The relationship between strategists and designers is key to creating effective work that meets clients’ needs. But strategists can feel misunderstood, and even undervalued, in their attempts to set a project’s direction through clear and meaningful thinking. We spoke with a range of in-house and independent strategists about what they wish designers knew about their work. Is the role of strategists changing, like so many design industry roles right now? If so, how? “The lightning speed turnaround” of creative work is creating new pressures, says Gardiner Richardson’s associate director and strategic lead, Matt Forster. Partly this is down to the rise of AI, which is front-of-mind according to independent strategist Manfred Abraham, who has held senior roles at Interbrand and Wolff Olins. The two big shifts, he says, are AI’s potential to bring efficiency to the process – using information gathering and analytics to inform insights – and the dramatic changes that AI will bring to the consumer landscape. “Imagine a world where your personal AI agent makes your life much easier,” he says. “What are consumers going to do with their extra time? Strategists will have to work in close collaboration with creatives to be able to imagine the future for our clients.” Beyond AI, consumers’ withering attention spans, coupled with the proliferating demands on their time, creates a big challenge. “Brands are looking for strategists to show them high interest areas of culture where they have a credible role to play, making it easier for them to reach their audience,” says Matt Boffey, chief strategy officer, UK & Europe, at Design Bridge and Partners. As the world becomes more complex, there is a renewed appetite for clarity, says Polly Clark, a strategy consultant for agencies like Buddy Creative in Cornwall. “I’m seeing that simplicity is even more important than ever,” she says. “Overly complex or convoluted thinking isn’t helpful for anyone, and just slows everything down.” And some strategists have noticed a bit of mission creep. “Increasingly, clients are expecting strategists to contribute at a broader business level not purely brand strategy, design or comms,” says Louise Kennedy, who recently joined Into The Light as head of strategy. What don’t designers understand about your role? “Strategy is not a threat or a limit to designers’ creativity,” says Gardiner Richardson’s Matt Forster. “It’s a springboard to a controlled creative leap.” Into the Light’s Louise Kennedy points out that “designers, on the whole, are visual and often want to get to the ‘creative ask’ very quickly so they can start doing what they do best. “But many of us strategists enjoy taking people on the journey of how we got there by unpacking context and patterns. What designers might see as wordy, we see as fascinating storytelling, but perhaps we tell them more than they need to know, to protect our own egos.” There seems to be a recurring tension between the idea of strategists as left brain thinkers – rigorous, analytical, and logical – against designers as right-brain thinkers – more creative and emotional. But Manfred Abraham points out this is a false – if persistent – way of looking at strategy. “Some designers have missed that there might be a strong right brain there as well!” he says. What don’t clients understand about your role? “Unless clients have experienced it before, they aren’t immediately going to understand the value of strategy,” Gardiner Richardson’s Matt Forster says. “They may have worked with agencies who underpin their creative approaches on little substance. “Once we’ve explained our strategic process, why we follow it and the value it will create for all their creative communications and wider business, it’s a no brainer.” Nor does every client understand the commercial power of great design. “In the brand consulting and growth space specifically, clients often think that strategy is communication strategy,” says Manfred Abraham. “The strategies we develop go much further than that – communications is a part of it.” And adding all this value takes time – more than some clients realise. “I think for clients, it is understanding the need to protect the time and space to do a proper job at this stage and the benefit that will bring,” says Into The Light’s Louise Kennedy. “We might even need to commission new insight work if we feel there are big gaps in knowledge,” she adds. How do you balance multiple client meetings with getting the deep thinking done? This, most strategists agree, is a precarious juggling act. “It sometimes feels like ‘manager time’ has won out over ‘maker time,’” says Design Bridge and Partners’ Matt Boffey. “Days are apportioned into slots, from 30 minutes to an hour, which is perfect for meetings but inadequate for building momentum on substantial projects. The goal, he insists, isn’t to eliminate meetings. “Collaboration remains essential. Rather, it’s to create conditions where both discussion and deep work can thrive. We must be careful that ‘talking’ doesn’t completely squeeze out ‘doing’.” He encourages his team to block time between meetings to mentally stretch, as you might after a gym session. “And I’m a strong advocate for reserving longer periods, either half days or full days, for the ‘deep work’ required when writing a discovery debrief or developing brand strategy.” Although Louise Kennedy blocks out time in this way, she finds it doesn’t always work for her. “Often in those moments I can get brainfreeze as I feel under pressure to produce something smart,” she says. “So I like to read everything on a project then leave it for at least a day so my brain can digest it fully and start working behind the scenes.” External consultants can work the schedule that suits them. On most days, Manfred Abraham gets up at 5.30am because that’s when his brain is at its best. It’s also a time of day free of client meetings, “so it’s great thinking time,” he says. Polly Clark, on the other hand, embraces this juggling act. “It’s always something I’ve needed to do, and actually helps sharpen my thinking. Switching focus means I can come back to things fresher, and stops me getting caught up in the weeds.” What’s the worst thing a designer can say to a strategist? Matt Forster – “That they still don’t get it – which means I haven’t involved them enough, explained it well enough or done a good enough job.” Louise Kennedy – “’I’m confused’ or worse, ‘I’m confused and bored’.” Matt Boffey – ‘“Great, the client’s bought the strategy, now we can really start the work.” “This sounds like strategy has become a hurdle to clear before creativity begins, where it should be the foundation that makes creativity powerful and purposeful. The best work happens when strategists and designers see their contributions as interconnected parts of a unified process, rather than unrelated elements.” Polly Clark – “In the past I’ve heard designers question what strategy brings. That’s been when the strategy hasn’t made sense of the challenge, or is overly convoluted – which is sure to make everyone switch off.” Manfred Abraham – “That great design doesn’t need strategic thinking. It’s simply not true. We are great individually but we are brilliant together.”

