Card game Balatro was a huge hit last year – but a year-long struggle with the European age ratings board has exposed how well-meaning rules can have unintended consequences
I have to wonder if some people don’t understand how card games work. Do they think if the game contains an ace of spades it must be gambling? Most card games don’t involve gambling at all and even those that do don’t have to use actual currency. Do kids not play card games and bet with matchsticks anymore?
I once had a professor who very seriously apologized to the class for bringing up a certain topic. It was playing cards. We were learning about probability. I was shocked that he thought he had to apologize about something I’ve played with my whole life.
Is it some puritanical thing where some people utterly hate anything even vaguely related to gambling? I have heard comments about it a few times before but never really bothered asking more about it. Mostly when I was younger and I didn’t really have any respect for religious beliefs when I was 10. Just saw them as weird.
I grew up not being allowed to play with playing cards because of “the appearance of evil.” My parents now use them, so I guess they got over it, but they still prefer other types of cards (e.g. Rook was our go-to).
It’s basically puritanical nonsense, yeah. My religion (still very much involved) is against “games of chance” and people get dogmatic about it. My take is that as long as I’m not expecting something for nothing or hoping to get positive return when the math says I should expect a negative return, I’m good. So no gambling, but playing poker for fun is fine (no stakes).
Yeah, I’m pretty sure there was a religious reason behind it. I’m not religious myself anymore but grew up in a very religious area, specifically Mennonite, but not the old order kind. Gambling was a sin and therefore anything associated with gambling like cards and dice were sinful by extension.
I had a board game that was about a race between merchant caravans through the desert. The way it worked was every player started with the same limited amount of small tokens representing water canteens, and every turn they all chose any amount of them, they revealed it at the same time, and the one who used the most could advance 5 squares, the second 4, etc.
The whole game was about trying to guess how many canteens other players were going to use on a specific turn, and use the right amount to land where you want and keep enough for the rest of the game. And of course, you’ve got all the reasons to bluff.
That’s basically a pure gambling game. It doesn’t feature any random element, and its only currency is a bunch of colourful plastic toys shared evenly between the players.
If I was PEGI, I’d do a CTRL-F in the rulebook, see words like bluff, gamble and bet, and slap an 18+ rating on it.
I have to wonder if some people don’t understand how card games work. Do they think if the game contains an ace of spades it must be gambling? Most card games don’t involve gambling at all and even those that do don’t have to use actual currency. Do kids not play card games and bet with matchsticks anymore?
I once had a professor who very seriously apologized to the class for bringing up a certain topic. It was playing cards. We were learning about probability. I was shocked that he thought he had to apologize about something I’ve played with my whole life.
Would he also apologize about money, since money is also used in gambling?
“But money has other uses!” … So do playing cards.
Except money is what makes gambling problematic! Lol
Is it some puritanical thing where some people utterly hate anything even vaguely related to gambling? I have heard comments about it a few times before but never really bothered asking more about it. Mostly when I was younger and I didn’t really have any respect for religious beliefs when I was 10. Just saw them as weird.
I grew up not being allowed to play with playing cards because of “the appearance of evil.” My parents now use them, so I guess they got over it, but they still prefer other types of cards (e.g. Rook was our go-to).
It’s basically puritanical nonsense, yeah. My religion (still very much involved) is against “games of chance” and people get dogmatic about it. My take is that as long as I’m not expecting something for nothing or hoping to get positive return when the math says I should expect a negative return, I’m good. So no gambling, but playing poker for fun is fine (no stakes).
Yeah, I’m pretty sure there was a religious reason behind it. I’m not religious myself anymore but grew up in a very religious area, specifically Mennonite, but not the old order kind. Gambling was a sin and therefore anything associated with gambling like cards and dice were sinful by extension.
It’s not even unique to card games.
I had a board game that was about a race between merchant caravans through the desert. The way it worked was every player started with the same limited amount of small tokens representing water canteens, and every turn they all chose any amount of them, they revealed it at the same time, and the one who used the most could advance 5 squares, the second 4, etc.
The whole game was about trying to guess how many canteens other players were going to use on a specific turn, and use the right amount to land where you want and keep enough for the rest of the game. And of course, you’ve got all the reasons to bluff.
That’s basically a pure gambling game. It doesn’t feature any random element, and its only currency is a bunch of colourful plastic toys shared evenly between the players.
If I was PEGI, I’d do a CTRL-F in the rulebook, see words like bluff, gamble and bet, and slap an 18+ rating on it.