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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?
🤡🤡🤡🤡
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.
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.
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.
I would if they were selling them with chips and instructions on betting.
But Balatro doesn’t do that, so how is this a valid addition to the analogy?
There is zero betting in Balatro.
I think it’s becoming more and more clear that this user is a troll.
nah, they’re just THAT dense and have no idea what they’re talking about…not a troll, just too dumb to realize they’re being dumb…
Either way they’re eroding their credibility very very quickly.
Edit: He literally made a comment claiming he’s going to make a game about a porn studio. I don’t think we can say he isn’t a troll at this point.
yeah, saw that comment later…seems like a troll…
That wasn’t the question posed. As has been said over and over Balatro is more than just “evil cards”
Why?
Instructions on betting can be easily found online, and most pick-up games use cash anyway. No kid is going through all the effort of using chips if they’re going to gamble, so getting chips may actually be a deterrent for getting into gambling.
You don’t even need instructions on betting, betting or wagering is something that people can figure out on their own quite easily, the behavior is often demonstrated in real life in other non-gambling scenarios “I bet ya can’t climb that tree”, so if we assume a game about playing cards can be considered gambling, than the assumption that Playing cards themselves would also be considered gambling materials seems plausible, but it is meant to highlight the absurdity of the situation.
Because that’s what tips that product over the line, as sold.
Balatro features no wagering or betting of any kind.
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.
Exactly! And most of the concepts behind the hands are present in other games (double and triples, straights, etc). I played Yahtzee as a kid, and that has pretty much every hand from poker (aside from a flush, because dice don’t have suits). If Yahtzee is offensive to you, I don’t know what to say…
Hold on, I’m going to go make a game that’s obliquely about a porn studio. Let’s see if you buy that one as a protest too.
Eh, if it was a management-style game, that might be interesting. I really liked “Game Dev Studio”, and honestly, the only difference here is subject matter. As long as there’s no actual porn, throw a PEGI 12 or 16 on it, depending on how far you take it.
For Balatro, PEGI 12 seems more than appropriate.
Thinking about this hypothetically is making me laugh.
Imagine setting things like how often your employees are checked for STIs, and the cost for that, etc., lol
It would also be interesting to manage a brothel. Same basic mechanics, but you could choose the type of business (escort vs full service), gender of workers and target clientele, types of advertising, etc. If you take it too far, you could get shut down/caught by the authorities (depending on whether you go legit or underground).
I’d probably play both those games, especially if the developer doesn’t take it that seriously. Both seem like a ton of fun, and can be done without anything explicit in it.
Maybe those games exist, idk, I haven’t considered looking.
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.
