Overview
- Balatro, a roguelike deck-building game with poker imagery, has had its PEGI rating reduced from 18 to 12 after an appeal by its publisher, Fireshine Games.
- The PEGI Complaints Board determined that the game’s fantastical elements outweighed concerns about its poker mechanics, which do not teach real-world gambling skills.
- Luck Be A Landlord, another game featuring simulated gambling mechanics, was similarly reclassified to PEGI 12 for lacking transferable gambling skills.
- PEGI plans to develop more nuanced classification criteria for games with gambling imagery, aiming to better reflect different age categories and cultural expectations.
- The decision has been welcomed by publishers and developers, who see it as a positive step toward fairer evaluations of innovative indie games.