Didn't one of the ea sport games have a literal slot machine you buy tokens to spin as part of their MTX?
It's really more like a poker themed maths game. Would probably be good for a kid to pick it up. (They may or may not turn into a poker pro later in life too!)
It's a shame this gets 18+ while the MTX fuelled FIFA games all get 3+ ratings.
It's E in America according to IGN.
If it's E in NA, then why is it rated 18+ in Europe?
"Gambling," because it uses poker hands, I guess.
Which is completely stupid because there's no gambling in the game at all, poker hands are simply used to score points. It's completely nonsensical.
NA mostly uses ESRB while most of Europe uses PEGI as their rating board. They're different organizations so they can have different criterias for rating as well as different inspectors actually doing the rating.
Doesn't E stand for Everyone?
Eeeeeevil playing cards! 😱
🤡🤡🤡🤡
Yes, it's the game with the jokers
I put this in the other post too. This is literally their description on steam.
Combine valid poker hands with unique Joker cards in order to create varied synergies and builds. Earn enough chips to beat devious blinds, all while uncovering hidden bonus hands and decks as you progress. You’re going to need every edge you can get in order to reach the boss blind, beat the final ante and secure victory.
Combined with playing actual poker hands, yeah that's going to get tagged for gambling. They knew what they were doing and this performative outrage is a viral marketing campaign.
If Balatro is gambling then so is every game that has a chance based mechanic. Genshin Impact is PEGI 12 and you can spend money on loot boxes, which is absolutely gambling. Balatro is identical to Hades, except you fight with cards.
The law is poorly written, or is being applied incorrectly here. Balatro is in no way simulating a casino, which I'd be more inclined to say games that do that should have a more mature rating. Bit of a slippery slope though, nothing stops a casino from adding a new game that mimics an existing genre of video game mechanics, and then regulators saying the entire genre is gambling. It's all pearl clutching, not backed by any science, etc. made by the same people that want to ban Mortal Kombat and think Counter Strike causes school shootings.
They could release just swap a dozen words, it wouldn't get this rating. None of those words are required for it to be a good game. The essence of gambling that society wants to protect children from is not part of Balatro any more than it is Solitaire.
I suppose playing cards in Europe are considered "gambling materials" under that logic and aren't allowed to be sold to people under 18? That would be absurd.
Performative gambling is in no way worse than real gambling. If every other lootbox game got 18+ you would be completely right, but we need to look at the context for this.
If that's what it is, maybe I'd pick it up to support them, and play it w/ my kids while teaching them how poker works. I'm 100% against gambling, but I've taught my kids how blackjack, roulette, etc work because I think they're interesting games. In fact, I've taught my kids how card counting in BJ works, and I do it as a hobby (again, not with real money). I have a zero tolerance policy for gambling (they can do what they like when they're adults though), but I have absolutely zero problem with gambling games. You do you, as long as you understand the long-term statistics and don't use actual money while living at my house.
If I lived in the EU, I'd definitely buy this game for my kids as a protest. Screw this pearl clutching.
That said, I have a strict rule about actual gambling in my house. I've told my kids I won't let them play anything that has microtransactions, full stop. They really want to play Fortnite, but that's a big no from me, even though many of their friends play. I've told them they can play pretty much any game they want, as long as there are no MTX, and basically every F2P game has that crap.
The irony is that you can't really teach someone who doesn't know anything any poker anything more than what the hands are, and which are considered better than others, by playing Balatro.
Everything else in Balatro is completely divorced from poker. There are a few other shared terms, but they're defined completely differently in Balatro than in poker (e.g. a "blind" is a stage, 3 stages in a level (small/big/boss), and the levels are called "ante"s, also totally different from what an ante is in poker.
Between you and this news story, I'm pretty sure the rest of the world is dumber than Americans now.
We're all dumber than each other, it just depends on the category.
