Didn't one of the ea sport games have a literal slot machine you buy tokens to spin as part of their MTX?
What? Did the playing cards have their tits out or something?
It was imagery of gambling. And yeah, that tracks.
Sure, but there isn't any actual gambling, and Balatro works a lot differently to actual gambling. It's not the gateway drug PEGI seems to think it is...
Their reasoning is because it uses poker hands, it teaches you poker which could lead to gambling. Pretty ridiculous.
Yeah, the hands are what make poker dangerous...
My concern with poker has to do with betting, and therefore risk-taking, and Balatro doesn't have that. Learning how poker hands work is an academic exercise, and I absolutely encourage it, since it's such an important cultural thing (i.e. shows up in lots of movies).
So yeah, absolutely ridiculous.
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Yes, it's the game with the jokers
It's E in America according to IGN.
If it's E in NA, then why is it rated 18+ in Europe?
"Gambling," because it uses poker hands, I guess.
Which is completely stupid because there's no gambling in the game at all, poker hands are simply used to score points. It's completely nonsensical.
NA mostly uses ESRB while most of Europe uses PEGI as their rating board. They're different organizations so they can have different criterias for rating as well as different inspectors actually doing the rating.
Doesn't E stand for Everyone?
I'm not sure if this is satire, but America isn't everyone. :)
I put this in the other post too. This is literally their description on steam.
Combine valid poker hands with unique Joker cards in order to create varied synergies and builds. Earn enough chips to beat devious blinds, all while uncovering hidden bonus hands and decks as you progress. You’re going to need every edge you can get in order to reach the boss blind, beat the final ante and secure victory.
Combined with playing actual poker hands, yeah that's going to get tagged for gambling. They knew what they were doing and this performative outrage is a viral marketing campaign.
If Balatro is gambling then so is every game that has a chance based mechanic. Genshin Impact is PEGI 12 and you can spend money on loot boxes, which is absolutely gambling. Balatro is identical to Hades, except you fight with cards.
The law is poorly written, or is being applied incorrectly here. Balatro is in no way simulating a casino, which I'd be more inclined to say games that do that should have a more mature rating. Bit of a slippery slope though, nothing stops a casino from adding a new game that mimics an existing genre of video game mechanics, and then regulators saying the entire genre is gambling. It's all pearl clutching, not backed by any science, etc. made by the same people that want to ban Mortal Kombat and think Counter Strike causes school shootings.
They could release just swap a dozen words, it wouldn't get this rating. None of those words are required for it to be a good game. The essence of gambling that society wants to protect children from is not part of Balatro any more than it is Solitaire.
want to ban Mortal Kombat
To be fair, Mortal Kombat is pretty brutal and I don't want my kids playing it until they're older.
Eh I played when the OG Mortal Kombat came out all the time at the local pizza place when I was like 9, and I turned out fine. I've only murdered a handful of people so far. It's not like I became a cop or anything like that.
Yeah, I'm not worried my kids will become serial killers or something, but I am a little worried about them "playing" Mortal Kombat in real life w/ their friends. I had friends who practiced "professional wrestling" moves, and I'm worried someone could get hurt reenacting what they saw in the games. My kids reeenact DND/FF-style things w/ friends, and fortunately that's pretty harmless.
By the time I was about 12 or so, I stopped doing that kind of reenactment, so I think that's a decent time to let kids start playing those games. I've played a ton of violent video games (lots of Halo, GTA, etc), and I'm pretty chill and would never hurt a fly. Video games don't cause misbehavior, but they certainly attract deviants who would likely hurt others anyway.
I'm certainly not arguing against content moderation for the littles. I just disagree with the reasons they cite, you know, the whole video games cause violence, and the bigger brother that is whatever BS puritanical religious zealots come up with to force their opinions on the pubic. Define a list of things we don't want kids to see / know about at various ages, and why, then go on from there. There's way too much bullshit in the laws that are just prior generations trying to force the next generations to not change, which is their prerogative, I just wish we could be honest about it.
