> You're also getting caught up on non-existent currencies that were named as digs at pay-to-win shovelware... this isn't about a literal game with "Rubies Emeralds and Gold"* it's about how currency X Y and Z are intermeshed to keep people buying.

Okay, what you said was unclear and I asked for clarification. I guess if you were trying to get me to fall into a trap, you won.

That matches my original understanding of how the game works, but I have a different interpretation of why it works that way.

Rubies are the limited currency here. These are handed out according to a timed schedule (slow drip) or at a slow enough rate that you don’t want to wait for them. Playing the game more is not a good strategy for getting more rubies, because it’s either too slow or simply doesn’t work at all.

Gold can be farmed. You just need to be decent at playing the game. Anything with a cost in gold can be purchased through ordinary gameplay. People playing the game will tend to play the game -> win gold -> get toad, rather than going the dollars -> rubies -> gold route.

The rubies -> gold exchange is there for people who are unskilled, impatient, or otherwise unwilling to play the game to earn gold. To be honest, I don’t think this exchange is there to obscure the dollar cost of buying characters in coins, because you’re supposed to be buying better characters with rubies in the first place.

I don’t play Mario Kart Tour, but a friend sat me down and explained all the predatory mechanics it has to try and get you to spend money. He went into detail about how the pipe works, the different currencies, etc. My own experience is with a game called Mahjong Soul. Mahjong Soul has jade and coins (and some other irrelevant currencies). Jade is the dollar-equivalent currency. You can’t earn it through gameplay. You can exchange jade for coins, but since you can earn coins by playing the game (daily quests, winning matches, etc) you are probably not going to make that exchange. You instead spend the jade on summons to earn new characters and outfits.

This is just the general formula I’ve observed. Any normal game will have currencies 1..N which can be earned through gameplay. The freemium / microtransaction games will often just add some dollar-equivalent currency, like rubies in Mario Kart Tour, or jade in Mahjong Soul. That dollar-equivalent currency can be exchanged for gacha (in both games) or exchanged for inferior, farmable currency (in both games).