Apple has been told it has to allow alternative app stores on iOS in Brazil within 90 days, as reported by Brazilian publication Valor International and 9to5Mac. Apple has already been forced to allow third-party app stores on iOS in the EU due to the Digital Markets Act.

The judge who issued today’s ruling said that “Apple has already complied with similar obligations in other countries without demonstrating significant impact or irreparable harm to its economic model,” Valor reports.

Brazil’s investigation into Apple began with a complaint filed by Mercado Livre in 2022. In November, Brazil gave Apple 20 days to let developers offer alternative in-app payment options and allow sideloading, but in early December, the injunction was overturned.

The company plans to appeal the ruling, according to a machine translation of Valor’s article. Apple says in a statement to Valor that it “believes in vibrant and competitive markets where innovation can flourish” and that “we face competition in all segments and jurisdictions where we operate, and our focus is always the trust of our users.” Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.

Jackbox Games are going to be available on smart TVs as part of a new cloud streaming service, according to a blog post. Jackbox aims to launch a beta of the service on “one or two smart TV platforms in the Spring of 2025.”

Generally, Jackbox titles are offered in bundles called “Party Packs” that you can play on platforms like game consoles and PCs. This new native smart TV app could make it easier to jump into a Jackbox game, since you won’t need to launch the titles from a device like a game console.

To start, this Jackbox service will only offer a “small collection” of “ad-supported” games for free. But down the line, Jackbox plans to “also offer our entire catalog of games for a subscription fee.” (You can already subscribe to a Jackbox Games channel on Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service for $4.99 per month to access the Jackbox catalog.)

Jackbox’s service relies on Amazon’s new AWS GameLift Streams technology that lets companies build their own cloud gaming apps and experiences. GameLift Streams is also being used by companies like Bandai Namco, which relies on it to “stream an immersive metaverse platform to fans of its Gundam franchise,” according to a press release.

Reddit is introducing some new features for posts that should make it easier to know if your post meets a subreddit’s rules and if it’s for the appropriate community, according to a blog post.

The new Rules Check will flag a potential issue as you’re writing the post. As shown in a GIF of the mobile app, you’ll see a red notification badge above your keyboard on a little magic wand icon, and if you tap that, the app will display a pop-up showing rules that your post might be breaking.

This feature will be tested first on iOS and Android. If your post is removed for breaking the rules, Reddit will show a prompt suggesting that you try instead to post it to a different subreddit.

The new Community Suggestions feature will offer recommendations on which subreddit a post might be a fit for. And the Clear Community Info tool you might see before posting will let you know a subreddit’s specific posting requirements.

Reddit is also offering insights on your posts, including “views, upvotes, shares, and more,” per the blog post.

Reddit will now issue warnings to users who “upvote several pieces of content banned for violating our policies” within “a certain timeframe,” starting first with violent content, the company announced on Wednesday.

“This will have no impact on the vast majority of users as most already downvote or report abusive content,” a Reddit employee says in the announcement post. In comments on the post, a user expressed concern that the new policy could make people “paranoid about voting,” but the employee says that “this would be an unacceptable side effect, which is why we want to monitor this closely and ramp it up thoughtfully.”

“We have done this in the past for quarantined communities and found that it did help to reduce exposure to bad content, so we are experimenting with this sitewide,” according to the main post. Reddit “may consider” expanding the warnings in the future to cover repeated upvotes of other kinds of actions as well as taking other types of actions in addition to warnings.

Tapbots, the developer behind the well-loved Tweetbot and Ivory apps for Twitter and Mastodon, is working on an iOS and Mac app for Bluesky called Phoenix, as spotted by MacStories. The company plans to release the app this summer and says it will open a “limited public alpha as soon as we can.”

This isn’t a move away from Mastodon; after Phoenix is out, Tapbots plans to develop both Ivory and Phoenix concurrently. “Mastodon is our home on the social web and we will continue to invest our time there,” Tapbots says in a Q&A on the Phoenix landing page. “Since the incredible growth of Bluesky in the past year, our customer base has become split between the two services and for us to continue to thrive as a company, we must support both. Unfortunately, we can’t survive on Mastodon alone.”

