I recently played it. If anything I think it has a subtle anti-gambling message.
The more hands you play, the more you realize you can’t actually win without “cheating”
Play it like poker? Congrats, you’re fucked, you literally cannot win against the blind.
Stack the deck in your favor with creative use of Joker cards and a few dozen extra aces? The game becomes trivial
If the game teaches you anything it’s that if you play by the rules, the house will ALWAYS win.
I just played it last night, and then again today with my kids watching. I explained how the hands are scored, and they seemed to get the gist of it.
It has absolutely nothing to do with gambling. You don’t wager anything, there’s no opponents, and the terminology is all different, for example:
- blind - in poker, it’s a forced bet based on sitting position from the dealer; in Balatro, it’s where you’re at in the “level” (and only the “boss blind” is required)
- ante - in poker, it’s the minimum bet to participate; in Balatro, it’s the level you’re on
- hand - in poker, it’s the cards you are dealt, and you play them all; in Balatro, it’s a scoring action, and you only play a subset of your cards in a given “hand”
And so on. The only thing that’s actually similar is the hand scoring system, but you mess with that as well with buffs and whatnot. Balatro will make you a worse poker player, and not even teach you the rules.
I don’t think it’s anti-gambling, it has nothing to do with gambling. It’s like saying solitaire and blackjack are similar because they both use playing cards…
Would love to see thr EFF branch out and take this on. Great opportunity to set precedence.
The reasoning in question:
This game teaches - by way of images, information and gameplay - skills and knowledge that are used in poker. During gameplay, the player is rewarded with ‘chips’ for playing certain hands. The player is able to access a list of poker hand names. As the player hovers over these poker hands, the game explains what types of cards the player would need in order to play certain hands. As the game goes on, the player becomes increasingly familiar with which hands would earn more points. Because these are hands that exist in the real world, this knowledge and skill could be transferred to a real-life game of poker
So, this game teaches skills and knowledge that are used in poker. The skills in knowledge are limited to… playing and making poker hands. That’s it. Also, “as the game goes on, the player becomes increasingly familiar with which hands would earn more points” – is hilariously funny. The idea that knowledge of what a poker hand is is anything related to the dangers of gambling is ridiculous.
I wonder what they rated Pavlov VR, ya know the FPS game in VR that forces you to handle guns the way they would in real life and is popular with ex-military because of their transferrable skills?
I mean that would definitely get an 18 rating, I’m not sure what you are meaning to say
It’s really dumb if you know the two games (poker and Balatro).
Poker is a game of incomplete information where you need one single higher ranked hand than your opponent per round. The stakes are money you bet that your hand is better. Bluffing is an important part of the game.
Balatro is mostly a game with complete information (apart from the order of remaining cards in your deck and certain bosses that flip your cards). You bet no money. There is no bluffing. Money does not correlate to chips. It is about the rating of your hand (poker has no rating, only relative ranking). You play multiple hands. You can’t fold. Bluffing doesn’t exist. Cards can be improved, ratings can be improved, the decks can look nothing like poker decks, etc.
One “teaches” you to gamble, the other allows you to gamble. And the one that just teaches you has a higher rating. Crazy.
I know this is anecdotal but I’m now living in a ditch because of Balatro. I never gambled before in my life and all the poker knowledge Balatro me taught caused me to start extreme gambling and now I’m dead in a ditch.
Pics or it didn’t happen.
Can’t. I’m a little too dead for pics
have some passerby take the picutres, you dummdumm
Ok, I’ll believe you this time…
Yup that checks out. Say hi to Betty White for me!
I keep pulling the hermit card out of my tarot deck, but it hasn’t doubled my money! Have I learned incorrectly??
Tell me you are corrupted to the core, without telling me you are corrupted to the core.
I wish this trend would die out. Tell me your x without telling me your x is so fucking pretentious and annoying.
Tell me you’re on the internet too much without telling me you’re on the internet too much.
Removed by mod
Doesn’t matter in the slightest.
me, age 12, San Andreas
Is the rating purely because it uses playing cards? Poker hands?
Yahtzee and literal poker with betting are included in Nintendo clubhouse/worldwide 51 and it’s rated Pegi-12.
Would balatro get a pass if it used cards numbered 1-13 instead of traditional cards?
This whole thing is bonkers.
This is actually quite eye opening to me, as someone who doesn’t really ever have to look at ratings as a consumer and has always just taken them for granted. Now I’m keenly aware it’s yet another example of runaway capitalism. Just never thought too hard about it.
PEGI’s a cunt.
Basically all media ratings bodies are weirdly corrupt and apply ratings without any clear rhyme or reason. There’s good reason to largely ignore the ratings as an adult and even as a parent
Sounds like grounds for a defamation suit to me considering his stated opinions on gambling.
In the meantime we can start guessing which side has more money to hire lawyers
As someone who never planned on playing Balatro, and was kind of getting tired of seeing it on my feed the way I got tired of helldivers 2 stuff right after release.
I would happily toss a tenner to the dev for a lawyer over this.
Don’t buy it. It’s too addictive
i think it’s clear from this these regulatory bodies primarily function to help the industry make money. indies can sometimes get co-signs from these bodies, but only if they stay in their lane. balatro has been a huge smash hit, and it feels like this body just wants to keep it down that little bit
You didn’t ask the question the ea way.
You’re supposed to ask with a hefty bribe.
