the actually enjoyable parts of their content, and that content is usually unlocked through randomized gacha\/loot box mechanics. In other words, <strong>\u201cspending money on video games\u201d now also encompasses paying money for a non-guaranteed return, with the option to keep paying to try again if the player is unhappy with the initial result\u2026which are all descriptions that fit gambling too<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u25bc \u201cArgghhhhh! I can\u2019t believe I got stuck with the SS-Y rank Shampoo Girl! I was sure I was gonna get the SS-Z Pantene-chan this time!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-707914\" src=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/SS-4.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s true that there are difference between gacha games and gambling, the most important being that with gacha games the player is at least guaranteed to receive <em>something<\/em> in exchange for their payment, even if it\u2019s in-game content that\u2019s neither useful nor desirable. However, that might make such spending even harder for a romantic partner to accept. Without specific knowledge of a certain game, it\u2019s difficult for non-fans to grasp why a gacha player would be dissatisfied with a particular drop, or why they\u2019d feel like the expense\/risk is worth it to chase after a rare one. At least with traditional gambling, it\u2019s pretty easy to grasp the desire (money), and so see why a losing bet wouldn\u2019t be a satisfying finish to a session, even if you don\u2019t agree with the choice to keep at it.<\/p>\n<p>Biz Hits didn\u2019t numerically break the responses down by gender, but a selection of <strong>respondent comments suggests that game spending was seen as unattractive by both men and women<\/strong>, with a woman in her 20s recalling<strong> \u201cI loaned my boyfriend money because he said he was having trouble making ends meet, but then he spent it on in-game purchases,\u201d<\/strong> while a 30-something man said<strong> \u201cI felt like maybe I needed to rethink things a little when I saw my girlfriend spending more than 10,000 yen [US$69] at one time on in-game purchases.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u25bc It\u2019s an often-forgotten corollary that what\u2019s <em>not<\/em> good for the goose often isn\u2019t all that great for the gander either.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-707923\" src=\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/SS-5.jpg?w=640\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"460\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now, as is always the case with surveys like this, it\u2019s important to remember that ultimately what matters is whether the two people in the relationship see eye-to-eye and can accept each other\u2019s lifestyle choices. It\u2019s also worth pointing out that the survey respondents weren\u2019t necessarily calling for their romantic partners to rein in spending across the board, with their number-five, six and seven complaints being a partner who\u2019s too insistent on splitting all costs 50\/50, someone who gives low-priced presents, and someone who\u2019s overly focused on saving money and cutting expenses. Still, if you\u2019re playing the percentages while looking for love, it might be best to keep your game spending on the moderate side, or maybe to play up your old-school gamer ethos by telling your date that you\u2019re only into titles with extra content that can be unlocked through in-game progression and challenges.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/prtimes.jp\/main\/html\/rd\/p\/000000248.000041309.html\">PR Times<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<em>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/bizhits.sixcore.jp\/\">Biz Hits<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<em>Top image: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20160628165post-8122.html\">P<\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20160628165post-8122.html\"><em>akutaso<\/em><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Insert images: Pakutaso (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20241011278post-52348.html\">1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20230254037post-45219.html\">2<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pakutaso.com\/20170110020post-10083.html\">3<\/a>)<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u25cf Want to hear about SoraNews24\u2019s latest articles as soon as they\u2019re published? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RocketNews24En\">Follow us on Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RocketNews24En\">Twitter<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gambling regularly tops lists of unattractive behaviors in Japan, so how did one of the country\u2019s most notable hobbies surpass it? You can\u2019t buy love, but that doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}