this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
257 points (99.2% liked)

Games

46720 readers
2147 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 22 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

implement age verification on games with loot boxes. watch sales crash. stop making loot box funded games.

[–] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 27 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

At the expense of everyone's privacy even if you don't participate in the loot box economy, because you know the laws won't be written for only if you access them it'll be a blanket requirement. That's not the way to get rid of loot boxes.

[–] SolacefromSilence@fedia.io 0 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

What is the way to get rid of loot boxes?

[–] Whostosay@sh.itjust.works 32 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Straight up ban them. No age gate, no nothing. Just no more loot boxes. It's worse than a fucking casino and those should be banned too.

[–] SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world -1 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

The line between banning loot boxes and banning games like Balatro is a very fine one, with a need to specify that what is being banned is monetary transactions to access lottery pools.

That kind of accuracy and genuine intent is not what is currently present in lawmaking in most countries.

I hope I'm wrong about this, but I don't think I am.

[–] kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I don't think the line is that fine in that case, considering all random mechanics in Balatro give ephemeral rewards that only last until the end of a run, which is an isolated instance of a game with limited playtime, those mechanics cannot be paid for with real money, the resulting rewards cannot be sold for real money or traded with other players, and generally cannot affect any other players in any way, not even visually through cosmetics.

As far as I know, Balatro is only really being targeted because it's stylized after poker, with the enforcement having no actual understanding of what the gameplay looks like.

I think at bigger risk from actual laws would be MMORPGs where you can get random loot drops from enemies/chests, and those also tend to have markets where people grind valuable drops and use in-game trading to transfer them to other players in exchange for real money.

[–] SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

That's the issue! I'm not saying Balatro is gambling in any sense, I'm just saying that people incorrectly perceived it that way due to the connection to poker.

[–] Whostosay@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 hours ago

Well that applies to far more than this subject.

[–] deliriousdreams@fedia.io 6 points 12 hours ago

By legislating them to be illegal and then fining developers that don't comply. Sliding scale fines that wipe out the cost benefit of the loot boxes in the first place would suffice.

[–] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 3 points 13 hours ago

Don't know. That's not my specialty.

But it's definitely not by compromising everyone's privacy and forcing them to identify themselves because the government wants to be able to identify everyone everywhere at all times and uaing children as the excuse like they always do.