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this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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This post is clearly full of people WHO CLEARLY HAVE NO GAMBLING PROBLEM.
The arguments are even more ridiculous if you substitute an addictive drug for gambling.
"But vicodin and oxy are legal, how's that fair!" "Plenty of kids are prescribed painkillers in other countries and they are fine!" "The regulatory agency is just trying to punish heroin for being way better than the rest!" "I think all drugs should be legal, anyone should be allowed to make whatever mistakes they want with no oversight!"
But this is like saying "ski ball is dangerous because it's a gateway to beer pong. By the way we see no issues with kids playing vodka pong"
Its bad because children will associate poker with a good enjoyable time, which might lead them to a bad situation later on when they are permitted inside casinos.
I consider most arcades with ticket prizes to be gambling as well, and shouldnt be for kids. Most kids dont realize they could have just bought the prize for far cheaper.
And yes vodka pong is bad too, go yell at the rich vodka corporatists who paid the rating board to pass them though.
I'll give you a tip, nearly all certification or rating boards are grifts.
By that logic Yahtzee teaches kids dice are fun and trains them to think craps is fun.
I wouldnt go that far, no.
This is sequence, a simple game where you place chips on the spaces that match the cards on your hand. The objective of the game is to complete 2 lines that are 5 chips long. Basically like connect 4. Do you think it should also be rated 18+?
I'd rather have kids get interested in playing poker than pulling a slot machine lever.
Id rather neither, I can't think of a single good thing that would come of teaching a child poker.
We can all imagine the imagery of balatro being somewhat a problem.
But less of a problem compared to games with actual gambling for actual money in the form of lootboxes or gacha mechanisms?
If you can get that to make sense, i'd love to hear it. Can there be a serious warning regarding gambling on balatro? for sure. But how is gambling imagery 18+, and actual gambling with actual money 3+? That's just insane.
What is most likely to get kids to become gambling addicts? Them learning pokerhands via balatro, or them gambling real money on lootboxes & gacha games and getting addicted to the thrill of winning after gamblling money?
No that part is very hypocritical, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with how much money the big game developers can throw around to make sure their loot box game isnt marked for adults.
I think both lootboxes and poker games are bad in this sense, its just the other reasons people are giving that are nonsense.
To say clearly, the rating board is hypocritical and should also mark lootbox games accordingly.
Have you ever played balatro?
Because calling it a pokergame makes me think you haven't. It's a deckbuilder that uses pokerhands (and impossible pokerhands) as mechanic to score, but there is no actual gambling, and except for which hands exist in poker and their relative value, you don't learn any pokerskills. You also don't do any gambling, you modify your deck of cards, and gather jokers that modify what cards are worth and how they score, and end up also making hands that are impossible in poker etc...
I can imagine the imagery and the link to poker to require some warning, but i'd find it hard to say it stimulates you to gamble, as it's not a gambling game, doesn't teach you the poker rules, and is a completely different kind of game. It just uses poker to flavor the gameplay, and uses some other poker terms (blinds, ante, chips) to indicate difficulty/score.
I dont disagree with what you brought up but you left out that the game literally looks similar to any general poker gambling site.
Its poker with a twist, which absolutely exists in casinos.
It does? I guess we'll differ on that opinion i guess.
Unless showing you a hand of playingcards means you look like a general poker gambling site. It has a very specific artstyle, and since its gameplay is completely different from actual poker, so is how it behaves. For me it's close to a slay the spire or heartstone kind of game, and looks like that...
I didnt mean specific if I said that, it generally looks like one. Like an old one from yahoo or something. The heavy poker themes and learning poker hands is enough.
I have seen people burn money in games just as much as some who has gambling problems. Just one has the person expectations being hoping if earning more to continue to gamble with, while gamers who spend cash are looking for more extrinsic values that are still just as useless or not worth it. I do say these game devs are more deserving of the cash but loot boxes exist and others forms of gambling that gets a blind eye. Balatro isn't even real cash. It's not the same.
I simply wouldnt give one game a pass to avoid hypocrisy. The loot box games should be marked for adults or changed.