In 2025, it’s very difficult not to see gambling advertised everywhere. It’s on billboards and sports broadcasts. It’s on podcasts and printed on the turnbuckle of AEW’s pay-per-view shows. And it’s on app stores, where you can find the FanDuel and DraftKings sportsbooks, alongside glitzy digital slot machines. These apps all have the highest age ratings possible on Apple’s App Store and Google Play. But earlier this year, a different kind of app nearly disappeared from the Play Store entirely.Luck Be A Landlord is a roguelite deckbuilder from solo developer Dan DiIorio. DiIorio got word from Google in January 2025 that Luck Be A Landlord was about to be pulled, globally, because DiIorio had not disclosed the game’s “gambling themes” in its rating.In Luck Be a Landlord, the player takes spins on a pixel art slot machine to earn coins to pay their ever-increasing rent — a nightmare gamification of our day-to-day grind to remain housed. On app stores, it’s a one-time purchase of $4.99, and it’s $9.99 on Steam. On the Play Store page, developer Dan DiIorio notes, “This game does not contain any real-world currency gambling or microtransactions.”And it doesn’t. But for Google, that didn’t matter. First, the game was removed from the storefront in a slew of countries that have strict gambling laws. Then, at the beginning of 2025, Google told Dilorio that Luck Be A Landlord would be pulled globally because of its rating discrepancy, as it “does not take into account references to gambling (including real or simulated gambling)”.DiIorio had gone through this song and dance before — previously, when the game was blocked, he would send back a message saying “hey, the game doesn’t have gambling,” and then Google would send back a screenshot of the game and assert that, in fact, it had.DiIorio didn’t agree, but this time they decided that the risk of Landlord getting taken down permanently was too great. They’re a solo developer, and Luck Be a Landlord had just had its highest 30-day revenue since release. So, they filled out the form confirming that Luck Be A Landlord has “gambling themes,” and are currently hoping that this will be the end of it.This is a situation that sucks for an indie dev to be in, and over email DiIorio told Polygon it was “very frustrating.”“I think it can negatively affect indie developers if they fall outside the norm, which indies often do,” they wrote. “It also makes me afraid to explore mechanics like this further. It stifles creativity, and that’s really upsetting.”In late 2024, the hit game Balatro was in a similar position. It had won numerous awards, and made $1,000,000 in its first week on mobile platforms. And then overnight, the PEGI ratings board declared that the game deserved an adult rating.The ESRB had already rated it E10+ in the US, noting it has gambling themes. And the game was already out in Europe, making its overnight ratings change a surprise. Publisher PlayStack said the rating was given because Balatro has “prominent gambling imagery and material that instructs about gambling.”Balatro is basically Luck Be A Landlord’s little cousin. Developer LocalThunk was inspired by watching streams of Luck Be A Landlord, and seeing the way DiIorio had implemented deck-building into his slot machine. And like Luck Be A Landlord, Balatro is a one-time purchase, with no microtransactions.But the PEGI board noted that because the game uses poker hands, the skills the player learns in Balatro could translate to real-world poker.In its write-up, GameSpot noted that the same thing happened to a game called Sunshine Shuffle. It was temporarily banned from the Nintendo eShop, and also from the entire country of South Korea. Unlike Balatro, Sunshine Shuffle actually is a poker game, except you’re playing Texas Hold ‘Em — again for no real money — with cute animals (who are bank robbers).It’s common sense that children shouldn’t be able to access apps that allow them to gamble. But none of these games contain actual gambling — or do they?Where do we draw the line? Is it gambling to play any game that is also played in casinos, like poker or blackjack? Is it gambling to play a game that evokes the aesthetics of a casino, like cards, chips, dice, or slot machines? Is it gambling to wager or earn fictional money?Gaming has always been a lightning rod for controversy. Sex, violence, misogyny, addiction — you name it, video games have been accused of perpetrating or encouraging it. But gambling is gaming’s original sin. And it’s the one we still can’t get a grip on.The original link between gambling and gamingGetty ImagesThe association between video games and gambling all goes back to pinball. Back in the ’30s and ’40s, politicians targeted pinball machines for promoting gambling. Early pinball machines were less skill-based (they didn’t have flippers), and some gave cash payouts, so the comparison wasn’t unfair. Famously, mob-hating New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned pinball in the city, and appeared in a newsreel dumping pinball and slot machines into the Long Island Sound. Pinball machines spent some time relegated to the back rooms of sex shops and dive bars. But after some lobbying, the laws relaxed.By the 1970s, pinball manufacturers were also making video games, and the machines were side-by-side in arcades. Arcade machines, like pinball, took small coin payments, repeatedly, for short rounds of play. The disreputable funk of pinball basically rubbed off onto video games.Ever since video games rocked onto the scene, concerned and sometimes uneducated parties have been asking if they’re dangerous. And in general, studies have shown that they’re not. The same can’t be said about gambling — the practice of putting real money down to bet on an outcome.It’s a golden age for gambling2025 in the USA is a great time for gambling, which has been really profitable for gambling companies — to the tune of $66.5 billion dollars of revenue in 2023.To put this number in perspective, the American Gaming Association, which is the casino industry’s trade group and has nothing to do with video games, reports that 2022’s gambling revenue was $60.5 billion. It went up $6 billion in a year.And this increase isn’t just because of sportsbooks, although sports betting is a huge part of it. Online casinos and brick-and-mortar casinos are both earning more, and as a lot of people have pointed out, gambling is being normalized to a pretty disturbing degree.Much like with alcohol, for a small percentage of people, gambling can tip from occasional leisure activity into addiction. The people who are most at risk are, by and large, already vulnerable: researchers at the Yale School of Medicine found that 96% of problem gamblers are also wrestling with other disorders, such as “substance use, impulse-control disorders, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders.”Even if you’re not in that group, there are still good reasons to be wary of gambling. People tend to underestimate their own vulnerability to things they know are dangerous for others. Someone else might bet beyond their means. But I would simply know when to stop.Maybe you do! But being blithely confident about it can make it hard to notice if you do develop a problem. Or if you already have one.Addiction changes the way your brain works. When you’re addicted to something, your participation in it becomes compulsive, at the expense of other interests and responsibilities. Someone might turn to their addiction to self-soothe when depressed or anxious. And speaking of those feelings, people who are depressed and anxious are already more vulnerable to addiction. Given the entire state of the world right now, this predisposition shines an ugly light on the numbers touted by the AGA. Is it good that the industry is reporting $6 billion in additional earnings, when the economy feels so frail, when the stock market is ping ponging through highs and lows daily, when daily expenses are rising? It doesn’t feel good. In 2024, the YouTuber Drew Gooden turned his critical eye to online gambling. One of the main points he makes in his excellent video is that gambling is more accessible than ever. It’s on all our phones, and betting companies are using decades of well-honed app design and behavioral studies to manipulate users to spend and spend.Meanwhile, advertising on podcasts, billboards, TV, radio, and websites – it’s literally everywhere — tells you that this is fun, and you don’t even need to know what you’re doing, and you’re probably one bet away from winning back those losses.Where does Luck Be a Landlord come into this?So, are there gambling themes in Luck Be A Landlord? The game’s slot machine is represented in simple pixel art. You pay one coin to use it, and among the more traditional slot machine symbols are silly ones like a snail that only pays out after 4 spins.When I started playing it, my primary emotion wasn’t necessarily elation at winning coins — it was stress and disbelief when, in the third round of the game, the landlord increased my rent by 100%. What the hell.I don’t doubt that getting better at it would produce dopamine thrills akin to gambling — or playing any video game. But it’s supposed to be difficult, because that’s the joke. If you beat the game you unlock more difficulty modes where, as you keep paying rent, your landlord gets furious, and starts throwing made-up rules at you: previously rare symbols will give you less of a payout, and