this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
50 points (96.3% liked)
Games
18729 readers
535 users here now
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
- News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
- Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
- No humor/memes etc..
- No affiliate links
- No advertising.
- No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
- No self promotion.
- No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
- No politics.
Comments.
- No personal attacks.
- Obey instance rules.
- No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
- Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
PEGI was right to change its rating for Balatro, unfortunately they still don't seem to understand why. This kind of absurdity is bound to happen again if they keep sorting games with what looks like a basic word filter instead of looking for how the game would present a problem depending on the audience.
Their new rating has been lowered because Balatro has "fantasy elements". Does it now? Flashy effects on cards, sure, but everything in Balatro is a simple set of mathematical rules. You could make a completely physical version of Balatro (if you don't mind spending a lot of time tracking scores and joker rules).
The real reason Balatro does not need 18+ is the same reason you don't worry about kids playing classic Solitaire. In fact, you should worry more about Solitaire nowadays, what's with making Solitaire Collection an adware with subscription.
Balatro is not predatory at all, it's a buy-once game with completely abstract scores and nothing to win or lose in real life. It only borrows poker card combinations. You don't even place bets in this game!
If "fantasy elements" is now enough to make your game kid-friendly according to PEGI, watch EA rebranding its disgusting lootbox nonsense as magic sportsball cards crafted by elven wizards or something.
I have to wonder if some people don't understand how card games work. Do they think if the game contains an ace of spades it must be gambling? Most card games don't involve gambling at all and even those that do don't have to use actual currency. Do kids not play card games and bet with matchsticks anymore?
It's not even unique to card games.
I had a board game that was about a race between merchant caravans through the desert. The way it worked was every player started with the same limited amount of small tokens representing water canteens, and every turn they all chose any amount of them, they revealed it at the same time, and the one who used the most could advance 5 squares, the second 4, etc.
The whole game was about trying to guess how many canteens other players were going to use on a specific turn, and use the right amount to land where you want and keep enough for the rest of the game. And of course, you've got all the reasons to bluff.
That's basically a pure gambling game. It doesn't feature any random element, and its only currency is a bunch of colourful plastic toys shared evenly between the players.
If I was PEGI, I'd do a CTRL-F in the rulebook, see words like bluff, gamble and bet, and slap an 18+ rating on it.