The entire series has some pretty heavy handed messaging. To be clear, I love the series.

Because you apparently missed the parts of Dragon Age 1, 2, and 3 where you are involved in heavily ethical government decisions? And that’s on top of the heavy messaging about abuse of power by mortal leaders that starts literally from the first few minutes of DA1.

Lmao. GoW live service? Fucking hell it’s video games by committee.

There’s always Star Citizen… :)

Okay but really I agree that Starfield is a mess. The thing is, nobody else has really delivered on the whole package yet. Ground and space combat, trading, and a narrative.

Mass effect and Freelancer gave two different sides of the coin and I think they’re the next closest.

If your kids ever want to join the military you could probably just find some 2000-2010 era combat vets to talk to them. Apparently after adjusting for the systems screw up, we’re the next big recruiting problem. We told our kids not to follow us into the service.

Always more active than I think, always less active than I want considering my main method of play is leading public platoons. It’s great if you can concentrate into a hex and get people supporting each other. It’s shit if you’re just in a Sundy telling squads to ghost cap 4 hexes at a time to cut stuff off.

All I’m going to say is those are rookie times for PS2. I might have spent that many hours in a Biolab.

Anything with a minority or woman in even a supporting role is getting blasted by conservatives.

Lmao

I have described several times, based on the steam store page, what it involves. Nowhere has been actual gambling. The point is to be up to standard. Not to lower because someone else is behaving badly.

Playing at gambling isn’t good either.

An 18+ rating isn’t going to hurt a video game. If anything teenagers are going to buy it more.

If you want to be reductive everything is gambling. Even your birth.

Funny you should mention candy cigarettes.

Whether it’s candy cigarettes or a nicotine vape depends purely on the person playing the game. A gambling addict could easily see this as their nicotine vape, and it could easily prime kids for casinos.

Because that’s what tips that product over the line, as sold.

No, we know that stuff that glorifies addictive activities can recruit or cause relapse as well.

If that’s dressed up solitaire then Vegas is slovenly solitaire.

Which is why PEGI didn’t say it was literally gambling, they said it was imagery of gambling.

They are demonstrably different games, completely different genres.

That wasn’t the question posed. As has been said over and over Balatro is more than just “evil cards”

Hold on, I’m going to go make a game that’s obliquely about a porn studio. Let’s see if you buy that one as a protest too.

Ask PEGI why loot boxes aren’t rated 18+, I’m not defending them.

No the whole point of this post is performative outrage as marketing. They knew exactly what rating a faux casino game was going to get them.

I suppose playing cards in Europe are considered “gambling materials” under that logic and aren’t allowed to be sold to people under 18? That would be absurd.

I would if they were selling them with chips and instructions on betting.

Funny you should mention candy cigarettes.

Whether it’s candy cigarettes or a nicotine vape depends purely on the person playing the game. A gambling addict could easily see this as their nicotine vape, and it could easily prime kids for casinos.

Yatzhee is dice. It uses combinations of numbers. They turn into points. Before you make any other ridiculous comparisons the idea is to perform to standard. Not to lower the standard. Gambling is a serious addiction and making games about it is a serious issue.

This is all on their steam page dude.

Perform to standard, instead of lowering the standard.

Loot boxes are absolutely gambling and should be regulated as such. But no Balatro is not just Hades with cards.

Then they should have been rated higher.

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.

I didn’t say there was and neither did PEGI. The issue is all the terminology and visuals are gambling related. This is like giving a cigarette smoker a nicotine vape and saying it’s not cigarettes. It’s technically true but you’d be insane to authorize it for kids.

I put this in the other post too. This is literally their description on steam.

Combine valid poker hands with unique Joker cards in order to create varied synergies and builds. Earn enough chips to beat devious blinds, all while uncovering hidden bonus hands and decks as you progress. You’re going to need every edge you can get in order to reach the boss blind, beat the final ante and secure victory.

Combined with playing actual poker hands, yeah that’s going to get tagged for gambling. They knew what they were doing and this performative outrage is a viral marketing campaign.

It was imagery of gambling. And yeah, that tracks.

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)

Because you don’t place bets on your solitaire hand.

Loot boxes suck but the only thing separating this game from gambling is the use of real money. It’s literally a poker game.

This is the Steam Store description -

Combine valid poker hands with unique Joker cards in order to create varied synergies and builds. Earn enough chips to beat devious blinds, all while uncovering hidden bonus hands and decks as you progress. You’re going to need every edge you can get in order to reach the boss blind, beat the final ante and secure victory.

Yeah they were always going to get PEGI 18. This moaning is just a way to sell their game.

Ghosts of Tsushima.

In the US record companies are busy making everyone responsible via court cases. That’s the problem.

Sorry, we fired the entire legal department and replaced them with the latest IBM AI model, Hal 9000.