The company adds that “Mastodon is our home base and we believe in ActivityPub as the future of the social web. We just hope it can continue to grow.”

Tapbots will offer a way to cross-post between both Mastodon and Bluesky, but it says that “while there may be some conveniences of an app that supports multiple social media protocols, we believe the experience will be much better overall if we keep them separate.”

While you wait for the app to release, you can follow the Phoenix account on Bluesky right now.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, Canada, and China are in effect, but Big Tech companies have remained mostly silent despite the potential impact tariffs could have on their businesses.

I’ve written about this twice already: once shortly after Trump announced them in February, and again a week later after the initial 10 percent tariff on China went into effect and the Mexico and Canada tariffs had been paused. In both articles, The Verge reached out to many companies in Big Tech and adjacent industries, and the vast majority of them declined to comment or didn’t reply at all. The ones that did reply usually gave generic statements.

We’ve done another round of outreach, and while there are a few new comments, things are mostly the same. Here’s what’s new:

• Walmart spokesperson Rodrigo Santos Legaspi: “As we have done in the past, we will aggressively work to keep prices as low as possible for our customers. In the meantime, we encourage all parties to work towards finding common ground that will protect consumers from price hikes and continue to grow our economy.”
• The CEOs from Best Buy and Target publicly stated that prices in their stores are about to go up. 
• Gigabyte spokesperson Angela Cheng: “What we’ve seen is that everyone will be increasing the price on the components of GPUs very soon. There will be changes for sure. We’ll need to make changes accordingly. But nothing is confirmed.”
• Framework spokesperson Eric Schumacher: “Because we manufacture Framework Laptops and Mainboards in Taiwan, we have limited impact from the additional recently introduced tariffs. Some of our modules are manufactured in China, so we are taking this into account for future module pricing for US customers in the Framework Marketplace as we also continue to diversify our supply base.”
• Asus spokesperson Anthony Spence declined to comment.
• LG spokesperson Rebecca Goldman declined to comment.
• Acer spokesperson Lisa Emard declined to comment. In February, Acer CEO and chairman Jason Chen said the company would raise prices on its laptops.

Otherwise, the situation is similar to the last time I wrote about it, with very minor changes:

• Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda, Microsoft spokesperson Kate Frischmann, and Nvidia spokesperson Stephanie Matthew declined to comment.
• Sony Digital Imaging spokesperson Kishore Sawh declined to comment for my last article and for this one.
• Canon USA, via a generic press email address with no stated spokesperson, said that “Canon U.S.A., Inc. continues to monitor the situation regarding the tariffs.” The company declined to comment in response to our recent outreach.
• DJI, also via a generic press email with no stated spokesperson, said that “we are assessing the impact internally and will be able to share more details once we complete the full evaluation and receive guidance from the USTR or other relevant departments.”
• Amazon, Apple, Meta, Nintendo, and Samsung have not commented.
• Other companies that haven’t commented include: Alibaba, AMD, AT&T, Broadcom, Dell, EchoStar / Dish, Framework, Fujifilm, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Logitech, Newegg, Nikon, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, Razer, Shein, TCL, Temu, Texas Instruments, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

But as I wrote previously, the Trump administration is chaotic, so the nature of the tariffs could change at any moment. The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a one-month exemption on the automotive tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico, according to Politico. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had signaled yesterday that the administration could announce some sort of compromise on the Mexico and Canada tariffs as early as today.

We may not see the real lasting effects of these tariffs on tech companies until their next major product launches. Could the iPhone 17 have a higher price? Will you have to pay more for the next generation of Ray-Ban Meta glasses? We just don’t know yet.

Updates, March 6th: Added Framework statement. Acer, Asus, Canon USA, and LG declined to comment.

Update, March 5th: Sony Digital Imaging declined to comment.

 Additional reporting by Antonio Di Benedetto.

Sony is launching a new PlayStation beta program to offer “an easier, more consolidated way for gamers to sign up to participate in future PlayStation betas across a wide range of PlayStation experiences,” according to a blog post by Sony’s Sid Shuman.

