this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
219 points (97.8% liked)

Games

47701 readers
1102 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
Dremor@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
Dremor@jlai.lu
PerfectDark@lemmy.world
219
Video game PEGI age-ratings are changing in Europe from June. Four new categories added to tackle elements of addictive design, unmonitored online communication and loot boxes (www.eurogamer.net)
submitted 3 weeks ago by simple@piefed.social to c/games@lemmy.world
47 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 35 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Original article by PEGI: https://pegi.info/news/pegi-expands-age-rating-criteria-interactive-risk-categories

[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 16 points 3 weeks ago

Well, we will see what they do in practice. I think it's a step in te right direction.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Play-by-appointment is the gateway to all the other anti features, and not being about to focus on studying because you're worried about your dailies shouldn't be something 12 year olds (or anyone, really) are exposed to

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

See, I have a real issue with the "12 year olds (or anyone, really)" bit there in juxtaposition to all the pushback on OS age verification.

The gaming community has spent the past decade and change doing the exact same moral panic routine that anti-game violence crusaders did in the 90s and are in the process of finding out why it's a bad idea.

Age ratings and content warnings? Awesome. Gating content and design concepts on moral grounds? Not that.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You think that identifying dark patterns that are literally designed by psychologists to be as addictive as possible is moral panic?

[–] MudMan@fedia.io -5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Yes.

I mean, for one thing, that's a misrepresentation. You don't need a behavioral scientist to figure out that "come back tomorrow for another reward" is a good engagement tool. For another, it's a misnomer, because that's not a dark pattern, it's a deliberate, out-in-the-open design that is transparent about how it works.

But do I think that people freaking out about engagement tools they don't like while giving functionally similar ones they do like a pass is a moral panic?

100%, absolutely yes.

There's a reason why the PEGI rep talking to Eurogamer clarifies that this specific wording would absolutely have unintended consequences and they're limiting the age ratings impact and leaning on content descriptors instead:

"There was some discussion here," he added. "Some people pointed out that these are features that make the game engaging and fun - this is enriching the game experience similar to a cliffhanger in a Netflix series. So we mostly want to inform parents about this, because there's no reason why we should give Animal Crossing a very high rating. So this is going to stick to a PEGI 7 but it will have a descriptor that explains this. The exact language of the descriptors still needs to be figured out."

So yes. Slippery slope, moral panic, will somebody think of the children stuff.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

As a third side to the discussion, I do have my reservations about age verification, but then I don't mind such mechanics being banned completely. PEGI, to my mind, severely underplays the issues involved.

It's extremely easy to cross the line between "oh, you're back! Here's something small and nice to set you for a good gaming session" and "oh no, you didn't come to the game, now your weekly/monthly streak is gone and the main reward you wanted and all your friends have is now forever unattainable".

Most games, unfortunately, opt for the latter, focusing on FOMO and driving anxiety as the key factor to force people to play. Games should be something unimportant, something that is there and waits for you to finish with what matters. Not a second job that it became for many.

...and yes, battle pass is also an engagement mechanic of a similar kind and needs to be eliminated for much the same reasons.

Patterns don't have to be dark to be problematic.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

it’s a misnomer, because that’s not a dark pattern, it’s a deliberate, out-in-the-open design that is transparent about how it works.

For video games, the definition on this site that catalogs them has become the common meaning.

https://www.darkpattern.games/

Definition: A gaming dark pattern is something that is deliberately added to a game to cause an unwanted negative experience for the player with a positive outcome for the game developer.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No it hasn't. Some site not knowing their dark patterns from their anti-features (or mushing them both together for marketing purposes) doesn't mean it's not a misnomer.

I mean, I'm open to it becoming the new standard at some point. There is no coming back from the incorrect meaning of "metagame", or at least of "meta", so it's no longer a misnomer.

But this? Nah, it's gonna take a minute, if it ever happens. "Anti-feature" has become a buzzword in midcore techie spaces itself, so I don't know that extending "dark pattern" to (incorrectly) include every undesirable feature will ever take. Plus, what would you call actual dark patterns at that point?

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago

Lol you're just wrong. Language evolves and you can't stop it

[–] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 weeks ago

PEGI already informs parents today about the presence of some of these features in video games, like in-game purchases and paid random items, but from now on they will be tied to specific age categories:

  • Purchases of in-game content: games with time-limited or quantity-limited offers will be classified with a PEGI 12, games with NFTs or blockchain-related mechanisms will be PEGI 18.
  • Paid random items: the default rating will be PEGI 16 if the game contains paid random items (and in some cases they can be a PEGI 18).
  • Play-by-appointment: mechanisms that reward returning to the game (e.g. daily quests) will get a PEGI 7. If these mechanisms punish players for not returning (e.g. by losing content or reducing progress) they will become PEGI 12.
  • Safe online gameplay: if games contain entirely unrestricted communication features (e.g. no blocking or reporting), they will be PEGI 18.
[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It doesn't need to be too specific, in that PEGI actually reviews the products it rates. You get to send them a preview and then talk to them about the rating.

I also think some of the stuff Eurogamer is reporting is weird, or maybe PEGI is just not aware of some tools? For instance,

A game will be able to reduce this PEGI rating to 7 if it contains in-game controls that allow you to turn spending off by default. As Bosmans noted, these systems don't really exist yet, but the hope is this change will incentivise them to be developed.

Is not actually true. Many games do include turning spending off based on the user's reported age or whether they're on a child account (Nintendo and Sony both support this as a feature, I believe).

So there is some confusing stuff going on here, but it all seems mostly reasonable to me.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

My trust in PEGI's ability to properly review games has decreased significantly after Balatro got a PEGI-18 rating for some real horseshit reasons. This is a good direction, my concern is with the execution.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 3 weeks ago

Myeh. I think they mostly do fine, but they're certainly not perfect. These are reasonable, but some of the stuff they're saying about it is factually incorrect, too (like I said, there ARE age-based commerce lockouts in games already despite their statements).

All they need to do to be functional is have a modicum of consistency and at least be reactive to feedback. The Balatro thing sucked, but they did correct it. Some of these changes seem to be specifically a reaction to the Balatro thing, in fact.

[–] adoxographer@feddit.dk 1 points 3 weeks ago

Isn’t the issue here that fifa fc should also be 18?