Balatro is yet again facing scrutiny over its tangential gambling-related themes, this time from YouTube. Videos featuring Balatro are being hit with age restrictions on YouTube, brewing backlash from creators and developer LocalThunk alike.
While Balatro is no doubt one of the most influential games to have debuted in recent years, the Game of the Year-nominated deck-building roguelike has been no stranger to controversy since its February 2024 launch. Balatro initially received an 18+ rating in Europe from PEGI due to the game’s perceived ties to gambling, which is understandably a big no-no these days. After criticizing the decision several times, LocalThunk successfully appealed PEGI’s ruling and ultimately got Balatro to a 12+ rating in Europe.
The crux of LocalThunk’s argument was that while Balatro draws inspiration from poker mechanics, the game lacks full-blown gambling features or the ability to wager real money, thereby nullifying any and all potential stakes. Now, this argument is being brought up again after YouTube updated its content guidelines on March 19 to impose age limits on videos that depict or promote online casinos or gambling apps. While Balatro obviously doesn’t fit those categories in a literal sense, its use of poker hands and chips appears to have triggered YouTube’s automated moderation systems. A video by content creator Balatro University was one of the first to be flagged, prompting developer LocalThunk to speak out.
Over on Bluesky, LocalThunk bashed YouTube’s recent content guideline revisions, sarcastically remarking, “Good thing we are protecting children from knowing what a 4 of a kind is and letting them watch CS case opening videos instead.” The Balatro creator’s jab points to an apparent inconsistency in enforcement, as other more obviously gambling-adjacent content, such as loot box openings, remains largely unrestricted on YouTube. At the time of writing, it’s unclear whether YouTube will reconsider the policy changes or if affected creators can appeal the age restrictions automatically levied on their content.
With LocalThunk and a growing number of Balatro content creators getting involved, there could just be enough eyes on the case for YouTube to take a look. Balatro has accrued enormous critical and commercial acclaim for the way it blends strategy, deck-building, and roguelike mechanics with classic card games, but this precise concoction may also make the game an easy target for misclassification by automated systems made to target gambling-related content. Manual reviews are likely the most sensible option here, and one can only hope that YouTube comes to a similar decision.
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Source: https://gamerant.com/balatro-youtube-videos-age-restriction-localthunk-comment/