the very mechanics of the slot machine change.It’s a manifestation of the golden rule of casinos, and all of capitalism writ large: the odds are stacked against you. The house always wins. There is luck involved, to be sure, but because Luck Be A Landlord is a deck-builder, knowing the different ways you can design your slot machine to maximize payouts is a skill! You have some influence over it, unlike a real slot machine. The synergies that I’ve seen high-level players create are completely nuts, and obviously based on a deep understanding of the strategies the game allows.IMAGE: TrampolineTales via PolygonBalatro and Luck Be a Landlord both distance themselves from casino gambling again in the way they treat money. In Landlord, the money you earn is gold coins, not any currency we recognize. And the payouts aren’t actually that big. By the end of the core game, the rent money you’re struggling and scraping to earn… is 777 coins. In the post-game endless mode, payouts can get massive. But the thing is, to get this far, you can’t rely on chance. You have to be very good at Luck Be a Landlord.And in Balatro, the numbers that get big are your points. The actual dollar payments in a round of Balatro are small. These aren’t games about earning wads and wads of cash. So, do these count as “gambling themes”?We’ll come back to that question later. First, I want to talk about a closer analog to what we colloquially consider gambling: loot boxes and gacha games.Random rewards: from Overwatch to the rise of gachaRecently, I did something that I haven’t done in a really long time: I thought about Overwatch. I used to play Overwatch with my friends, and I absolutely made a habit of dropping 20 bucks here or there for a bunch of seasonal loot boxes. This was never a problem behavior for me, but in hindsight, it does sting that over a couple of years, I dropped maybe $150 on cosmetics for a game that now I primarily associate with squandered potential.Loot boxes grew out of free-to-play mobile games, where they’re the primary method of monetization. In something like Overwatch, they functioned as a way to earn additional revenue in an ongoing game, once the player had already dropped 40 bucks to buy it.More often than not, loot boxes are a random selection of skins and other cosmetics, but games like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 were famously criticized for launching with loot crates that essentially made it pay-to-win – if you bought enough of them and got lucky.It’s not unprecedented to associate loot boxes with gambling. A 2021 study published in Addictive Behaviors showed that players who self-reported as problem gamblers also tended to spend more on loot boxes, and another study done in the UK found a similar correlation with young adults.While Overwatch certainly wasn’t the first game to feature cosmetic loot boxes or microtransactions, it’s a reference point for me, and it also got attention worldwide. In 2018, Overwatch was investigated by the Belgian Gaming Commission, which found it “in violation of gambling legislation” alongside FIFA 18 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Belgium’s response was to ban the sale of loot boxes without a gambling license. Having a paid random rewards mechanic in a game is a criminal offense there. But not really. A 2023 study showed that 82% of iPhone games sold on the App Store in Belgium still use random paid monetization, as do around 80% of games that are rated 12+. The ban wasn’t effectively enforced, if at all, and the study recommends that a blanket ban wouldn’t actually be a practical solution anyway.Overwatch was rated T for Teen by the ESRB, and 12 by PEGI. When it first came out, its loot boxes were divisive. Since the mechanic came from F2P mobile games, which are often seen as predatory, people balked at seeing it in a big action game from a multi-million dollar publisher.At the time, the rebuttal was, “Well, at least it’s just cosmetics.” Nobody needs to buy loot boxes to be good at Overwatch.A lot has changed since 2016. Now we have a deeper understanding of how these mechanics are designed to manipulate players, even if they don’t affect gameplay. But also, they’ve been normalized. While there will always be people expressing disappointment when a AAA game has a paid random loot mechanic, it is no longer shocking.And if anything, these mechanics have only become more prevalent, thanks to the growth of gacha games. Gacha is short for “gachapon,” the Japanese capsule machines where you pay to receive one of a selection of random toys. Getty ImagesIn gacha games, players pay — not necessarily real money, but we’ll get to that — for a chance to get something. Maybe it’s a character, or a special weapon, or some gear — it depends on the game. Whatever it is, within that context, it’s desirable — and unlike the cosmetics of Overwatch, gacha pulls often do impact the gameplay.For example, in Infinity Nikki, you can pull for clothing items in these limited-time events. You have a chance to get pieces of a five-star outfit. But you also might pull one of a set of four-star items, or a permanent three-star piece. Of course, if you want all ten pieces of the five-star outfit, you have to do multiple pulls, each costing a handful of limited resources that you can earn in-game or purchase with money.Gacha was a fixture of mobile gaming for a long time, but in recent years, we’ve seen it go AAA, and global. MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact did a lot of that work when it came out worldwide on consoles and PC alongside its mobile release. Genshin and its successors are massive AAA games of a scale that, for your Nintendos and Ubisofts, would necessitate selling a bajillion copies to be a success. And they’re free.Genshin is an action game, whose playstyle changes depending on what character you’re playing — characters you get from gacha pulls, of course. In Zenless Zone Zero, the characters you can pull have different combo patterns, do different kinds of damage, and just feel different to play. And whereas in an early mobile gacha game like Love Nikki Dress UP! Queen the world was rudimentary, its modern descendant Infinity Nikki is, like Genshin, Breath of the Wild-esque. It is a massive open world, with collectibles and physics puzzles, platforming challenges, and a surprisingly involved storyline. Genshin Impact was the subject of an interesting study where researchers asked young adults in Hong Kong to self-report on their gacha spending habits. They found that, like with gambling, players who are not feeling good tend to spend more. “Young adult gacha gamers experiencing greater stress and anxiety tend to spend more on gacha purchases, have more motives for gacha purchases, and participate in more gambling activities,” they wrote. “This group is at a particularly higher risk of becoming problem gamblers.”One thing that is important to note is that Genshin Impact came out in 2020. The study was self-reported, and it was done during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a time when people were experiencing a lot of stress, and also fewer options to relieve that stress. We were all stuck inside gaming.But the fact that stress can make people more likely to spend money on gacha shows that while the gacha model isn’t necessarily harmful to everyone, it is exploitative to everyone. Since I started writing this story, another self-reported study came out in Japan, where 18.8% of people in their 20s say they’ve spent money on gacha rather than on things like food or rent.Following Genshin Impact’s release, MiHoYo put out Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero. All are shiny, big-budget games that are free to play, but dangle the lure of making just one purchase in front of the player. Maybe you could drop five bucks on a handful of in-game currency to get one more pull. Or maybe just this month you’ll get the second tier of rewards on the game’s equivalent of a Battle Pass. The game is free, after all — but haven’t you enjoyed at least ten dollars’ worth of gameplay? Image: HoyoverseI spent most of my December throwing myself into Infinity Nikki. I had been so stressed, and the game was so soothing. I logged in daily to fulfill my daily wishes and earn my XP, diamonds, Threads of Purity, and bling. I accumulated massive amounts of resources. I haven’t spent money on the game. I’m trying not to, and so far, it’s been pretty easy. I’ve been super happy with how much stuff I can get for free, and how much I can do! I actually feel really good about that — which is what I said to my boyfriend, and he replied, “Yeah, that’s the point. That’s how they get you.”And he’s right. Currently, Infinity Nikki players are embroiled in a war with developer Infold, after Infold introduced yet another currency type with deep ties to Nikki’s gacha system. Every one of these gacha games has its own tangled system of overlapping currencies. Some can only be used on gacha pulls. Some can only be used to upgrade items. Many of them can be purchased with human money.Image: InFold Games/Papergames via PolygonAll of this adds up. According to Sensor Towers’ data, Genshin Impact earned over 36 million dollars on mobile alone in a single month of 2024. I don’t know what Dan DiIorio’s peak monthly revenue for Luck Be A Landlord was, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.A lot of the spending guardrails we see in games like