Over the last few months, the makers of a popular card game have been wrestling with the byzantine process that surrounds video game age classifications. Age ratings are intended to help parents determine whether or not a game is appropriate for their children. But in practice, an erroneous label doesn’t just mislead consumers – it can be the difference between success or failure.

Balatro is an award-winning poker game made by an anonymous game developer known as LocalThunk, in which the only guiding principle is chaos. In each match the player must divine the best possible poker hand out of a randomised draw, but the conditions fluctuate constantly. In one round, the game might prevent you from using an entire suit or junk all your face cards, while the next round might challenge you to achieve an eyebrow-raising score with only a single hand. As the game progresses, players accrue jokers for their deck that add yet more wild rules.

It’s an ingenious premise that has allowed a game that began as a small side-project to sell millions of copies since its release in February 2024. Though players win in-game money to buy new cards between rounds, Balatro’s version of poker is fictional, and only bears a faint resemblance to the classic card game. Yet shortly after launching, Balatro hit a snag: it was classified as a gambling game.

At first, Balatro went on sale with a classification that deemed it appropriate for audiences ages three and up. But then, the classification was revised to an adults-only 18 rating. The reasoning? The Pan-European Game Information (Pegi), the organisation that determines age classifications, claimed that Balatro “contains prominent gambling imagery and material that instructs about gambling”.

Without warning, Balatro was pulled from sale on some digital storefronts in Europe and Asia.

“This was obviously a crucial moment and we had two options,” says Wout van Halderen, the communications director at PlayStack, Balatro’s publisher. “Be de-listed, or take the 18+ rating and get back in the store Asap. We opted for the second and started preparing an appeal to have the rating changed.”

The appeal was initially declined – and issues began to snowball. In Korea, the rating outright barred Balatro from being sold. In December, when Balatro won Game of the Year at The Game awards, the team was also ramping up for a physical release. Another appeal was filed by that version’s distributor, Fireshine. It is only now, a year later and after a handful of updates, that the dust has settled and Balatro has been bumped down to a 12+ rating by Pegi.

“It’s difficult to quantify the sales impact, as Balatro’s surge in popularity may have mitigated losses,” Halderen says. “That said, the de-listing disrupted momentum at a key point in the launch. Development-wise, the rating saga took time and resources, but it didn’t fundamentally delay planned updates.”

Pegi, for its part, reiterated that it seeks to apply a fair criteria for ratings in a press release, and that any game that teaches or glamorises gambling will automatically lead to an 18+ rating. The board that oversaw the appeal also ceded that Pegi is a system that “continuously evolves in line with cultural expectations and the guidance of independent experts who support our assessment process”. To that end, Balatro’s dilemma has led Pegi to create a more granular classification system for games that depict gambling. The 18+ rating will now only apply to games that simulate the type of poker people play at actual casinos.

It is a tale with a happy ending for Balatro, yet it highlights the limitations of Pegi’s current system. The appeal process was an extended one, and while that didn’t impact Balatro’s massive success, a smaller game without such acclaim would not fare nearly as well.

The wording of the new classification system suggests that any realistic depiction of gambling within a game would still result in an 18+ rating, even if players cannot actually spend, bet or lose money in the game. Meanwhile, games such as EA’s football series Sports FC, which sell players digital loot boxes with randomised contents, sport Pegi’s 3+ classification. The loot boxes only have a small chance of dropping a rare item, which means players are effectively gambling their money by buying them.

Even with better classification systems and streamlined processes, any age rating system would struggle to keep consumers informed about the contents of a game in the age of user-generated content. A game like Roblox, for example, is deemed to be appropriate for users 7+ – but the rating does not apply to anything created by players, which is the vast majority of the content, and can be inappropriate.

The reclassification of Balatro has been a great relief for its publisher, and the amendment to Pegi’s rules shows that the organisation is open to change. “We applaud the Pegi Experts Group on their commitment to develop a more granular set of classification criteria as indie games continue to stretch into new ideas and concepts,” Halderen says.

“We believe it is a sign of a healthy classification board that it evolves in line with cultural expectations and continues to ensure that audiences understand the type of content present in games.”