By signing up for the beta program (technically called the “Beta Program at PlayStation”), you’ll be able to “express interest in gaining beta access to test participating games for the PS5 console and PC, new PS5 console features, PlayStation App features, and even user experience features on PlayStation.com,” Shuman says.

You’ll only need to sign up a single time to indicate that you’re interested beta tests. That’s a nice change from previous PS5 betas, which have required individual signups and codes to access.

You should be able to sign up for the program here starting today, though as I write this, the page is 404-ing for me. The post suggests that you should “check back later if the page is not yet available in your region.”

Signing up for the program doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get picked for a beta, Shuman says.

Google is making some changes to Google Play on Android devices to better highlight apps that include widgets, according to a blog post. The changes include a new search filter for widgets, widget badges on app detail pages, and a curated editorial page dedicated to widgets.

“Historically, one of the challenges with investing in widget development has been discoverability and user understanding,” product manager Yinka Taiwo-Peters says in the post. “You’ve asked for better ways for users to find and utilize your widgets, and we’re delivering.” Yinka Taiwo-Peters also acknowledges that “we understand that the effort required to build and maintain widgets needs to be justified by user adoption.”

With the search filter, users will be able to more easily search for apps with widgets. The badge “eliminates guesswork for users and highlights your widget offerings, encouraging them to explore and utilize this capability,” Taiwo-Peters says. And the curated editorial page will show off “collections of excellent widgets.”

The updated widget discoverability tools will be “coming soon,” Taiwo-Peters says.

Apple’s latest iOS 18.4 developer beta adds the Visual Intelligence feature, the company’s Google Lens-like tool, to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, as reported by 9to5Mac.

Apple had told Daring Fireball that the feature would be coming to those iPhones in a future software update but didn’t say which. Barring any last-minute changes, it now seems like it will be available widely with the official rollout of iOS 18.4, which is expected in April.

Visual Intelligence launched as a feature accessible from the Camera Control button for the iPhone 16 lineup that debuted in September. Because the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max don’t have the Camera Control button, you’ll instead be able to use Visual Intelligence through the Action Button or via Control Center, similar to the newly launched iPhone 16E.

According to 9to5Mac, today’s iOS 18.4 developer beta 2 update also brings the Action Button and Control Center options for Visual Intelligence to the rest of the iPhone 16 lineup.

Mozilla is revising its new Terms of Use for Firefox introduced on Wednesday following criticisms over language that seemed to give the company broad ownership over user data. With the change, “we’re updating the language to more clearly reflect the limited scope of how Mozilla interacts with user data,” the company says in a Friday post.

The particular language that drew criticism was:

When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

That language has been removed. Now, the language in the terms says:

You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content. 

“We’ve been listening to some of our community’s concerns with parts of the TOU, specifically about licensing,” the company says. “Our intent was just to be as clear as possible about how we make Firefox work, but in doing so we also created some confusion and concern.”

Friday’s post additionally provides some context about why the company has “stepped away from making blanket claims that ‘We never sell your data.’” Mozilla says that “in some places, the LEGAL definition of ‘sale of data’ is broad and evolving,”and that “the competing interpretations of do-not-sell requirements does leave many businesses uncertain about their exact obligations and whether or not they’re considered to be ‘selling data.’”

Mozilla says that “there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners” so that Firefox can be “commercially viable,” but it adds that it spells those out in its privacy notice and works to strip data of potentially identifying information or share it in aggregate.

Friday’s post follows an update added to the original Wednesday announcement to try and clarify things.

Zapier informed customers on Friday that an “unauthorized user” accessed “certain Zapier code repositories” and may have gained access to customer information as a result. The customer data had been “inadvertently copied to the repositories for debugging purposes,” according to an email obtained by The Verge.

The company says it became aware of the unauthorized access on Thursday. When it did, the company “immediately secured access to the repositories and invalidated the unauthorized user’s access,” the email says. Zapier says that the incident “did not affect any Zapier database, infrastructure or production, authentication, or payment systems.”

