Balatro dev swings at PEGI for rating it 18 because of its 'evil playing cards' | Hacker News Reader

Balatro dev swings at PEGI for rating it 18 because of its 'evil playing cards'

pcgamer.com

38 pointsgalleywest20015 comments

> "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."

> He doesn't even like poker all that much—me either, for the record, though I adore Balatro, even if I am cursed with incredibly bad luck

I feel like I am missing something - is there like a cultural moment or something against poker? I played it all the time growing up, almost never for money, and there were absolutely zero qualms from anyone - church, school, grandma - anyone.

It's kind of shocking that PEGI really has a problem with gameplay mechanics like poker hands and probabilities. I get that poker has a more direct connection to casinos, but that would be like giving Madden an 18+ because it teaches football. (That might lead to "skill and knowledge" transferrable to sports betting, don't you know!)

I think anything tied to gambling got a big black eye after everyone got constant access to the internet with epayments. Be it loot boxes or traditional gambling the accessibility to any where any time money gambling games created a more negative image than the space had previously.

This would make sense if, as mentioned in the article, loot boxes were also considered problematic. Unfortunately, loot boxes in FC are 3+ even though they're linked to actual gambling addiction, whereas poker-like roguelike mechanics are 18+ even though you never lose a cent of real money (and the game doesn't teach you enough about poker to actually play poker).

I feel you take me as arguing "PEGI represents the public" or "PEGI assigns ratings fairly according to public sentiment". I'm only proposing the public's opinion of all of these things went farther down hill at the same time, not that the legal regulation (and therefore ratings PEGI feels they can get away with) happened at the same time too.

Recall PEGI is formed and funded by the video games industry, it does not have people's considerations in mind beyond "what can we get away with while still preventing real government regulation which we don't control from forming". Government regulations of traditional gambling existed before PEGI was even a thing (which is also even before anything associated with gambling at all took a sentiment downturn) while government regulation of lootboxes is just getting started.

This limits what PEGI thinks they can get away with (obviously that does not including trying to call things illegal for a 17 year as fine for a 3 year old). PEGI is already very away public opinion of lootboxes for children is low, that's why they've created the extra "Includes Paid Random Items" label. They'll use that excuse to avoid the age change until countries force their hand and legally call lootboxes gambling too. I wouldn't be surprised if that was in the next 5 years for most or all of the EU, a few countries in the EU are already there.

Poker had always had a bad reputation. Has nothing to do with the Internet, just gambling in general.

I wouldn't say it ever had a great reputation, just that it lost what it had. Akin to how it's commonly considered unacceptable to let middle aged kids roam as much as they used to. It's not that letting a toddler roam around as far as they wanted was always viewed perfectly, just that the bar for what's considered taboo moved farther up the line.

> It's not that letting a toddler roam around as far as they wanted was always viewed perfectly, just that the bar for what's considered taboo moved farther up the line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Thank you, that term always escapes me!

Poker, while considered a game of skill, had a direct connection to gambling, and hence the negative connotation. Poker isn't very interesting of it isn't played for stakes (whether it is money or something else) in fact what is the point to it, if you aren't playing for something?

I never played for cash growing up, and IRL the most popular format is tournament, where everyone pays the same entry fee (usually $60 - $100) and gets a predetermined number of chips. It's fundamentally not that much different than how any other game tournament would work at that point.

If understand that some people might have some sort of prudish historical association, but in 2024 it feels like PEGI may as well keep around decency rules for pool tables, pinball machines, Magic: The Gathering, etc.

Balatro isn’t even poker! It uses a standard deck of cards (to start with) but the mechanics are Yahtzee, not Poker.

By that metric, I wonder what the PEGI rating is for solitaire and free cell. It uses the same deck of cards as poker without being poker.

>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.

Battleship conveys knowledge and skill that could be transferred to a real-life blue-water naval engagement.

Naval engagement hasn’t the same negative reputation as gambling

poker sucks when not played for money.

A $10 buy in for chips and $10 buyback I used to play for fun. Is a night of fun with some stakes. Otherwise people go all in because they are bored.

That said Belatro is a card game that pretends to be poker. And if anything it should have the opposite effect as that game get on your nerves when you dont get lucky

Reply on news.ycombinator.com