this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
1591 points (99.2% liked)

Games

39264 readers
1731 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
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
1591
PEGI gives Balatro an 18+ rating for gambling imagery (files.catbox.moe)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
165 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Clown emojis all around

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 160 points 5 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago

To clarify: the ESRB is the rating arm. The ESA that runs it? That's the lobbying arm.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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!"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Luigi Mangione played Among Us, an assassination game!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I largely agree, but the interests have gotten misaligned. Back then it was the threat of regulation which changed things up, I think the governments should do a little more of that.

[–] ricecake 2 points 5 months ago

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.