Game That Inspired Balatro Faces Trouble on Google Play

Balatro, LocalThunk’s recent roguelike masterpiece, recently took the world by storm, becoming a renowned hit. The deckbuilder was furthermore nominated in five categories at the Game Awards 2024, winning the Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game and Best Mobile Game accolades.

What some people may not know, however, is that Balatro was inspired by Luck Be a Landlord, another deckbuilder with roguelike elements. It seems that the latter game has now found itself in trouble after it was wrongfully flagged as a gambling title.

Google Insists the Game Constitutes Gambling

At the beginning of the year, TrampolineTales, the developer behind Luck Be a Landlord, announced that they have received a message from Google Play Support, telling them that their app is not compliant with Google Play Policies. TrampolineTales clarified that despite the game receiving no major changes in the past few months, it has now been flagged as a title containing gambling.

Luck Be a Landlord, for context, is a game where the player is tasked with manipulating a slot machine in order to pay an increasing rent. The game has obvious inspirations from the world of gambling although it, by itself, does not contain any gambling with real or virtual money.

Despite that, Google has now remarked on age rating concerns about Luck Be a Landlord. TrampolineTales admitted that this is not the first time they have had similar problems as previously, there have been issues in certain countries.

Trampoline Tales Does Not Plan to Dispute the Wrongful Decision

TrampolineTales noted that they believe that Luck Be a Landlord should have the equivalent of an E10+ rating across all regions since it doesn’t really contain gambling. However, they added that they do not have the energy to argue with Google’s decision and will deal with “whatever inaccurate rating is slapped on the game.”  

I’ve now filled out the Google Play age rating questionnaire to “agree” that my game “contains gambling.” I’m doing this in an attempt to stop my game from being banned globally on Google Play since every time I’ve tried to appeal these decisions, I’ve simply been sent a screenshot of my game and was told “this is gambling.”

Not a Unique Case

It seems that problems faced by Luck Be a Landlord are not unique to it. Balatro, which, as mentioned, has been inspired by TrampolineTales’ game, has previously encountered similar issues because of its gambling-like aesthetics.

Its atmosphere and poker inspirations caused it to be removed from the Nintendo Switch shop for a short while. Soon after that, Balatro’s developer vowed to keep the game free from gambling influence.

In response to people joking that Balatro is a gateway gambling product, LocalThunk took a bold step by banning any future attempts to turn Balatro into a gambling game in their will. LocalThunk emphasized that they hate gambling and that Balatro does not promote real-money gaming, despite its appearance.