Balatro Rating Lowered

"Poker About-Face"

Super popular free time-vampire and "on-the-can" card game "Balatro" has recently had its age rating lowered after it was previously raised due to its gambling imagery.

Balatro, which in my opinion does not teach you poker, was given the 18+ rating by PEGI due to its physical resemblance to gambling card games, but as anyone who actually played it would tell you, you can't learn how to play poker by playing this game alone. This is because Balatro makes use of many fantastical cards to boost your "chips" score which are not in regular poker.

However, because PEGI only really do their job when they fancy it or when the (probably) get some sort of financial incentive to ignore certain games, Balatro was slapped with the 18+ certificate.

The game's developer, known only as "LocalThunk" recently put out a Tweet (or an X?!) regarding his game saying “Since PEGI gave us an 18-plus rating for having evil playing cards maybe I should add microtransactions / loot boxes / real gambling to lower that rating to 3-plus like EA Sports FC,”. 

As LocalThunk points out, there are many "everyone" or "ages 3+" games that actually DO have what you would consider gambling in them and they are aimed at children or at least its conveniently ignored that lots of kids play these games. Overwatch and its loot boxes is one other prominent example. LocalThunk's example of "EA Sports FC" is relevant because it allows players to purchase in-game currency and randomised loot packs with real-world money, which is something Balatro does not include. There are (currently) no microtransactions or paid for loot boxes in Balatro.

So as good as it is that Balatro has had its rating lowered, it still begs the question why PEGI don't react to the games that actually harm lives and addict children into actual gambling with real money.

I suspect some brown envelops are involved but of course, I would never be able to prove that...