The code repos shouldn’t have included customer data. But after auditing them, Zapier discovered that some information had been “inadvertently” copied over. Zapier’s platform allows users to create automations that work across other companies’ apps and services, potentially putting it in the middle of a lot of sensitive information.

The hacker was able to access the repositories because of a “two-factor authentication (2FA) misconfiguration on an employee’s account.” The company says it is now conduct …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Mozilla introduced its first Terms of Use for Firefox this week, but the company has already had to post an update to address criticisms of language that appeared to give Mozilla overly broad ownership over user data.

Specifically, some users took issue with this line in the terms, as reported by TechCrunch: “When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.”

In response, Mozilla added this update to its blog post. “We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible,” Mozilla says. “Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example.

The company adds that “it does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.” (In the Privacy Notice, Mozilla spells out how it uses your data for things like the core functionality of Firefox and its features, as well as how to adjust what data you provide.)

To TechCrunch, Mozilla shared its reasoning over some of the language in the terms:

Mozilla also further clarified why it used certain terms, saying that the term “nonexclusive” was used to indicate that Mozilla doesn’t want an exclusive license to user data, because users should be able to do other things with that data, too.

“Royalty-free” was used because Firefox is free and neither Mozilla nor the user should owe each other money in exchange for handling the data in order to provide the browser. And “worldwide” was used because Firefox is available worldwide and provides access to the global internet.

Mozilla spokesperson Kenya Friend-Daniel also told TechCrunch that “these changes are not driven by a desire by Mozilla to use people’s data for AI or sell it to advertisers. As it says in the Terms of Use, we ask for permission from the user to use their data to operate Firefox ‘as you indicate with your use of Firefox.’ This means that our ability to use data is still limited by what we disclose in the Privacy Notice.”

In its original blog post, Mozilla said that “some optional Firefox features or services may require us to collect additional data to make them work, and when they do, your privacy remains our priority.” The company added that “we intend to be clear about what data we collect and how we use it.”

Apple announced in a whitepaper that it plans to introduce a bunch of new child safety features, including letting parents share their kids’ age ranges with apps, refreshing the App Store’s age ratings system, and making it easier for parents to set up Child Accounts for their kids. The company says it will introduce the features “this year.”

Companies like Meta, Snap, and X have called for platforms to be responsible for verifying the ages of users at the OS or app store level. Apple also reportedly lobbied against a proposed bill in Louisiana that would have required the company to enforce age restrictions.

In the whitepaper, Apple argues that age verification “at the app marketplace level” wouldn’t be ideal, as it would require users to hand over “sensitive personally identifying information” to the company. “That’s not in the interest of user safety or privacy,” Apple says. 

The age sharing system gestures in that direction without going so far as to fully verify each user’s age. With the age range feature, “parents can allow their kids to share the age range associated with their Child Accounts with app developers,” Apple says.

The age range will “be shared with developers if and only if parents decide to allow this information to be shared,” and parents will be able to disable sharing. The feature also won’t “provide kids’ actual birthdates.” Developers will be able to request the age ranges with a new API that Apple says is a “narrowly tailored, data-minimizing, privacy-protecting tool to assist app developers who can benefit from it.”

“Today’s announcement is a positive first step, however, developers can only apply these age-appropriate protections with a teen’s approval,” Meta spokesperson Jamie Radice says in a statement to The Verge. “Parents tell us they want to have the final say over the apps their teens use, and that’s why we support legislation that requires app stores to verify a child’s age and get a parent’s approval before their child downloads an app.”

As for App Store ratings will expand from four thresholds to five; the new categories will be Age 4 plus, 9 plus, 13 plus, 16 plus, and 18 plus. In their app listings, developers will be asked to highlight “whether apps contain user-generated content or advertising capabilities that can impact the presence of age-inappropriate content” and if apps have their own content controls.

Apple says that the App Store won’t show kids apps with age ratings “in the places where we feature apps on our storefront” that are higher than what their parents set on their accounts.

As for Child Accounts, Apple says that it will introduce a new setup process and let parents fix the age associated with the account if it wasn’t set up correctly.

