Balatro might be poker-themed - as in, you score points by putting together poker hands - but it's definitely not a game that promotes or even simulates gambling. Though PEGI and, now, YouTube have failed to tell the difference, so the hit game's creator LocalThunk has once again spoken out about the mischaracterization.
"Apparently Balatro videos are being rated 18+ on YouTube now for gambling," LocalThunk wrote on social media in response to a video from YouTube channel Balatro University, who claims that 119 of their 606 videos were age-restricted within a single day.
As the channel notes, on March 19, YouTube updated its community guidelines to understandably age restrict videos with "depictions or promotions of online casino sites or apps." It seems the site has also falsely taken aim at Balatro, and slapped a bunch of Balatro-focused content creators on the wrist by age restricting their content, which more often than not kills a video's chances of touching the algorithm and finding success.
"Good thing we are protecting children from knowing what a 4 of a kind is and letting them watch CS [Counter-Strike] case opening videos instead," LocalThunk continued.
This isn't the first time this sort of thing's affected the game either or the first time that LocalThunk's called out games that actually do let players put down real world money to maybe 'win' something in-game, a la those Counter-Strike microtransactions. Certifications board PEGI hit the game with an unusually high age rating in the UK and it was even temporarily pulled from storefronts in multiple countries last year due to gambling-related concerns.
At the time, LocalThunk wrote: "I do not condone gambling (staking something personally valuable on an uncertain event) nor do I believe that Balatro contains gambling. I did add risk/reward mechanics and RNG to Balatro, but these are core mechanics to the genre at large."
He soon won that fight against PEGI's 18+ rating, though that hasn't stopped similar problems from cropping up as they have now.
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