It's completely ridiculous. Knowing the ranking of poker hands in order to play a silly deck building game does not teach you how to play poker for money in any meaningful way. Clubhouse games (released as 51 Worldwide Games in Europe), a game that actually teaches you how to play Texas Hold 'em and Blackjack by casino rules, only got a 12+ by PEGI
basically both pegi and esrb make these decisions on the fly, without really doing much comparative analyses with their own databases or against each others.
afaik they’re generally understaffed / behind as well. its clear the results end up having a lot of contradictory or hypocritical ratings, but idk who would ever lead a push to improve it, and im
not certain money should be put into these groups at all, so here we are
Go to the PEGI site and search for "Poker". There are plenty ACTUAL POKER games where you play ACTUAL POKER, with gambling even! This one (link to screenshot on on Bsky)
even specifically says it lets you bet "without consequence for your actions" and encourages you to "revel in winning" by buying jewellery with your winnings. It's rated 12!!!
In the wake of this news I've been wondering if PEGI would have come to the same conclusion if the game instead used Circles, Triangles, Squares and Crosses for the suits; Privates, Lieutenants, Admirals, Generals and Presidents as the face/ace cards; and Hackers in place of Jokers, and kept all the mechanics exactly the same.
Is it literally just the poker-themed skin that's the problem? Because that's entirely laughable.
The people making these determinations do not understand and are not interested in understanding the games they are rating. Until that changes, the hypocrisy will continue.
The situation where games with genuinely predatory mechanics get nodded through while one that just has the appearance gets dinged is super frustrating. Ended up netting localthunk an extra sale as I discovered Balatro in the week it wasn't available on Switch in Europe.
It's completely ridiculous. Knowing the ranking of poker hands in order to play a silly deck building game does not teach you how to play poker for money in any meaningful way. Clubhouse games (released as 51 Worldwide Games in Europe), a game that actually teaches you how to play Texas Hold 'em and Blackjack by casino rules, only got a 12+ by PEGI
basically both pegi and esrb make these decisions on the fly, without really doing much comparative analyses with their own databases or against each others.
afaik they’re generally understaffed / behind as well. its clear the results end up having a lot of contradictory or hypocritical ratings, but idk who would ever lead a push to improve it, and im
not certain money should be put into these groups at all, so here we are
Okay so here are two facts:
1. I really enjoy playing balatro and its extremely addictive.
2. I do not have even the slightest urge to play real poker based on playing balatro.
This ruling is absolutely ridiculous and for me the EA comparison stinks of brand influence....
LocalThunk's "The red logo looks kinda dope." reaction reminds me of this print ad for the original Grand Theft Auto: https://i.imgur.com/JGLTgBj.png
Go to the PEGI site and search for "Poker". There are plenty ACTUAL POKER games where you play ACTUAL POKER, with gambling even! This one (link to screenshot on on Bsky)
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:fo3aa3fzbqm7eb5mkcktlxeb/post/3ldnwj3nrys2u
even specifically says it lets you bet "without consequence for your actions" and encourages you to "revel in winning" by buying jewellery with your winnings. It's rated 12!!!
In the wake of this news I've been wondering if PEGI would have come to the same conclusion if the game instead used Circles, Triangles, Squares and Crosses for the suits; Privates, Lieutenants, Admirals, Generals and Presidents as the face/ace cards; and Hackers in place of Jokers, and kept all the mechanics exactly the same.
Is it literally just the poker-themed skin that's the problem? Because that's entirely laughable.
The people making these determinations do not understand and are not interested in understanding the games they are rating. Until that changes, the hypocrisy will continue.
Chimes really strongly with me!
The situation where games with genuinely predatory mechanics get nodded through while one that just has the appearance gets dinged is super frustrating. Ended up netting localthunk an extra sale as I discovered Balatro in the week it wasn't available on Switch in Europe.
Just a heads up I found a few typos in here:
* "It’s an incredibly game"
* "darn patterns"
Thanks!
Darn those patterns, though.