these are actually the result of regulations in other territories, especially China, where gacha has been a big deal for a lot longer. For example, gacha games have a daily limit on loot boxes, with the number clearly displayed, and a system collectively called “pity,” where getting the banner item is guaranteed after a certain number of pulls. Lastly, developers have to be clear about what the odds are. When I log in to spend the Revelation Crystals I’ve spent weeks hoarding in my F2P Infinity Nikki experience, I know that I have a 1.5% chance of pulling a 5-star piece, and that the odds can go up to 6.06%, and that I am guaranteed to get one within 20 pulls, because of the pity system.So, these odds are awful. But it is not as merciless as sitting down at a Vegas slot machine, an experience best described as “oh… that’s it?”There’s not a huge philosophical difference between buying a pack of loot boxes in Overwatch, a pull in Genshin Impact, or even a booster of Pokémon cards. You put in money, you get back randomized stuff that may or may not be what you want. In the dictionary definition, it’s a gamble. But unlike the slot machine, it’s not like you’re trying to win money by doing it, unless you’re selling those Pokémon cards, which is a topic for another time.But since even a game where you don’t get anything, like Balatro or Luck Be A Landlord, can come under fire for promoting gambling to kids, it would seem appropriate for app stores and ratings boards to take a similarly hardline stance with gacha.Instead, all these games are rated T for Teen by the ESRB, and PEGI 12 in the EU.The ESRB ratings for these games note that they contain in-game purchases, including random items. Honkai: Star Rail’s rating specifically calls out a slot machine mechanic, where players spend tokens to win a prize. But other than calling out Honkai’s slot machine, app stores are not slapping Genshin or Nikki with an 18+ rating. Meanwhile, Balatro had a PEGI rating of 18 until a successful appeal in February 2025, and Luck Be a Landlord is still 17+ on Apple’s App Store.Nobody knows what they’re doingWhen I started researching this piece, I felt very strongly that it was absurd that Luck Be A Landlord and Balatro had age ratings this high.I still believe that the way both devs have been treated by ratings boards is bad. Threatening an indie dev with a significant loss of income by pulling their game is bad, not giving them a way to defend themself or help them understand why it’s happening is even worse. It’s an extension of the general way that too-big-to-fail companies like Google treat all their customers.DiIorio told me that while it felt like a human being had at least looked at Luck Be A Landlord to make the determination that it contained gambling themes, the emails he was getting were automatic, and he doesn’t have a contact at Google to ask why this happened or how he can avoid it in the future — an experience that will be familiar to anyone who has ever needed Google support. But what’s changed for me is that I’m not actually sure anymore that games that don’t have gambling should be completely let off the hook for evoking gambling.Exposing teens to simulated gambling without financial stakes could spark an interest in the real thing later on, according to a study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It’s the same reason you can’t mosey down to the drug store to buy candy cigarettes. Multiple studies were done that showed kids who ate candy cigarettes were more likely to take up smoking (of course, the candy is still available — just without the “cigarette” branding.)So while I still think rating something like Balatro 18+ is nuts, I also think that describing it appropriately might be reasonable. As a game, it’s completely divorced from literally any kind of play you would find in a casino — but I can see the concern that the thrill of flashy numbers and the shiny cards might encourage young players to try their hand at poker in a real casino, where a real house can take their money.Maybe what’s more important than doling out high age ratings is helping people think about how media can affect us. In the same way that, when I was 12 and obsessed with The Matrix, my parents gently made sure that I knew that none of the violence was real and you can’t actually cartwheel through a hail of bullets in real life. Thanks, mom and dad!But that’s an answer that’s a lot more abstract and difficult to implement than a big red 18+ banner. When it comes to gacha, I think we’re even less equipped to talk about these game mechanics, and I’m certain they’re not being age-rated appropriately. On the one hand, like I said earlier, gacha exploits the player’s desire for stuff that they are heavily manipulated to buy with real money. On the other hand, I think it’s worth acknowledging that there is a difference between gacha and casino gambling.Problem gamblers aren’t satisfied by winning — the thing they’re addicted to is playing, and the risk that comes with it. In gacha games, players do report satisfaction when they achieve the prize they set out to get. And yes, in the game’s next season, the developer will be dangling a shiny new prize in front of them with the goal of starting the cycle over. But I think it’s fair to make the distinction, while still being highly critical of the model.And right now, there is close to no incentive for app stores to crack down on gacha in any way. They get a cut of in-app purchases. Back in 2023, miHoYo tried a couple of times to set up payment systems that circumvented Apple’s 30% cut of in-app spending. Both times, it was thwarted by Apple, whose App Store generated $1.1 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2022.According to Apple itself, 90% of that money did not include any commission to Apple. Fortunately for Apple, ten percent of a trillion dollars is still one hundred billion dollars, which I would also like to have in my bank account. Apple has zero reason to curb spending on games that have been earning millions of dollars every month for years.And despite the popularity of Luck Be A Landlord and Balatro’s massive App Store success, these games will never be as lucrative. They’re one-time purchases, and they don’t have microtransactions. To add insult to injury, like most popular games, Luck Be A Landlord has a lot of clones. And from what I can tell, it doesn’t look like any of them have been made to indicate that their games contain the dreaded “gambling themes” that Google was so worried about in Landlord.In particular, a game called SpinCraft: Roguelike from Sneaky Panda Games raised $6 million in seed funding for “inventing the Luck-Puzzler genre,” which it introduced in 2022, while Luck Be A Landlord went into early access in 2021.It’s free-to-play, has ads and in-app purchases, looks like Fisher Price made a slot machine, and it’s rated E for everyone, with no mention of gambling imagery in its rating. I reached out to the developers to ask if they had also been contacted by the Play Store to disclose that their game has gambling themes, but I haven’t heard back.Borrowing mechanics in games is as old as time, and it’s something I in no way want to imply shouldn’t happen because copyright is the killer of invention — but I think we can all agree that the system is broken.There is no consistency in how games with random chance are treated. We still do not know how to talk about gambling, or gambling themes, and at the end of the day, the results of this are the same: the house always wins.See More:

With Queens of the Dead, Tina Romero, daughter of the legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, is set to make her first directorial outing, premiering the feature at the Tribeca Film Festival June 7. The filmmaker recently spoke to Entertainment Weekly and reflected on her father’s influence. “I am his kid. There’s no denying it. And he has influenced me greatly.” Romero said. Queens of the Dead will feature Easter eggs to honor her father’s legacy. “And this is his monster, this is his genre. I had fun doing my little Romero nods throughout the film, and we have some good ones,” she shared, including appearances by notable figures such as makeup artist and actor Tom Savini and Dawn of the Dead star Gaylen Ross.  “The zombie apocalypse is such a rich sandbox to play in when it comes to social commentary. I can’t be my dad’s daughter without making an attempt at saying something with zombies,” Romero told the magazine. “I did want this to be a film in which I am paying homage to the world and the monster he created, but I’m also introducing my own voice. It’s very much not a film he would make, but it is using his vocabulary and is playing by his rules. As far as the queer element, on one hand, I just feel like the gays need a zombie film. It’s time that we get to have a big gay zombie movie.” “I didn’t want to touch the genre unless it felt authentic to me,” Romero emphasized. Queens of the Dead revolves around a night in the queer party scene when the nightlife vibes at a warehouse drag show get interrupted by the zombie apocalypse. The inspiration came from intense conflict on social media among party promoters during her stint as a DJ. Romero recounted,  “The original promoter posted this manifesto begging the question, ‘When will the queer community stop devouring its own?’ And it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I was like, ‘Oh my God! This would be how I want to explore the zombie genre in this world of queer nightlife.’” The Mandalorian baddie Katy O’Brien plays the fictionalized promoter who leads the film; Romero noted that there’s a special thanks to Tom Cruise in the credits for letting them take the time off their Mission: Impossible shoot to film the horror flick. Romero hopes the film will shine a light on the hunger for more genre films that represent an intersection of gay scream queens with that familiar flair for horror and dark comedy from her father’s roots. The legendary filmmaker didn’t get to see a completed script but mentored his daughter during the development process. Romero shared, “He said, ‘I love it! Run with it. Go for it.’ Unfortunately, he never got to read the completed script because it took me about seven years to get this developed… but I did have this blessing.” Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Julianne Malveaux is an MIT-educated economist, author, educator and political commentator who has written extensively about the critical relationship between public policy, corporate accountability and social equity.  The rapid expansion of data centers across the U.S. is not only reshaping the digital economy but also threatening to overwhelm our energy infrastructure. These data centers aren’t just heavy on processing power — they’re heavy on our shared energy infrastructure. For Americans, this could mean serious sticker shock when it comes to their energy bills. Across the country, many households are already feeling the pinch as utilities ramp up investments in costly new infrastructure to power these data centers. With costs almost certain to rise as more data centers come online, state policymakers and energy companies must act now to protect consumers. We need new policies that ensure the cost of these projects is carried by the wealthy big tech companies that profit from them, not by regular energy consumers such as family households and small businesses. According to an analysis from consulting firm Bain & Co., data centers could require more than $2 trillion in new energy resources globally, with U.S. demand alone potentially outpacing supply in the next few years. This unprecedented growth is fueled by the expansion of generative AI, cloud computing and other tech innovations that require massive computing power. Bain’s analysis warns that, to meet this energy demand, U.S. utilities may need to boost annual generation capacity by as much as 26% by 2028 — a staggering jump compared to the 5% yearly increases of the past two decades. This poses a threat to energy affordability and reliability for millions of Americans. Bain’s research estimates that capital investments required to meet data center needs could incrementally raise consumer bills by 1% each year through 2032. That increase may seem small at first, but it can add up quickly for households already struggling with high energy prices. As utilities attempt to pay for these upgrades, the burden could fall on consumers' shoulders unless policies are enacted to make the tech companies driving this demand handle the costs. One example comes from Ohio, where the boom in data centers means central Ohio is on track to use as much power as Manhattan by 2030. There, the state's largest energy company, American Electric Power, has proposed a new rate structure for data centers that requires them to pay at least 85% of their predicted energy demand every month, even if they use less, to ensure the utility won't need to pass off costs for expanded infrastructure to consumers. States could also consider passing legislation to impose a temporary tax on new high-usage energy consumers, like data centers, cryptocurrency miners and chip manufacturing facilities. Those tax dollars could go directly into an energy relief fund, which could be used to offset increased energy costs for current consumers, either through a tax rebate or by funding the construction and maintenance of new infrastructure, so those costs aren't passed down to consumers in the first place. There's opportunity here, too, for policymakers, utilities and data centers to join forces and help drive the clean energy revolution. Policymakers could provide incentives for data centers that adopt energy-saving measures or include renewable energy sources to offset the burden on utilities and consumers. By encouraging tech companies to produce a certain percentage of their own energy on-site, states can reduce the need for costly grid expansions while promoting green energy initiatives. Tech companies have already pushed back against efforts to implement such policies, with a coalition of data center backers that includes Amazon, Microsoft and Meta claiming in Ohio that requiring them to pay higher rates is discriminatory and unprecedented, and that it could discourage future investment in Ohio. The reality, however, is that these tech companies can and should carry the burden of the new energy infrastructure they’re demanding. Amazon’s net earnings for 2023 were $30.4 billion. Microsoft brought in $72.4 billion. Meta? $39 billion. Passing on a fraction of these profits to fund the infrastructure that drives this wealth is a small price to pay to ensure fair treatment of energy consumers. The massive energy demand created by these new data centers is unprecedented. And that’s exactly why it’s important for policymakers and utilities to take action now, and set a precedent that protects average consumers by requiring tech companies to pay their fair share for the electricity they need. If left unaddressed, the unchecked growth of data centers will continue to threaten energy security and affordability for millions of Americans. States and energy companies must adopt policies to prevent the burden of rising electricity demands and prices from falling disproportionately on everyday energy consumers. By ensuring that tech companies contribute fairly to the infrastructure that sustains them, we can build a more sustainable and equitable energy future for all.

Facing huge fines, Apple on Monday began a legal challenge to the European Commission’s “unreasonable” demand that it open up its platforms to rivals, arguing any such move threatens the foundations of its platforms with a costly process that also undercuts its ability to serve customers. The company is, in a word, furious. It argued that it has cooperated with the Commission’s demands under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and points to the investments it has already made in complying with that act. What Apple said “At Apple, we design our technology to work seamlessly together, so it can deliver the unique experience our users love and expect from our products,” the company said in a statement. “The EU’s interoperability requirements threaten that foundation, while creating a process that is unreasonable, costly, and stifles innovation. These requirements will also hand data-hungry companies’ sensitive information, which poses massive privacy and security risks to our EU users.” The company also noted that there is a real risk that people’s most sensitive information could be accessed, partially because it becomes so much harder to defend. These attempts are already taking place, Apple said. “Companies have already requested our users’ most sensitive data — from the content of their notifications to a full history of every stored Wi-Fi network on their device — giving them the ability to access personal information that even Apple doesn’t see. In the end, these deeply flawed rules that only target Apple — and no other company will severely limit our ability to deliver innovative products and features to Europe, leading to an inferior user experience for our European customers. We are appealing these decisions on their behalf, and in order to preserve the high-quality experience our European customers expect.” A one-sided approach What seems to really upset Apple is that some aspects of the demands mean the company will effectively be forced to hand its innovations out to businesses with which it is in direct competition — at no charge. That means Apple does not get to draw the full benefits of its work and makes it far more difficult to introduce products in Europe. What makes matters worse is that while Apple is being forced to open up in ways that advantage competitors, quite literally at its expense, it is not being given the opportunity to do the same back. Apple is the only company that these demands have been made of, meaning it is being forced to give its intellectual property away to others who do not need to play by the same rules. Some data hungry companies are already attempting to exploit the DMA to gain unfettered access to sensitive customer data. All the while, Apple is left alone and isolated in its quest to ensure user privacy consistent with GDPR regulation. It’s attempts to protect privacy are about protecting customers. Compliance? We are compliant While critics will continue to sneer and jeer at the company in their quest to rid the world of the “Apple Tax” only the world’s largest developers actually pay, Apple would argue that it has been making serious efforts to comply with the DMA. The company has opened up a portal developers can use to request additional interoperability with hardware and software features inside iPhones and iPads. Apple consistently opens up API access to iPhone, including opening up SMS messaging to RCS, HomeKit features and messaging services support. It has also put in place numerous other enhancements in response to the DMA, and while the warning messages it places when using third-party stores may be stark, this makes them no less true. Europe seems to want customers to use third-party stores with no warning at all that this is what is going on, which seems weird. Malicious regulatory compliance There is a degree to which much of the situation seems to reflect political, rather than economic or moral pressures. The fact that Europe is using Apple as a high profile example, while also refusing to be totally transparent about what it wants before levying any fines, suggests that the Commission is not so much deciding on facts as implementing a political decision using a set of laws that seem designed almost solely to punish one company. That’s the kind of malicious regulatory compliance Apple is furious about — a compliance regime that will now be tested in the courts. Will it make a difference?  