Balatro, a rogue-like deck building game, has been available to play on the Nintendo Switch eShop for almost a few weeks now. For the most part, the release of the game is going well. But unfortunately, there is an exception for Nintendo Switch users living in European regions.
Publisher Playstack released a statement on Twitter saying that the game has been temporarily removed from sale on the Switch eShops in Europe. According to Playstack, the reason for the removal is “in response to the ratings board changing Balatro’s age rating overnight from 3+ to 18+ without any prior warning, due to the mistaken belief that the game ‘contains prominent gambling imagery and educational material about gambling'” .
It is worth noting that this issue appears to be only for Europe. In North America, the ESRB rating of the game is 10+ with the “Gambling Themes” note included. As for Europeans, Playstack says that “please rest assured that the game will be on sale again, probably with a temporary 18+ rating until we resolve the issue.” You can see their press release in its entirety below.
