Balatro was one of 2024’s biggest indie hits, and practically took over the world for a part of the year. It’s a game that uses regular card names, and hands from poker, but is absolutely nothing like poker.
Still, that didn’t stop PEGI from slapping an automatic 18+ rating at the end of last year. The rating claimed that Balatro taught players how to gamble, which is not at all true. If you didn’t know about which cards made different hands in poker before playing Balatro, you would learn, after playing it.
That’s about as much poker knowledge that can be gleamed from LocalThunk’s rougelike card game. And after appealing the decision, PEGI agrees, and has given the game a new PEGI 12 rating.
As spotted by Eurogamer, a post on the official PEGI website confirms the amendment to Balatro, saying “The Complaints Board concluded that, although the game explains the various hands of poker, the rougelike deck-building game contained mitigating fantastical elements that warranted a PEGI 12 rating.”
PEGI went on to say that “the PEGI Experts Group will develop a more granular set of classification criteria to handle gambling themes and the simulation, teaching and glamorisation of gambling in different age categories, which will now include 12 but also keep 18 as an age category for games that simulate gambling typically played in casinos and betting halls.”
When the 18+ rating was revealed, LocalThunk took to social media to publicly call out the issue, and point out the irony between Balatro having an 18+ rating, and the latest EA Sports FC game, which does include actual gambling through loot box mechanics, being rated for kids 3 and up.
Now that the rating has been changed, LocalThunk said “This is a good step from PEGI – bringing nuance to their ratings criteria that used to be 18+ or nothing. I hope this change will allow developers to create without being unfairly punished.”
LocalThunk also noted that any physical copies of the game with the 18+ rating are now “limited edition” versions.
But this wasn’t the only news Balatro had today. While it might not have been able to plan this, PEGI announced their decision the same day a new Friends of Jimbo pack was announced, with games like Assassin’s Creed, Fallout, Bugsnax, Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, Rust, Dead By Daylight and Slay The Princess part of this latest collection. There’s even a joker for Critical Role.
The Friends of Jimbo packs are new joker cards themed after various games. This is the fourth edition of the collaborations, and was announced during the ID@Xbox Showcase on Monday.
You can check out the reveal, below.
Source – [Eurogamer, ID@Xbox]
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