Who knows? But the existential battle will decide the future of technology in Europe, and if the market is worth doing business in when compared to the cost of doing so. It will also determine the future of Apple, which will use its considerable resources to find some way to change the nature of the game. One group it seems unlikely to help will be those of Apple’s European customers who are happy and accustomed to the Apple ecosystem, and don’t particularly want to use third-party services, as Apple’s right to offer that “pure Apple” experience seems a likely sacrifice to Europe’s politically-driven zeal. That is, unless cooler heads do curtail the Commission’s attacks. You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Nightlords are arguably the hardest enemies in Elden Ring Nightreign — powerful, nerve-racking bosses who show up at the very end of your runs. All the preparation you go through during the first two days of a match in Elden Ring Nightreign — from farming runes to looking for ways to upgrade your weapons — is in service of one goal: getting strong enough to beat the Nightlord of your run. Each boss has their own dedicated mechanics and weaknesses, and you can tackle (most) of them in the order you see fit. In this Elden Ring Nightreign guide, we’ll go over our recommendation of the the best Nightlords order so you know which boss fights to prioritize.  Best Nightlords boss fight order in Elden Ring Nightreign  The best Nightlords order in Elden Ring Nightreign is a subjective matter, largely up to your individual class, equipment, and personal adeptness with each character. That said, we’ve assembled guide to present what would be, in our opinion, the fights you should focus on first to build up confidence and accumulate knowledge about the game. In general, the better-prepared you are for each fight, the better you’ll fare. But some Nightlords are less forgiving than others if you reach the final day under-leveled or under-equipped. Along the same lines, we consider bosses who can inflict detrimental effects more difficult to prepare for than those who you can defeat simply by mastering their mechanics. And then, of course, there’s the huge matter that all of this — as with all things Nightreign — is contingent on whether or not your teammates actually collaborate with you. With all this in mind, below, here’s our recommendation for the best Nightlords order in Elden Ring Nightreign, with their respective expedition names in parentheses. Gladius, Beast of Night (Tricephalos) Gnoster, Wisdom of Night (Sentient Pest) Maris, Fathom of Night (Augur) Adel, Baron of Night (Gaping Jaw) Caligo, Miasma of Night (Fissure in the Fog) Libra, Creature of Night (Equilibrious Beast) Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow (Darkdrift Knight) Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect) Gladius, Beast of Night (Tricephalos) There isn’t much to say here because you can’t actually choose not to face Gladius, Beast of Night first. Tricephalos is the first expedition you have access to and the other expeditions won’t become available until you have defeated them. Use your first runs against this Nightlord to learn your way through Limveld. Gnoster, Wisdom of Night (Sentient Pest) It might sound contradictory to face a duo boss after beating Gladius, Beast of Night. Tracking two enemies is challenging and requires you to know the limits of your class. Even so, you should still pick Sentient Pest as your second expedition and fight Gnoster, Wisdom of Night. There are two main reasons for that. First, almost none of their attacks are capable of instantly killing you unless you’re under level 10. They don’t require you to have specific resistances or weapons either. If you’re playing a melee class, you just need to have patience until Gnoster gets closer and wait for a good window to attack.  The second reason is Gnoster’s weaknesses. Fire damage is extremely strong against it and it is easy to find a weapon that causes fire damage; throwing pots or Fire Grease, a consumable that makes your weapon cause elemental damage for a period of time. Maris, Fathom of Night (Augur) The only reason why we suggest tackling Maris, Fathom of Night (from the Augur expedition) after Gnoster is that this boss constantly applies sleep, dealing a lot of damage and leaving you exposed to follow-up attacks. Nevertheless, after enough matches, you’ll have obtained enough Relics, some of which can come with sleep resistance, removing a challenging factor of this fight.  When it comes to mechanics, there are just a couple of attacks to watch out for. Kill or dodge the small jellyfish the boss sends your way and run from the shining one, since it nukes a large area. Their main attacks are clearly telegraphed so there isn’t much to worry about on that front. Learn their patterns and defeat your third boss. Adel, Baron of Night (Gaping Jaw) Although the Gaping Jaw is the expedition Nightreign suggests tackling after Gladius, we’d suggest waiting to fight Adel, Baron of Night until you become more familiar with the game. Adel deals a lot of damage with their bite attack, which causes blood loss, a major threat if you don’t have a lot of health. In general, Adel’s attacks can really pin you down, but when the boss enters its second phase, it becomes a real nightmare. To make your life easier, you can use poison against the boss, but this is a type of elemental damage difficult to find weapons with or greases to apply. In other words, you will probably have to face the boss without relying on exploiting any weakness.  Caligo, Miasma of Night (Fissure in the Fog) Fighting a giant prehistoric dragon is never a good idea, but Caligo, Miasma of Night, the Nightlord you must fight in the Fissure in the Fog expedition, could be worse. To prepare for this fight, farm runes to reach level 12 or higher.  Once you know how to handle Caligo’s attacks, this gigantic dragon becomes less of a threat, but knowing the fight is not enough to survive. During the match, watch out for elemental resistances that might drop from minor bosses. Caligo’s attacks can inflict Frostbite and they cover large areas of the arena, so you’ll probably get hit by them. You also want to come with strong weapons capable of causing fire damage.  Libra, Creature of Night (Equilibrious Beast) The Equilibrious Beast expedition, where you must fight Libra, Creature of Night, is presents a notable step-up in difficulty compared to the previous fights. The most challenging aspect of this fight is in the preparation: Most of Libra’s attacks inflict madness and there aren’t many methods to prevent it. They are also weak to madness, but you’ll need to find the right incantation to cause that type of damage. Most importantly, there isn’t a safe spot to hide in this fight. Libra is fast, can teleport next to their target, and unleashes lengthy, quick sequences of attacks with their staff. Finding the right window to heal is difficult, because they can cast long-range area-of-effect attacks that hit many places in the arena. Beating Libra is a matter of farming, learning the fight, and luck. Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow (Darkdrift Knight) Among the bosses in Elden Ring Nightreign, very few are as punitive as Fulgor, Champion of Nightflow. This one-arm centaur is waiting for you in the Darkdrift Knight expedition and facing them will test all you’ve learned so far. Exploiting Fulghor’s weakness to lightning damage is a must, but the challenge here involves actually hitting them while avoiding their massive area attacks or quick thrusts.  You need to know how to farm well for this fight and memorize Fulghor’s attack pattern if you plan on completing this expedition. Fulghor causes a lot of damage, making you run out of flasks pretty fast if you don’t dodge at the right time. In addition, during the second phase, Fulghor becomes more brutal with a complex combination of short and long-distance attacks. Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect) Just like Gladius had to go first, you can’t avoid saving the Night Aspect expedition for last since it is the last one you unlock and where you must fight Heolstor the Nightlord. Be sure to have sourced the best gear and achieved the highest level you can before facing this one. For more Elden Ring Nightreign guides, here’s how to change skins, what “memory fragment found” means, and a list of the best rune farming locations.

