Addictive Poker Roguelike ‘Balatro’ Removed from Some Storefronts

The surprise hit roguelike ‘Balatro’ (which is currently the second best rated game of the year so far on Opencritic) has hit a snag a couple of weeks into its launch. This has caused the game to be removed from certain storefronts in various countries. This has made it impossible for anybody to buy the game on systems like the Nintendo Switch, which would otherwise be the perfect platform for this addictive poker game that rewards repeated reruns.

Image by PlayStack

The reason for Balatro’s removal from storefronts involves a mistake in relation to the game’s age rating. This happened suddenly overnight- leaving both the developer and publisher stunned as to why their game was removed. As it turns out, due to the game containing gambling, it suddenly shot up from a PEGI 3+ to an 18+, causing certain storefronts to remove the game. This has mostly affected the eShop on Nintendo Switch, as gamers are still currently unable to purchase the game in most European countries- the United Kingdom included.

Whilst you can still pick the release up on other platforms like PlayStation, Nintendo are notoriously far more restrictive of games with higher age ratings on their storefronts. The publisher of Balatro- PlayStack- confirmed that they were working on resolving the issue to get the game back up on the storefront. However, after several days, there is yet to be an update. The ratings board for games in Europe, PEGI, suddenly decided to up the age rating to an 18+ without any advance warning, which was explained by the publishers in an X post put up a couple hours after the take down.

The developers and publishers believe that the decision to up the age rating is unfounded since, although the game does revolve around poker, there is no actual gambling present in the release with aspects such as in game purchases. We have yet to receive an update regarding this but, hopefully, the game will be back up in European markets soon.