Balatro wins formal appeal to reclassify poker game as PEGI 12
Balatro, the poker-themed roguelite, has successfully appealed PEGI's decision to classify it as PEGI 18 and has now be…
Balatro is a Poker Game in the same way that Gin and Bridge and 52 Pickup are Poker games.
it's 7 card monti but with the gambling replaced with strategic decision making. the fact that lootboxes aren't considered gambling, but removing gambling from poker is, it just puts on display how the big corporations are desperate to keep us locked into their entertainment machines and away from innovative art
I think it's more that hysterical moral guardians and corporate boobs only see the traditionally casino-like superficial imagery of cards, dice, spades, clubs, slots, etc. and instantly knee-jerk themselves into declaring it "immoral" without actually bothering to take the twelve seconds required to experience the gameplay. At which point they would immediately realize that they are wrong.
This is Kyle's Mom's version of only reading the headline, or not bothering to look beyond the dust jacket and only screeching about imaginary content that exists only inside their own assumptions and based purely on the picture on the cover.
While the win is good, the fact that it’s still a PEGI 12 game while FIFA is a PEGI 3 shows what an absolute joke the whole process is.
Australia had to deal with similar levels of bullshit for way too long before our ratings board finally capitulated to common sense and introduced an R18 rating (for games like The Last of Us, not even XXX content!).
We have an endemic gambling problem too, so I don’t foresee much common sense coming out of that mob anytime soon - either.
self censoring bodies like pegi are there to protect the industry, so it doesn't get actual censorship from the government. EA is the industry. of course they get special treatment.
also gambling is the blueprint of AAA gaming now, so pegi loves it. they only do this shit to small devs so they can pretend to care while protecting industry giants from the actual scrutiny that they deserve.
Very true, same applies to the ESRB in the US. The ESA literally only formed the organisation to self-censor rather than leave it to the Gov’t following outrage over Mortal Kombat — if I’m remembering correctly?
Here in Australia, the ACB is a government body — but just about as useless, if not even more so! For the longest time, we had to have our games additionally censored because they were viewed as for children and therefore couldn’t depict excessive violence, any sexual themes or drug use. Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto 3 & Vice City were notable examples.
What am I getting at, even I don’t know. I guess to say that both implementations can be shit..? 🤷🏻♂️
FC25 is rated 12+ in germany, same as Balatro.
Pegi seems out of touch.
It's that idiotic classification system that's the problem. A game is considered to be gambling game if it involves cards.
Awesome, I'm glad the dev held his position! He's right that it's incredibly moronic to have games like FIFA with actual gambling mechanics rated lower.
Balatro will get you hooked on lovely indie games, not gambling :)
They tried to claim it taught you how to gamble. Seriously that was their argument.
So clearly they didn't play the game because if you actually turned up to a casino and tried to play like that they kick you out.
Awesome to see them win this. If other games can have poker or other cards games where the characters are gambling and not have that influence their shit, the roguelike that uses playing cards in the same way Go-Fish does definitely shouldn't be smacked over this.
Fuck EA and all the loot box game makers that don't get hit with this crap
If other games can have poker or other cards games where the characters are gambling and not have that influence their shit
I doubt it though because the game doesn't have any gambling in it at all. It just uses the imagery of poker, that's it. I have no more of an idea how to play poker now than they did before spending 900 Brazilian hours on the game.
That's what I'm saying tho, it's bs that Belatro would get hit simply for the imagery they're using, while other games get a lesser penalty when ACTUAL (both real money and in game currencies) gambling is happening.
Just cut a few murder scenes and all the blood out and it should be fine 😉😉😉
Definitely thought from the thumbnail that it was PEGI 13 -> PEGI 12.
Good.
I very much think games like Balatro DO need to be assessed and probably have an increased rating because they are unabashedly designed to be as addictive as possible. Same as ARPGs that have been built around skinner boxes basically since Diablo.
But this was never that. It was just "oh, cards and poker theming? GAMBLING!!!"
Civilization and Factorio are also pretty addicting
Thankfully factorio hasn’t succumbed to enshitification yet
I can't speak to factorio since every time that dev has ever opened his mouth it has just been horrific hateful bullshit.
But Civ is more just "addictive" because the gameplay is fun. That is not to downplay that but it is generally closer to "escapism" than not when you get into that "one more turn" cycle and realize it is 3 am.
ARPGs were very much designed around skinner boxes/operant conditioning chambers which are one of the core tenets of how things like slot machines are designed. We can see similar (and it was outright acknowledged by many reviewers/influencers) with games like Vampire Survivors.
At the end of the day, the reality is that the "This is fine if you are 13" system is idiotic and what we actually need is fine grain warnings... which will go down great in an era of "Eww, trigger warnings are woke". But, like, I have a cousin who is well aware that he is incredibly prone to addiction when it comes to gambling and on many occasions he has texted family and friends to ask if it is "safe" for him to play a new game. And... it is kind of concerning how often the answer is "no".
While the game can be "addicting", it is mostly because it is fun to play. Not all "addicting" forms of entertainment need elevated ratings because they are fun to consume. We don't increase the ratings for binge worthy TV shows and we don't restrict books if they are page turners, so why should we with a video game. At some point people need to regulate the use of their time themselves.
By that logic all games would need to be rated higher, as any game can be addictive for any one person.
My issue with the ruling wasn't the ruling itself, cause I can understand the argument. It was the non-equal enforcement of it. Games with actual gambling in it were rated lower than a game with the similar aspects but no actual monetary aspects. That's ridiculous. If you want to make poker 18+, then just do it across the board instead of picking and choosing your ratings.
I don't know that I'd agree with the notion that games that are engaging need to be rated higher. Is there harm to playing one game a lot?
I've read books that were so engaging I kept reading long after I should have stopped for the night. The author very much intended for the book to be engaging and to hold my attention. Should we rate the book as more mature because I kept reading it?
I don't think balatro is any more addictive than most other games, it just has a low barrier to starting and a quick turn around.
Ratings should be informative and harm based. "This game is full of violence" and "this game has gambling". Factual.
A game being prone to being played alot isn't factual, it's just an observation that some people find it fun. Without an associated risk of harm you're just putting a scary number on something because of your opinion about it.
How would you even go about classifying this? It sounds like you're saying games aren't allowed to be too fun.
Like I said in this and the branch below it, many games, balatro included, include game and visual design that evoke psychological experiments and concepts that are basically the foundation of slot machines and the like.
And these are the same concepts people deride when we call them loot boxes (but not gacha for some reason).
Eating is addictive man. Kids are addicted to fucking candy and breathing and shit. What kind of insane kids do you want to mold?