The developers of SnowRunner have combined its vehicular physics simulator gameplay with design elements from the building simulator genre, to bring us Roadcraft, a unique game that requires you to use an array of vehicles and construction machinery to do everything from clearing debris to rebuilding roads and laying cable. Road construction is a primary aspect of gameplay, and involves multiple steps: resource collection, logistical transport, route planning, and actual road building. While there is a very in-depth tutorial in-game that holds your hand every step of the way, there are a lot of nuances to road construction that you may not be aware of, and this RoadCraft guide has everything you need to know about those game mechanics. Scout Vehicle Selection The Scout is a critical vehicle for its scanning and winching capabilities, and while there are 7 to choose from, only 2 are available initially. Between these first two Scouts, the Armiger Thunder IV should be your preferred choice, due to its higher mobility and shorter wheelbase. Your eventual Scout vehicle should be the Tuz 119 “Lynx” which becomes available in the Deluge campaign for a price of nearly 25,000. The winch capability will come in handy as you clear debris to establish routes, and scan for terrain and objects. Field Recovery Vehicles These vehicles serve the purpose of behaving as spawn points for your other utility vehicles. This will be tremendously helpful in situations where you will require multiple pieces of equipment at a given location. Simply drive one of these to the work site such as a road construction objective, and you can simply spawn all task-related vehicles there, at the cost of Recovery Tokens. The free KHAN Lo “Strannik” Field Service Vehicle will more than suffice for this purpose, while also being equipped with a winch for manual towing. Equipment Transporters In the absence of fuel tokens, vehicle haulers can also be used to accomplish the task of manually delivering multiple vehicles to a work site. The Zikz 605E Heavy Equipment Transporter will be your preferred choice at a cost of 25,000, and will serve you well throughout the campaign. However, the Step 39331 “Pike” Light Equipment Transporter can function just as well, since it can use both its flatbed and its winch to haul two vehicles at a time, with maximum tonnage capability being the true limitation. Crane Trucks A great deal of what you will be doing in the game will involve picking stuff up off of the ground with a crane and placing it onto a flatbed for transportation. While you will be provided with two separate vehicles to accomplish this, it will be quite a tedious process especially for solo players. This is where the Mule T1 Cargo Crane Truck comes in immediately useful, at a price of 27,000. It will save you a great deal of time and effort over multiple instances in the campaign. Eventually, you will purchase better Craned vehicles, but the older ones will never use utility, as you can leave them in place at your various facilities to act as on-site loaders. In a pinch, Crane Trucks can serve as a winch vehicle for any situation that may arise. Road Construction Your AI convoys are going to get hung up on every little obstacle along their dirt path routes, and this is where good road building comes into play. Locate a quarry source for sand, and begin filling in the route with your loaded Dump Truck. Next, use your Dozer set to sand leveling or better yet, your Roller, to perform multiple passes in order to flatten the sand, with two passes being an absolute minimum. Be sure to proceed as slowly and carefully as you can on the second and further passes, listening carefully for audio feedback while traversing the route, which will sound different when traveling over fully flattened ground compared to slightly uneven terrain. A recommended method is to go down the center twice, once in each direction, in order to perfect the two ends. Then travel once along each side to spread the sand evenly, followed by a single final pass down the center again. Asphalt Paving Strictly speaking, asphalt paving is unnecessary in the vast majority of situations, unless required by mission objectives. However, if you do elect to pave all your roads, there are some important steps to take. The sand must be perfectly flattened, else the paving machines will frequently snag on unseen obstacles. One way to mitigate this, is to use the Paver while traveling in reverse. While this may seem odd, since the asphalt is deposited from the front and flattened by the rear, the game still allows it. An even better option is to hoist the Paver with a mobile Crane and float it low over the planned route, and then drive the Crane along the path instead, which is significantly faster and avoids physics bugs. Deploy the Roller next, and use the same leveling process as you do with sand: down the center once in each direction, then each side once, and one last time down the center again. Leveling Uneven Roads Failure to properly level the sand before laying down asphalt can lead to significantly large bumps in your roads. You can still recover from a situation like this without having to resort to using your Dozer’s Asphalt Destruction grader mode. Take your Roller out instead and perform multiple passes over the bump with it, and it will flatten out eventually. Plotting Routes For AI Convoys While creating routes for your transport vehicles to follow, be sure to set them along one side of the road rather than down the center. This will mitigate head-on collisions between AI traffic traveling in opposite directions, as their pathing can be quite poor. Also avoid placing an excessive number of waypoints wherever possible as this is interpreted as a direction change. While the vehicles will not get turned completely around, they can bug out and end up in an environmental hazard. Be sure to delete the routes once you have completed the related objectives and collected all of the rewards, in order to maintain a clean infrastructure map. That is everything you need to know about constructing proper roads in RoadCraft.

After the celebration ends, college graduates typically face numerous transitions, from moving to a new city and/or starting a new job to taking on student loan payments and other financial responsibilities. College students are often targeted for job scams, but the Better Business Bureau is alerting recent grads about schemes being employed specifically to steal their personal information and money during this transition period. Unpaid tuition scamImagine getting a call after graduation that you have an outstanding tuition payment, and unless you pay the bill immediately, your diploma will be rescinded. Scammers are using this threat to con recent grads—who have, in fact, paid their full tuition—into sending money via wire transfer or prepaid debit card, which cannot be tracked or recovered. Another version of this scam attempts to convince college students (and/or their parents) that they owe tuition and need to pay immediately to ensure they remain enrolled. If you receive an email, text, or call about an unpaid bill, do not engage—instead, contact your school's bursar or financial services office directly. You will typically receive communication from higher education institutions by mail or via a secure student portal—not as an urgent message demanding money.Student loan scamsStudent loans have been targets for scammers for years—made easier by the starting and stopping of loan forgiveness programs—and recent college grads who are getting ready to make their first payments are common victims. You may get an unsolicited call, text, or email from a company offering debt relief or debt forgiveness services for a fee. In some cases, the company is legit but making false claims, and in others, the whole thing is a scam. They may ask for upfront payment, usually via gift card or wire transfer, and never deliver, or gather a bunch of personal information that can be used to steal your identity. While the status of loan forgiveness can be difficult to follow, you should know the details of your loan, including when payments are due to begin, and look for official sources regarding loan forgiveness options. Job scamsEmployment scams range from fake job listings to unsolicited texts from "recruiters" offering a position while demanding personal information and payment for "training." Recent grads may be promised an entry-level remote role at a completely unrealistic salary, and scammers collect everything from your Social Security number to your bank account information in exchange for the offer. Other schemes have you pay upfront for training or equipment you never receive (because the job isn't real) or pay you too much with a fake check and ask for reimbursement via app or wire transfer. No one is getting too-good-to-be-true jobs in this market. Always do your due diligence on companies before applying for a position or accepting an offer: Review the official website for contact information and job postings, and consider reaching out to HR or employees you locate independently to confirm that a position is legit. Don't ever pay for anything up front. Moving scamsThe moving industry seems to be rife with scams, and recent grads who need to move across town or out of state are not immune. Moving companies may charge more money than was quoted and, in the worst cases, hold your stuff hostage unless you pay. Or they may simply not show after you've paid a deposit for the move. Red flags for moving companies include estimates delivered quickly and with little information collected about your move, full payments demanded before the move, and non-refundable deposits paid via peer-to-peer apps and bank transfers (negating the protection of credit cards). Thoroughly research the company to understand how moving brokers operate, and make sure you get everything in writing.Rental scamsIf you make it through the actual move unscathed, you could still encounter a rental scam. As with job scams, these involve listings that sound too good to be true, with lots of amenities in a desired location at an affordable price. (Like job scams, most renters aren't getting these deals in this market.) Fraudsters may even use real properties in their listings to lure you in. Once they have you, they collect a deposit, first month's rent, and a bunch of personal information while leaving you with nowhere to live. While you may pay your actual rent via Zelle, PayPal, or Venmo, you shouldn't use these services to send a deposit for a rental you haven't seen to a landlord you haven't met. Search the listing on Zillow, Redfin, and other rental sites to look for inconsistencies that could indicate a scam. Verify the address, look at Google street view, and visit (or send someone you trust in your place) before paying any money if you can.

