Re: Year-End Stats of the Video Games Industry

On Tue, 07 Jan 2025 12:48:26 +0200, Anssi Saari
<anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid>
writes:
>

Well, I'm sure a lot of people are going to be playing Balatro, now that
it's on mobile. That game is so damn addicting.

>
"Balatro is a 2024 poker-themed roguelike deck-building game developed
by LocalThunk and published by Playstack." Is this it? Not a description
that sells it to me but maybe.

It got a glowing review on Gamespot* for, as they put it, "not
requiring perfection", where you can still eke out a victory even if
the RNG doesn't hand you the best cards. The argument being that it's
a game that rewards skill as much as luck, but isn't ruthlessly
punishing if you slip in either category. "Every run feels like it can
succeed", they say, if you keep at it.

And while the game itself doesn't appeal to me in the least, I can
understand why that makes it popular. A lot of games --especially
those that depend on RNG like deck-builders-- put you in positions
where the best move is just to quit the match and restart, which leads
to a lot of repetition. Balatro apparently avoids this by making
success a possibility even when the odds aren't favoring you. It's not
that you'll always win, or that there's no skill involved, but you
aren't feeling constantly screwed over by an algorithm. You may not
get the Big Money, but you won't walk out totally empty handed either.
This also provides a constant dopamine drip as even poor hands will
win you /something/.

For fans of that genre of game, I can see why its so popular. Myself,
I've no interest but in an industry that -for a while- was constantly
aping the 'git gud scrub' Souls-likes, Balatro seems a nice change of
pace.




* the article in question
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/balatros-secret-sauce-is-not-requiring-perfection/1100-6528349/