It’s entirely his fault for not being a multi-billion dollar company which actively invests in better ratings. In capitalism, there is no fairness - there is only money.
This reminds me of the documentary “This film is not yet rated”. The point was that the MPAA gives way more leniency to big budget studios when giving ratings. The net effect of this is it kills the low budget films before they can be released.
Yeah came here to echo the same sentiments. He isn’t establishment. Aka he has no voice. As money is speech in America.
PEGI is European; the ESRB gave Balatro a E10+ for “gambling themes”
And that’s honestly exactly what I would expect. It’s not suitable for a 4yo, but there’s nothing in it to warrant a teen rating either. So yeah, E with a note sounds exactly right.
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You’re confusing PEGI (the European games rating body) with ESRB (the American equivalent).
PEGI has ratings 3, 7, 12, 16, and 18, and it gave Balatro the highest rating of 18.
ESRB has ratings E, E10+, T, M, and A, and it gave Balatro the relatively low E10+ rating.
One looks like gambling but is actually a fun roguelite card game, the other one looks like fun but is actually a gambling game. Guess which one is rated 18+?
spoiler
Okay I lied, FC24 doesn’t even look like fun, but that’s my personal opinion.
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.
Actual gambling - 3+
Suggestion of gambling - 18+
there are actual poker games that are rated lower than 18 too.
Clown world clown world
I’m willing to bet PEGI was lobbied to push for that 18+ rating by ea and other publishers because balatro is taking revenue from them. They don’t get how a game without microtransactions is doing better than they are
No need to lobby, EA are the ones making the decision
Doesn’t matter in the slightest.
me, age 12, San Andreas
18 is the highest rating. It’s equivalent to the ESRB “AO” rating, and many storefronts will not sell it, period.
Doesn’t matter to a kid with a phone and unlimited time and willpower. I know with 100% certainty, if I was 16 and wanted to play Balatro, I wouldn’t be talking to you, I’d have an .apk already.
Storefront? Lmao.
Piracy being the only way to get a game isn’t beneficial to the dev, and Balatro is the kind of game that deserves our money. It could have easily been jammed to the gill with paid boosts premium decks, etc, but instead, they just made a good game.
I went looking for a patreon or donation page… Guys who get hit with this should just go that route. He doesn’t have a general one up.
We can’t control the bullshit, but we can side-step it.
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.
They probably have some checklist which has vague definitions of “glamourising” gambling. I reckon this game unwittingly strays into the red tape in its presentation along with the poker theme (like I’ve said elsewhere it’s more a maths game than a poker game). The music and lights despite being atmospheric and ambient probably have some similarities to fruit machine like environments in the sense the music is repetitive and there is flashing visual feedback.
Edit: Should say it’s still B.S. to rate it 18. Just that I can imagine ratings boards can’t apply independent thought/logic.
Self-regulated organization my ass.
Well, they /are/ self regulated. Just not the way that anyone but them wants.
Guess I just have to buy Balatro harder then
I just picked it up. I was going to wait for a better sale because I probably don’t have time to play it, but I’ll happily support them here, and I’ll probably play it with my kids.
Screw PEGI.
Edit: picked it up and it was a blast. My kids watched and now they want to pay too. Good game is good.
Seems like an advertising opportunity. First solitaire game rated 18+ without any gambling, I assume no nudity, language, etc.
Did he try getting a friendly industry insider appointed to the regulatory body to “facilitate” ?
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?
Why don’t people reach out to “Dirk Bosmans, Director General PEGI S.A.”?
PEGI isn’t a living creature. PEGI isn’t giving out biased ratings. It’s the people working there, and the person in charge. Actual people that actually exist here on this planet with us. “Talking” to a company is imaginary bullshit.
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!”
But this is like saying “ski ball is dangerous because it’s a gateway to beer pong. By the way we see no issues with kids playing vodka pong”
Its bad because children will associate poker with a good enjoyable time, which might lead them to a bad situation later on when they are permitted inside casinos.