The default mouse and keyboard controls in Elden Ring Nightreign are serviceable at best, unless you customize them to meet your preferences. Out of the box, the control layout for PC feels clunky, but with a few key changes, you can bring the experience in-line with most modern open-world games. Bearing that in mind, the following is a recommended mouse and keyboard settings for Elden Ring Nightreign that feels familiar and tailored for PC, so that you can keep focusing on the Nightlords instead of wrestling with the controls.

The Steam Deck changed the game for PC players, opening up a world of portability that was usually reserved for Nintendo fans. Naturally, manufacturers tried to follow suit with Windows-based handhelds and the results are, shall we say, mixed. Now, Valve has released official instructions for installing its SteamOS on devices other than the Steam Deck. Let's dive into how to do it—and whether you should.I should note up front: This is going to be a nebulous area when it comes to official support from the company that made your handheld. At time of writing, the Lenovo Legion Go S is the only handheld with the "Powered by SteamOS" branding (besides the Steam Deck itself), meaning it's officially supported with a final build. You can install SteamOS on devices like the Legion Go and the ROG Ally, but their support isn't final.Also, it should go without saying, but we'll say it anyway: If you wipe Windows from your handheld, you won't be able to play Windows-based games that aren't supported via SteamOS. That largely consists of online games that require anti-cheat software, but it's worth checking sites like ProtonDB to make sure your favorite games will work on SteamOS.Why should you install SteamOS on your Windows handheld?So, with the caveats out of the way, what are the upsides? Put (overly) simply, Windows is not designed for handhelds. In fact, under the hood, Windows tends to see your gaming handheld as a laptop. Right down to including things like Microsoft Teams that run in the background, or popping up alert boxes that interrupt your game to inform you of a low battery.Now that people are able to experiment with SteamOS and Windows on the same hardware, it's becoming clearer that Windows itself is a massive nerf to both frame rate and battery life. Even gaming laptops, which can often last all day for normal work, can struggle to get even a few hours of gameplay while away from a charger. That's why it's so important to tweak your settings for the best battery life.Gaming handhelds only make this problem worse with a smaller form factor, and thus a smaller battery. In my own experience, I've struggled to get two hours of playing a lightweight game like Stardew Valley from a Windows handheld, while the Steam Deck and even the Switch can get upwards of six hours or more.Since Windows is primarily designed as a desktop (and secondarily as a tablet) computer, it's also harder to tweak settings using controller inputs. What, exactly, is the controller equivalent of Ctrl+Alt+Delete again? While you can plug in a keyboard to dig around in your handheld's settings, it's just easier to do on SteamOS, since its interface has been built from the ground up for controller input.At this point, Valve has also shown that running Steam games via the Proton compatibility layer works so well that it's almost seamless. I admit, when the Steam Deck was first announced, I expected games to be broken or perform much worse than their native Windows counterparts. Four hundred hours in Hades II later, though, and it's clear that many games can actually run better on SteamOS than Windows.Step 1: Download and prepare a SteamOS recovery image USB stickWith all that out of the way, let's get started. To install SteamOS on your gaming handheld, you'll need two things: the SteamOS recovery image and a USB stick (preferably USB-C) with at least 8GB of storage. Make sure anything on that USB stick is properly backed up, because this process will reformat that device.The Steam Deck recovery image can be found here. It's a little over 3GB, so it might take a little while to download, depending on your connection. While you wait for that, you'll also need a utility to create the recovery USB drive. Valve recommends Rufus for Windows users, and Balena Etcher for Mac or Linux users. Once the recovery image is downloaded, use whichever tool you chose to write the recovery image to your USB drive. This process should be relatively straightforward. Rufus, for example, will present you with a dropdown to select which drive to write the file to under Device, and under Boot Selection, click Select to pick the recovery image file. Click Start and wait. Reminder: This will wipe the contents of your USB drive.Step 2: Disable Secure Boot on your handheldThis part can be a bit tricky, and the exact process will vary depending on which handheld you own. Valve has a breakdown of the steps here for a couple specific devices, like the Legion Go and the ROG Ally. However, other devices like those from MSI or Ayaneo will have their own process.In general, the steps will usually go something like this:Reboot to the bios. Similar to how you can hold Del or F2 on a computer while rebooting to get to the bios, your gaming handheld has a similar process. Often it's holding a button like Volume + while pressing the power button, but check your specific device's instructions if that doesn't work.Navigate to the Secure Boot settings. You may have to poke around for this one. Look for categories like Security, and you may need to switch to an Advanced settings mode or menu to find it. This setting should be called Secure Boot. Change this to Disabled.Save settings and restart your device. Once you've changed the Secure Boot setting, make sure to save the changes to your bios and restart.Depending on the device, you might have to use the touchscreen to navigate the bios, or even plug in a keyboard or mouse. Again, Valve has specifics for a couple of devices in the link above, but if you're lost, your device's manufacturer will be your best bet for getting specific instructions.Step 3: Boot using the SteamOS recovery image Credit: Eric Ravenscraft Once you've disabled Secure Boot, you can plug the USB stick into your handheld and restart the device. At this point, you should end up at a boot menu that lets you choose which drive to boot to. Once again, this process will sometimes differ by device, so if you're not sure how to get to the boot menu, check your device's documentation.When you get to the boot menu, select your USB drive with the SteamOS recovery image on it. This will take you to a SteamOS desktop environment. Here, you'll see four shortcuts on the desktop. The one we care about is labeled "Wipe Device & Install SteamOS". Give that a single tap (double-tapping will launch it twice, so be careful).At this point, you should see a warning that proceeding with this step will erase everything on your device. If you had any important game saves, media, or work files (for some reason) on this device that weren't already backed up, you can still bail on this process and reboot to Windows to save them. This is the point of no return, though. Make sure you're ready before moving forward.Step 4: Familiarize yourself with your new handheld's quirks Credit: Eric Ravenscraft The install process won't take too long, and when it's done, your handheld will restart and begin setup as though it's a natural-born Steam Deck. There are a few quirks, though. For example, in my testing on the Legion Go, the device tutorial pointed to the "Steam button" on the bottom-left side, but used the Xbox logo. In reality, the corresponding button was at the top-right, and had a Legion logo. It also pointed to a microSD card slot on the bottom of the device that doesn't exist.Unless you're using an official "Powered by SteamOS" device, prepare for some awkwardness while using the device. Aside from the tutorial, I found some games I wasn't able to install—pressing "Install" on Doom Eternal simply did nothing, for example—and it took some time to figure out which hardware buttons were mapped to which Steam Deck input.To my surprise, some things that I expected to be broken worked perfectly when I tested this. The Legion Go is unique in that its controllers can be detached, Joy-Con style, from the handheld. I expected them to be laggy or non-functional when I played with SteamOS, but they worked perfectly during a Hades II run—a game that isn't very forgiving of input lag.Your mileage can and will vary depending on what games you want to play and what hardware you want to run SteamOS on. Still, as we wait for manufacturers to more officially support SteamOS—or for Microsoft to make a proper handheld of its own—it's exciting to finally be able to have a choice in platform for these devices.