Clown emojis all around
They haven’t understood the game at all, I wonder if they even looked at it for more than two minutes
Run game > see playing cards and poker chips > close > PEGI 18
Ah, but there are also tarot cards, which is spooky Occult voodoo magic. Balatro backwards might spell “Satan is Lord” in some ancient druidic script.
It can’t be that easy. PEGI says that games containing gambling (real money or not) are rated with PEGI 12 to 18. So there must be something else to the game that led to this rating.
Why is he still using Twitter? Does he want a bunch of Nazis replying to him?
Because, unfortunately, millions of people still use it. If you’re selling a product, it’s in your best interest to have as much social media presence as possible.
Also, it’s better to have an official presence on those platforms so others can’t impersonate you as easily.
If you’ve ever made a thing that took so much time that it has to be your job, and earn you money, you’d likely have a different view. If you’re ignoring a percentage of your target market because they’re on a platform you don’t like, then your project might fail, and you don’t get to keep your house.
Twitter is by far the larger platform, and small independent creators have to work to promote their game on every platform they can, if they want to succeed. The moral high ground of not using undesirable social media sites is nice, but isn’t fair to people who are partially dependent on those platforms to make a living.
this is starting to be horseshit. Every windows computer has a version of fucking solitare on it , there are other card based games that don’t get this treatment, and the lootboxes are actual gambling.
I thought at the start it was a type of beurocratical problem, but it’s been too long.
Not entirely sure about the European PEGI, but the American ESRB is funded by the same companies that it regulates. It was created after the outcry about violent games and was the industry self-regulating to avoid the government getting more involved.
It is a lobby group for the industry, for better and in this case very much for worse.
I assume PEGI is little different.
PEGI and many other groups are private groups. They’re not an authority of any form. They’re not associated with government, public regulation, or public election. They’re a group of people that create their own standards outside of the ISO or any actual regulation representing the public.
Some countries do have actual public systems, but many just have these private groups that know best.
They’re private groups that do the ratings but ESRB is enforced by laws in some Canadian provinces for instance and PEGI is enforced by law in some European countries. They do have a de facto authority in those places as a publisher can’t just decide to disregard their ratings and sell to minors anyway or something.
This is all well and true, but it’s important to note that these organizations exist as a sidestep to regulation, they are formed by industry insiders as a promise to the regulators that they will be honest about how they rate games (or movies or music) so that the government doesn’t actually get involved and do it’s job.
It’s a form of regulatory capture that allows the industry itself to decide what is harmful to us.
It’s basically the definition of conflict of interest.
i got curious and looks like PEGI is somewhat similar at least. The ISFE is a self-regulating/co-regulating (w/e that means) body. There seem to be some kinda independent audits but… Looks like they don’t audit so good, if this article is evidence
but… Looks like they don’t audit so good, if this article is evidence
That’s the whole issue with it being a lobby group. It makes them a ton of money, so they are incentivised against making a rating for it because that would draw more attention/limit sales.
And that’s where the whole government lobbying part comes in.
In fairness, I would much rather that than governments directly controlling access, creating an additional form of direct censorship.
Not saying what we have now is great or anything though. I’m not exactly defending it.
That’s basically why the ESRB was created, it was “Self-Regulate, or we’re just going to ban 80% of games on the market as a scapegoat for Columbine!”
Eeeeh, at least then there would theoretically be public accountability. The FCC has limited censorship power that they’re generally unobjectionable with.
I’m honestly more concerned with the censorship from private enterprises than with government consorship currently. Less accountability and less recourse.
It also really only becomes censorship if the rating system is used to prohibit speech. If we instead made it more like the nutritional guidelines on food it could instead give more of a content breakdown than setting an arbitrary age.
That would be the point, yes. Balatro has cards and chips, but chips are just there for keeping points. If Balatro is 18+ for gambling imagery, then so should Solitaire. That would be stupid, so Balatro shouldn’t get it, either.
I think the important note is it’s not just the cards in Balatro. Is it right? Not in my opinion. You have to admit tho, that it uses waaaaay more gambling imagery (you make antes for fuck’s sake)
I wish lawmakers had some balls on this subject. If there’s gambling, they should have to register as a gambling company and comply with all the other restrictions on gambling advertisements in each jurisdiction.
The problem here is that Baltaro does not have gambling. It just uses cards and chips as the basis for playing the game. Like Magic the Gathering or Inscryption.
Using chips is even a stretch honestly. There are some chip imagery here and there but otherwise ‘chips’ are just how points are called.
They also base it on poker, yeah cards can transform each other but it’s still quite literally a poker game. This isn’t MTG. (Which is just real life loot boxes)
But poker is only a gambling game because when you play it you “give up” something of value in the hope of winning more through playing and randomness. What makes it gambling is not the cards or the chips it’s the gambling aspect. Balatro uses card and poker hands, and so does “yatzhee”, but it does not use any gambling mechanic. Lootboxes on the other hand use gambling mechanic.
Windows comes bundled with solitaire. How is it allowed in schools?
I think the current microsoft version of solitaire has microtransactions and ads so is actually significantly worse
It’s not really micro transactions as much as it is a monthly subscription to remove ads.
Step 1: Add ads into [insert app of choice here] that are really annoying
Step 2: Make people pay to get rid of them. Bonus points if it’s a subscription
Step 3: People hate your app but it’s the one that’s installed by default so they use it anyway
Step 4: Profit
They added micro transactions and ads to fucking solitaire? How have I not heard about this till now…
This isn’t really new. Solitaire has had ads for over a decade now since Windows 8, and there is a monthly premium subscription to remove them. As I understand it they also don’t show during offline play, but might be wrong about that.
I can’t see any news that you can ‘pay to remove ads’ but lots of “how do i remove ads in solitaire” with settings instructions or registry edits so i think op is only half right
Maybe look into the game being discussed even a little before commenting on it.
I did. I’m not going to go buy it for this though. They literally use poker terms, poker imagery, and real poker hands. Saying it’s just because there’s cards involved is disingenuous.