I consider most arcades with ticket prizes to be gambling as well, and shouldnt be for kids. Most kids dont realize they could have just bought the prize for far cheaper.
And yes vodka pong is bad too, go yell at the rich vodka corporatists who paid the rating board to pass them though.
I’ll give you a tip, nearly all certification or rating boards are grifts.
This is sequence, a simple game where you place chips on the spaces that match the cards on your hand. The objective of the game is to complete 2 lines that are 5 chips long. Basically like connect 4. Do you think it should also be rated 18+?
I’d rather have kids get interested in playing poker than pulling a slot machine lever.
Id rather neither, I can’t think of a single good thing that would come of teaching a child poker.
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?
at the end of the day, problems are at different views here. I find games are very similar in many aspects, such as relying heavily on RNG to make outcomes varied. If normal no cash poker is adult, then games like uno and other forms of RNG based games like rolling dice can just as much be adult from your reasoning. I am not particular to labeling games in this way.
there are many more nuances to labeling as adult oriented, such as ability to cause oneself to be worse off in life to the point that it is harmful (like losing your life savings or going into debt) or the content is sexual. that is what I would consider requirement for labeling as adult. I personally think anything that is tied with cash should be labeled as adult. yet, right now, this line is heavily blurred by microtransactions, lootboxes, cosmetics, in game currency and other ways to play with cash.
Playing with cash should be adult, but in game cash you cannot sell or buy is not something I think I can equate here because I see it as another incremental simulator kind of game, like many idle games are like now a days.
Rolling dice and uno have different goals, mainly they are competitive. Balatro and poker is a game where you chase ever higher something whether its points or money.
I agree anything cash should be adult since children dont work and have their own money to begin with. If they want to make a kids version then price in the IAPs and sell it as a whole package like we used to get as kids.
Its sort of funny, we are basically having the gateway drug argument here with games. Balatro could be a small step to other seriously predatory games. I can see how thats on the more strict side of the spectrum though, but I’m more pro regulation than anti.
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I deleted my other comment because dogs jumped on me and somehow in the mix up, I pressed the post button, so I removed the partially malformed comment.
On the first topic, your reasoning to differentiate what the goals of competitive games and “chasing higher something” is just not well put into words here. From what I am reading, you tried to make them look different on the higher level view but failed to showcase that, which for both sides you claim one is competitive and the other side is not competitive. However, most definitions for being competitive is to chase ever higher “somethings” for which is mostly points but in other aspects can be money. Hence your reasoning has basically equated them even more deeply. So your point to make them different needs to be redone with that can make your point more clear and is reasonably opposites.
Moving on, I didn’t agree completely that playing with cash is strictly adult. More or less, anything that requires express consent, such as decisions that involve risk of self hurting activities (playing with cash is one of these activities because of our dependency on money), and other adult topics that are not relevant here. There are things that kids can buy to play games for or gain cosmetics for RP or whatever, however I understand the problem will be account selling shenanigans, but that at least raises the bar on barrier of entry too, and most not doing it. Kids need to learn to be less impulsive and I think that is more of what is the root of the problem in this case. We need regulations that would punish companies that try to exploit this.
Yeah, gateway drugs… Look, I know that actual hard to quit drugs are not close to the same as these psychological only addictive activities. Physical withdrawal from those drugs are miles more deadly and impactful on someone’s body and brain. I do think people can take some addictions too far but those cases are more likely to be popular in the news than the more tame stories that highlight what the majority will experience. I am still adamant that balatro is no where close to this topic. It is not able to transition you to something else and this is more on an individual basis and not really generalizable. If someone is being socially pressured by friends or others to do it then balatro will better prepare someone to not make bigger mistakes, so in reality it has a positive than a negative.
This is why I have a hard time reasoning with you on this. I will like to move on, so I will end it here. I feel like we have made our points and we will decide for our own. When it comes down to it, I will more than likely vote for any regulation to pass on restricting gambling and other forms of negative addictions, while weighing in any freedoms that may be reduced or affected. We will see, happy holidays.
