Balatro rated 18+ by PEGI as developer critiques rating system

Roguelike indie card game Balatro has been rated 18+ by the European video game content rating system PEGI. 

The game's anonymous solo developer, LocalThunk took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his thoughts on the rating where he compared Balatro to games like EA Sports FC. 

He jested that he could drop his 18+ rated game to a 3+ rating if he added gambling, loot boxes and microtransactions to his game.

“Since PEGI gave us an 18+ rating for having evil playing cards maybe I should add microtransactions/loot boxes/real gambling to lower that rating to 3+ like EA sports FC," he wrote. 

“Just to clear it up - 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. If these other games were rated properly I’d happily accept the weirdo 18+. The red logo looks kinda dope." 

PEGI justifies strong rating

The PEGI platform justifies the game's strong rating by stating that it teaches skills and knowledge used in poker through images, information, and gameplay, with players earning "chips" for playing certain hands.

“The player is able to access a list of poker hand names. As the player hovers over these poker hands, the game explains what types of cards the player would need in order to play certain hands," it explained. 

“As the game goes on, the player becomes increasingly familiar with which hands would earn more points. Because these are hands that exist in the real world, this knowledge and skill could be transferred to a real-life game of poker."

Balatro recently won Mobile Game of the Year at the Game Awards and walked away as the winner for Best Digital Board Game of the Year and Best Mobile Port at our own Pocket Gamer Awards.