I think there are dynamics at play her but to keep it short. I admire your steadfast disappointment towards gambling or playing with odds. However, for a game like balatro being completely free to continue playing after the initial purchase. As far as I can tell, there are no micro transactions or push for players to sink their wallets into the game. The entire game is basically a simulation. All randomizations are predetermined based on a seed. You can set it or you can figure it out if you are smart enough in math and cryptography. However, ratings are more annoyance than being a real guard against the real problems happening right now.
There are many more dissatisfying things. I doubt we should fight over the rating. Instead we should be in agreement that gambling and other pay to play odds like loot boxes is bad and stricter regulations.
Its not about real money spending. Loot boxes would be problematic without spending real money in my opinion. Thats why I think poker games that dont use any real money should also be marked for adults.
Unfortunately balatro uses poker as a base, and I dont think its changed it enough that it still doesnt resemble poker.
Im surprised the loot boxes in ea games are still around, did the rating organization comment on that at all?
at the end of the day, problems are at different views here. I find games are very similar in many aspects, such as relying heavily on RNG to make outcomes varied. If normal no cash poker is adult, then games like uno and other forms of RNG based games like rolling dice can just as much be adult from your reasoning. I am not particular to labeling games in this way.
there are many more nuances to labeling as adult oriented, such as ability to cause oneself to be worse off in life to the point that it is harmful (like losing your life savings or going into debt) or the content is sexual. that is what I would consider requirement for labeling as adult. I personally think anything that is tied with cash should be labeled as adult. yet, right now, this line is heavily blurred by microtransactions, lootboxes, cosmetics, in game currency and other ways to play with cash.
Playing with cash should be adult, but in game cash you cannot sell or buy is not something I think I can equate here because I see it as another incremental simulator kind of game, like many idle games are like now a days.
Rolling dice and uno have different goals, mainly they are competitive. Balatro and poker is a game where you chase ever higher something whether its points or money.
I agree anything cash should be adult since children dont work and have their own money to begin with. If they want to make a kids version then price in the IAPs and sell it as a whole package like we used to get as kids.
Its sort of funny, we are basically having the gateway drug argument here with games. Balatro could be a small step to other seriously predatory games. I can see how thats on the more strict side of the spectrum though, but I'm more pro regulation than anti.
I deleted my other comment because dogs jumped on me and somehow in the mix up, I pressed the post button, so I removed the partially malformed comment.
On the first topic, your reasoning to differentiate what the goals of competitive games and "chasing higher something" is just not well put into words here. From what I am reading, you tried to make them look different on the higher level view but failed to showcase that, which for both sides you claim one is competitive and the other side is not competitive. However, most definitions for being competitive is to chase ever higher "somethings" for which is mostly points but in other aspects can be money. Hence your reasoning has basically equated them even more deeply. So your point to make them different needs to be redone with that can make your point more clear and is reasonably opposites.
Moving on, I didn't agree completely that playing with cash is strictly adult. More or less, anything that requires express consent, such as decisions that involve risk of self hurting activities (playing with cash is one of these activities because of our dependency on money), and other adult topics that are not relevant here. There are things that kids can buy to play games for or gain cosmetics for RP or whatever, however I understand the problem will be account selling shenanigans, but that at least raises the bar on barrier of entry too, and most not doing it. Kids need to learn to be less impulsive and I think that is more of what is the root of the problem in this case. We need regulations that would punish companies that try to exploit this.
Yeah, gateway drugs... Look, I know that actual hard to quit drugs are not close to the same as these psychological only addictive activities. Physical withdrawal from those drugs are miles more deadly and impactful on someone's body and brain. I do think people can take some addictions too far but those cases are more likely to be popular in the news than the more tame stories that highlight what the majority will experience. I am still adamant that balatro is no where close to this topic. It is not able to transition you to something else and this is more on an individual basis and not really generalizable. If someone is being socially pressured by friends or others to do it then balatro will better prepare someone to not make bigger mistakes, so in reality it has a positive than a negative.
This is why I have a hard time reasoning with you on this. I will like to move on, so I will end it here. I feel like we have made our points and we will decide for our own. When it comes down to it, I will more than likely vote for any regulation to pass on restricting gambling and other forms of negative addictions, while weighing in any freedoms that may be reduced or affected. We will see, happy holidays.