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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.
Crazy. The benchmark for age ratings should be based in the game design, not solely aesthetics. Balatro doesn’t tell you to enter your credit card details and use psychologically manipulative tactics to maximise player spend, like other games good for ages 3+.
Of course, then PEGI would need to do some actual research into the games they’re rating.
But there is imagery of gambling. If GTA had a casino and people playing the cards, they’ll get a similar rating for it.
Super Mario 64 DS had you sitting at a poker table in a casino playing poker. New Super Mario Bros had the same poker game, but I’m not sure if that one was in a casino. PEGI rated both of them 3+.
The poker game in both games is in a very obvious casino environment. PEGI is smoking something.
Smoking that Nintendo cash.
Not to mention the pokemon games, many of which had slot machine minigames.
I’m sure GTA would get hit with a higher rating for other reasons first…
The reason gambling is a problem is because it’s easy to get addicted to chance, which is particularly problematic for games with a negative expected return and high chance-based payouts. For those games, the house always wins, but the player keeps playing because they think they’ll get lucky and beat the house. I am 100% against anything of that nature in games.
However, the only “risk” in Balatro is not scoring a high enough score and having to start over again. This has much more to do with other “roguelikes” like Slay the Spire than actual gambling, because you’re not really staking anything. LIterally, the only overlap is that poker terminology is used (hands, “blinds,” chips, etc). The actual mechanics have nothing to do with gambling.
MTX are bad because the house (publisher/devs) wins due to preying on the player, so they should absolutely be rated higher than a game like Balatro, which doesn’t do anything of that nature at all.
I would have no problem with my kids playing Balatro, and I may even pick it up to play with them because it has fun mechanics. They’ve watched me play Slay the Spire and Inscryption, and Balatro looks very similar to those, with the main difference being the look of the cards and mechanics for scoring. That’s it, there’s no gambling.
And murder
It’s really more like a poker themed maths game. Would probably be good for a kid to pick it up. (They may or may not turn into a poker pro later in life too!)
It’s a shame this gets 18+ while the MTX fuelled FIFA games all get 3+ ratings.
Didn’t one of the ea sport games have a literal slot machine you buy tokens to spin as part of their MTX?
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?).
Loot boxes are absolutely gambling and should be regulated as such. But no Balatro is not just Hades with cards.
I’ve played both Balatro and Hades, both are rogue likes, Balatro is just in the subgenre of deck builder. Balatro’s gameplay loop is closer to Hades than to poker, you’re wrong or uninformed to say otherwise. No one is playing Balatro and getting addicted to gambling and going off to play poker, but I can totally see it being a gateway to the rogue-like genre.
They are demonstrably different games, completely different genres.
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.
An 18+ rating isn’t going to hurt a video game. If anything teenagers are going to buy it more.
It absolutely will. The game has already been erroneously removed from storefronts in the past.
If an 18+ rating will drive sales, why do the operators of PEGI and ESRB bend the rules to ensure their games (EA sports games being a prime example) get as low of a rating as possible, even when they have actual gambling (slot machines paid for with real money)
I mean your own adamancy shows the damage since you seem to be under the impression that the game involves wagers/betting/gambling or other activities that could be perceived as dangerous.
I have described several times, based on the steam store page, what it involves. Nowhere has been actual gambling. The point is to be up to standard. Not to lower because someone else is behaving badly.
“It’s okay because laws don’t work” is a buck-wild take.
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.
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.
I would if they were selling them with chips and instructions on betting.
But Balatro doesn’t do that, so how is this a valid addition to the analogy?
There is zero betting in Balatro.
I think it’s becoming more and more clear that this user is a troll.
nah, they’re just THAT dense and have no idea what they’re talking about…not a troll, just too dumb to realize they’re being dumb…
Either way they’re eroding their credibility very very quickly.
Edit: He literally made a comment claiming he’s going to make a game about a porn studio. I don’t think we can say he isn’t a troll at this point.
yeah, saw that comment later…seems like a troll…
That wasn’t the question posed. As has been said over and over Balatro is more than just “evil cards”
Why?
Instructions on betting can be easily found online, and most pick-up games use cash anyway. No kid is going through all the effort of using chips if they’re going to gamble, so getting chips may actually be a deterrent for getting into gambling.
You don’t even need instructions on betting, betting or wagering is something that people can figure out on their own quite easily, the behavior is often demonstrated in real life in other non-gambling scenarios “I bet ya can’t climb that tree”, so if we assume a game about playing cards can be considered gambling, than the assumption that Playing cards themselves would also be considered gambling materials seems plausible, but it is meant to highlight the absurdity of the situation.
Because that’s what tips that product over the line, as sold.
Balatro features no wagering or betting of any kind.
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.
It’s not performative gambling. It’s not any kind of gambling.
Gambling by definition requires making a wager that you risk losing. That literally does not exist in Balatro. There are no wagers at all, not even for fake currency/points.
Ffs, I completely forgot about that. I played it when it came out.
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.
If that’s dressed up solitaire then Vegas is slovenly solitaire.
You’re not gambling🤦♀️
Gambling is what kids shouldn’t be able to do.
Playing at gambling isn’t good either.
I agree with you completely!
My modest proposal is that if a child is caught flipping a coin their hands should be cut off on the spot.
Ignoring that that’s complete bullshit, balatro doesn’t even pretend to gamble.
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.
The irony is that you can’t really teach someone who doesn’t know anything any poker anything more than what the hands are, and which are considered better than others, by playing Balatro.
Everything else in Balatro is completely divorced from poker. There are a few other shared terms, but they’re defined completely differently in Balatro than in poker (e.g. a “blind” is a stage, 3 stages in a level (small/big/boss), and the levels are called "ante"s, also totally different from what an ante is in poker.
Exactly! And most of the concepts behind the hands are present in other games (double and triples, straights, etc). I played Yahtzee as a kid, and that has pretty much every hand from poker (aside from a flush, because dice don’t have suits). If Yahtzee is offensive to you, I don’t know what to say…
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.
Thinking about this hypothetically is making me laugh.
Imagine setting things like how often your employees are checked for STIs, and the cost for that, etc., lol
It would also be interesting to manage a brothel. Same basic mechanics, but you could choose the type of business (escort vs full service), gender of workers and target clientele, types of advertising, etc. If you take it too far, you could get shut down/caught by the authorities (depending on whether you go legit or underground).
I’d probably play both those games, especially if the developer doesn’t take it that seriously. Both seem like a ton of fun, and can be done without anything explicit in it.
Maybe those games exist, idk, I haven’t considered looking.
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.
Eeeeeevil playing cards! 😱
🤡🤡🤡🤡
Yes, it’s the game with the jokers