Oh, I 100% agree. Policies like this should be based on actual science, and things like MTX (i.e. actual gambling) cause way more harm than learning poker hands (i.e. gambling-adjacent). I'm totally fine w/ my kids playing Balatro, I'm not fine w/ my kids playing Fortnite (PEGI 3-12, depending on mode), and that's based on facts instead of whatever the PEGI system is based on (feels?).
Super Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros both include poker. PEGI rated them 3+.
Then they should have been rated higher.
God forbid anyone under 18 knows that gambling exists without actually engaging in it.
You do know that you can play a card game without it being gambling, don't you? Or that you can gamble on not just any card game, but just about anything?
By your logic we should rank solitaire as 18+, since people actually gamble on it in casinos.
My parents actually banned face cards at our house, and they still generally avoid them on an "appearance of evil" basis. I always thought that was dumb, because it's just as easy to gamble with numbered cards as with face cards. The design of the cards isn't an issue, nor even the mechanics (i.e. highest scoring hand wins), but with the actual gambling aspect to it.
I have a zero tolerance for gambling in my house, but we use face cards regularly, and I'm happy to play Balatro w/ my kids. In fact, I've been meaning to, I just have other games to get through (currently Hogwarts Legacy and *Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom). They like to watch me play, and Balatro would be really interesting to them since they love math.
I once bet a guy a $1 that I could take two people, one a stockbroker the other a homeless person, and trade their lives to see the social ramifications. Lotta laughs, that's for sure.
Then how do you reconcile that they aren't, or what about games that feature real money gambling like sports games? (NBA games feature real gambling with micro transactions and casino games such as slot machines and pachinko machines). NBA 2k games have a pegi rating of 3 and up.
It's not performative if the industry insider run ratings commission uses their power to give ratings that favor their games and hurt smaller independent studios.
Best I can do is 5 stars.
I suppose playing cards in Europe are considered "gambling materials" under that logic and aren't allowed to be sold to people under 18? That would be absurd.
Performative gambling is in no way worse than real gambling. If every other lootbox game got 18+ you would be completely right, but we need to look at the context for this.
Perform to standard, instead of lowering the standard.
There's no possible rational standard where balatro could theoretically be age restricted.
It's dressed up solitaire.
Worst case, maybe PEGI 12? And then, only because parents might be somehow offended by poker hands, and that gives them a chance to check the reasoning.
I would genuinely look at a parent saying their kid isn't old enough to learn poker hands exactly the same as if they said it about cribbage or rummy.
It's nonsense.
Yup. I personally haven't taught my kids poker hands because it's not a very fun game IMO, especially for kids. It's basically a bluffing game, and there are far more interesting bluffing games out there.
I have no problems with my kids learning poker hands, but the game needs to actually be fun, which Balatro is.
Fine point, I'm all for raising all of those games to 18+. But I guess this isn't first of many but an exception to the rule.
If that's what it is, maybe I'd pick it up to support them, and play it w/ my kids while teaching them how poker works. I'm 100% against gambling, but I've taught my kids how blackjack, roulette, etc work because I think they're interesting games. In fact, I've taught my kids how card counting in BJ works, and I do it as a hobby (again, not with real money). I have a zero tolerance policy for gambling (they can do what they like when they're adults though), but I have absolutely zero problem with gambling games. You do you, as long as you understand the long-term statistics and don't use actual money while living at my house.
If I lived in the EU, I'd definitely buy this game for my kids as a protest. Screw this pearl clutching.
That said, I have a strict rule about actual gambling in my house. I've told my kids I won't let them play anything that has microtransactions, full stop. They really want to play Fortnite, but that's a big no from me, even though many of their friends play. I've told them they can play pretty much any game they want, as long as there are no MTX, and basically every F2P game has that crap.
Hold on, I'm going to go make a game that's obliquely about a porn studio. Let's see if you buy that one as a protest too.
Eh, if it was a management-style game, that might be interesting. I really liked "Game Dev Studio", and honestly, the only difference here is subject matter. As long as there's no actual porn, throw a PEGI 12 or 16 on it, depending on how far you take it.
For Balatro, PEGI 12 seems more than appropriate.
Between you and this news story, I'm pretty sure the rest of the world is dumber than Americans now.
We're all dumber than each other, it just depends on the category.
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