Baltaro devs may need to invest in gambling to earn enough money to bribe PEGI the way EA almost certainly does.
What do you mean, almost? EA is literally a member of Video Games Europe, the organization which manages PEGI.
So, we’re moving on from bribery and straight to conflict of interest?
Learning the names and ranking of poker hands is the devil!
Dragon Quest 11 has a T-for-Teen rating and it’s got a literal casino built into the game. Roulette, poker, and slot machines. This isn’t even uncommon for JRPGs. Curious how the ratings agencies just glaze over this fact when assigning their scores.
Just needs a good cover. Like Watership Down. Nice lil thing about bunnies.
What does this mean practically? Are they not allowed to sell it some places anymore if it’s 18+?
Theoretically stores in Europe are forbidden from selling 18+ games to underage customers.
Practically, almost no one follows this. Although digital storefronts like Steam do, some parents do, and more importantly there could be age restrictions on Youtube and Twitch gameplays.
Maybe if they decide to make box copies of the game.
Have you tried partnering with Disney and incorporating some Marvel/Star Wars IP into the Balatro Cinematic Universe? Perhaps selling your company to Ubisoft or Sony and letting their massive legal/lobbyist team take a swing at this? Perhaps you could just take a total end-run around the problem and release an edition that uses the Minor Arcana instead of standard poker cards?
This post is clearly full of people WHO CLEARLY HAVE NO GAMBLING PROBLEM.
The arguments are even more ridiculous if you substitute an addictive drug for gambling.
“But vicodin and oxy are legal, how’s that fair!” “Plenty of kids are prescribed painkillers in other countries and they are fine!” “The regulatory agency is just trying to punish heroin for being way better than the rest!” “I think all drugs should be legal, anyone should be allowed to make whatever mistakes they want with no oversight!”
We can all imagine the imagery of balatro being somewhat a problem.
But less of a problem compared to games with actual gambling for actual money in the form of lootboxes or gacha mechanisms?
If you can get that to make sense, i’d love to hear it. Can there be a serious warning regarding gambling on balatro? for sure. But how is gambling imagery 18+, and actual gambling with actual money 3+? That’s just insane.
What is most likely to get kids to become gambling addicts? Them learning pokerhands via balatro, or them gambling real money on lootboxes & gacha games and getting addicted to the thrill of winning after gamblling money?
No that part is very hypocritical, and I’m sure it has a lot to do with how much money the big game developers can throw around to make sure their loot box game isnt marked for adults.
I think both lootboxes and poker games are bad in this sense, its just the other reasons people are giving that are nonsense.
To say clearly, the rating board is hypocritical and should also mark lootbox games accordingly.
Have you ever played balatro?
Because calling it a pokergame makes me think you haven’t. It’s a deckbuilder that uses pokerhands (and impossible pokerhands) as mechanic to score, but there is no actual gambling, and except for which hands exist in poker and their relative value, you don’t learn any pokerskills. You also don’t do any gambling, you modify your deck of cards, and gather jokers that modify what cards are worth and how they score, and end up also making hands that are impossible in poker etc…
I can imagine the imagery and the link to poker to require some warning, but i’d find it hard to say it stimulates you to gamble, as it’s not a gambling game, doesn’t teach you the poker rules, and is a completely different kind of game. It just uses poker to flavor the gameplay, and uses some other poker terms (blinds, ante, chips) to indicate difficulty/score.
I dont disagree with what you brought up but you left out that the game literally looks similar to any general poker gambling site.
Its poker with a twist, which absolutely exists in casinos.
It does? I guess we’ll differ on that opinion i guess.
Unless showing you a hand of playingcards means you look like a general poker gambling site. It has a very specific artstyle, and since its gameplay is completely different from actual poker, so is how it behaves. For me it’s close to a slay the spire or heartstone kind of game, and looks like that…
I didnt mean specific if I said that, it generally looks like one. Like an old one from yahoo or something. The heavy poker themes and learning poker hands is enough.
I have seen people burn money in games just as much as some who has gambling problems. Just one has the person expectations being hoping if earning more to continue to gamble with, while gamers who spend cash are looking for more extrinsic values that are still just as useless or not worth it. I do say these game devs are more deserving of the cash but loot boxes exist and others forms of gambling that gets a blind eye. Balatro isn’t even real cash. It’s not the same.
I simply wouldnt give one game a pass to avoid hypocrisy. The loot box games should be marked for adults or changed.
I think there are dynamics at play her but to keep it short. I admire your steadfast disappointment towards gambling or playing with odds. However, for a game like balatro being completely free to continue playing after the initial purchase. As far as I can tell, there are no micro transactions or push for players to sink their wallets into the game. The entire game is basically a simulation. All randomizations are predetermined based on a seed. You can set it or you can figure it out if you are smart enough in math and cryptography. However, ratings are more annoyance than being a real guard against the real problems happening right now.
There are many more dissatisfying things. I doubt we should fight over the rating. Instead we should be in agreement that gambling and other pay to play odds like loot boxes is bad and stricter regulations.
Its not about real money spending. Loot boxes would be problematic without spending real money in my opinion. Thats why I think poker games that dont use any real money should also be marked for adults.
Unfortunately balatro uses poker as a base, and I dont think its changed it enough that it still doesnt resemble poker.
Im surprised the loot boxes in ea games are still around, did the rating organization comment on that at all?
