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One of the most head-scratch-inducing videogame ratings of all time has finally been changed, as game rating organization Pan European Game Information—PEGI for short—has decided that the indie card game sensation Balatro is not an 18+ game after all.
“The PEGI 18 rating for the game Balatro has been changed to a PEGI 12 following a successful appeal submitted by publisher Sold Out Sales and Marketing,” the PEGI website now says (via Eurogamer). “The Complaints Board concluded that, although the game explains the various hands of poker, the roguelike deck-building game contained mitigating fantastical elements that warranted a PEGI 12 rating.”
PEGI also announced today that Luck Be a Landlord, the slot machine roguelike that inspired Balatro, has also been given a PEGI 12 rating—down from its PEGI 18—for essentially the same reason: “Although the game features a slot machine mechanic, there were no specific transferable gambling skills and the game can therefore be rated PEGI 12.”
The whole thing was kind of bananas. Balatro is completely free of in-game spending or external DLC purchases, but it got slapped with the PEGI 18 rating because of a purported connection to gambling: Specifically, as the agency said, that it “teaches—by way of images, information and gameplay—skills and knowledge that are used in poker … this knowledge and skill could be transferred to a real-life game of poker.”
That’s maybe technically accurate to some tiny extent—Balatro does make use of some of the basics of poker—but developer LocalThunk took issue with the fact that EA Sports FC 25, which does have microtransactions in the form of “random card packs and other game items,” is rated PEGI 3.
“I’m way more irked at the 3+ for these games with actual gambling mechanics for children than I am about Balatro having an 18+ rating, LocalThunk wrote at the time. “If these other games were rated properly I’d happily accept the weirdo 18+. The red logo looks kinda dope.”
LocalThunk took a similar tack with today’s re-rating, which included a notice that PEGI “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.”
“This is a good step from PEGI—bringing nuance to their ratings criteria that used to be 18+ or nothing,” LocalThunk wrote on X. “I hope this change will allow developers to create without being unfairly punished.”
The updated rating wasn’t today’s only piece of good news for Balatro. A new Friends of Jimbo crossover pack also dropped today, adding card skins based on games including Civilization 7, Fallout, Dead by Daylight, and more. Balatro is also available now on Xbox Game Pass.
Friends of Jimbo 4, like the previous releases, is free for all players.
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Kurt Indovina
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