There’s all sorts of fun ways to ring in the new year. Getting an email about how madGoogleis at you is probably not among them.
But whether it was wanted or not, that’s exactly what the developer of Luck be a Landlord received. And it wasn’t even the first time they’d had to deal with Google in that way.
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Luck be a Landlord is a game about gambling - or at least, that’s what it is if you spent less than a second looking at it. After that second, you realize that the connection to gambling is skin-deep.
In the game, you use a magical slot machine to build up wealth and pay off your landlord’s increasingly-exorbitant rent prices. You always win when using the slot machine, but in order to get the jackpots you need, you’re able to change the symbols it rolls to create combos and synergy - all the typical roguelike stuff.
In other words, you never actually gamble anything. It’s as much gambling as in Slay the Spire or other similar games. It just uses the visuals of gambling as a framing device, to make the randomized rows and columns easy to understand intuitively.
It’s an elegant system, and one that Google is not a fan of. And unless the game is given an age-rating far higher than its actual contents would imply, Google intends to remove it from their app store.
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However, the class action lawsuit may go ahead due to other legal claims.
This isn’t the first time the game’s developer, TrampolineTales, has been jumpscared by Google. But for the past while, things were relatively stable. The dev was surprised by the email coming in on new year’s day, and said as much in theirblog post on the subject.
Nothing has changed with Luck be a Landlord in the past few months, but for whatever reason, my game “contains gambling” now!
Largely due to reasons of exhaustion, the developer’s current plan is to shrug their shoulders and take the blow in stride. Google has decided that Luck be a Landlord is gambling, demands its age rating be increased, and the dev intends to comply.
I genuinely think Luck be a Landlord deserves the equivalent of an E10+ rating across all regions, but at this point I’ve just given up and will deal with whatever inaccurate rating is slapped on the game.
Luck Be A Landlord Punished For Gambling Imagery, But Gambling Mechanics Are Still Fine, Apparently
A common question at the tip of everyone’s tongue here is “why does it seem like enforcement around videogame gambling is so selective?” This is hardly Luck be a Landlord’s first rodeo, but actual gambling mechanics in things like loot boxes remain a part of the gaming landscape.
We’re coming up on our 10th year anniversary on loot box discourse (checkOverwatch’s release date if you want to feel old) and whilepublic sentimentseems to have found a definitive answer of “they’re bad”, that sentiment has yet to take root in the boardrooms where terms-of-service policies get finalized.
One can hope that popular sentiment will, eventually, reach the places it needs to - be they in business meetings orgovernmental policies- but it’s still a long road ahead.
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