Update, February 27th: Added Meta statement.

PlayerUnknown Productions, the studio from PUBG creator Brendan Greene (aka PlayerUnknown), has shared a gameplay trailer for Prologue: Go Wayback!, a single-player survival game that’s launching in early access on Steam this year.

The studio previously shared that the game would be built with “machine-learning-driven terrain generation technology,” and in this new trailer, you can see some gorgeous, wooded areas on display. In the game, you’ll also have to deal with various types of weather, including pouring rain and heavy snow. The point of the game, according to a fact sheet, is to explore and survive so that you can find a weather station to call for help.

Prologue is just one of three games in the works from PlayerUnknown Productions. The “ultimate project,” dubbed Project Artemis, is going to be “a massive multiplayer sandbox experience” that builds on the technology featured in Prologue and a tech demo, Preface: Undiscovered World, that’s available on Steam.

If you play Roblox on a Chromebook, things could feel faster soon. Roblox is rolling out an x86 version of the game “built specifically for Chromebooks,” where players can expect “up to 2x faster performance on x86 devices across all your favorite games and experiences,” according to a ChromeOS blog post.

This will translate to “smoother gameplay, quicker load times, and an overall better Roblox experience,” the blog post says, and it includes a few vague charts to help support that. Frame rates in two popular experiences, Adopt Me! and Brookhaven RP, will increase by 99 percent and 67 percent, respectively, but the post doesn’t include the specific frame rate counts. “While it varies by device, some saw increases of 15 frames per second or more on the same hardware,” Google spokesperson Peter Du tells The Verge.

Load times in those games will apparently be reduced by 54 percent and 55 percent, too, but there aren’t specifics in the post on exactly how many seconds those improvements will shave off.

The blog post also says that Chromebook players will be able to get a “special Chrome jetpack for your avatar” and an item in Bloxburg, another popular Roblox game. And YouTube Shorts creators can try out a new Shorts effect that gives you a Roblox-themed head.

Update, February 27th: Added a quote from Google.

Amazon is refreshing the alexa.com website and the Alexa mobile app so that Alexa Plus subscribers will be able to use the revamped, AI-powered voice assistant. We don’t have many details beyond that, but the website and the app could be handy new ways to interact with the revamped Alexa, which was announced at an event this morning.

At the event, Amazon showed how you’ll be able to have conversations with Alexa Plus for things like ordering groceries, controlling smart home devices, and even telling you if someone in your house has recently walked the dog by looking at your home camera footage. Amazon also demoed how Alexa Plus could analyze and summarize documents, and perhaps the new website and app will be used to upload that information.

You’ll access Alexa Plus from the current Alexa app — there won’t be a new app to download, spokesperson Devon Corvasce confirms to The Verge. And when we first published this story, alexa.com just took you to a page to learn more about Alexa and to access the Alexa mobile apps, but now it redirects to a page about Alexa Plus.

It seems like we’ll have to wait a little bit for the new website and app to be available widely, though. Amazon says that Alexa Plus will initially roll out in the US “in the next few weeks,” and then “subsequently in waves in the coming months.” Alexa Plus will cost $19.99 per month or will also be available as part of a Prime membership.

Update, February 26th: Amazon confirmed that Alexa Plus won’t require a separate app and has changed the current page you see when you visit alexa.com.

Warner Bros. Discovery is making even more big changes to its troubled gaming efforts. As reported by Bloomberg, the company’s gaming division is canceling the Wonder Woman game announced in 2021 and shutting down three studios: Wonder Woman developer Monolith Productions, MultiVersus developer Player First Games, and Warner Bros. Games San Diego.

WBD confirmed the changes in a statement to Kotaku’s Ethan Gach. “We have had to make some very difficult decisions to structure our development studios and investments around building the best games possible with our key franchises — Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC and Game of Thrones,” according to the statement. “After careful consideration, we are closing three of our development studios Monolith Productions, Player First Games and Warner Bros. Games San Diego. This is a strategic change in direction and not a reflection of these teams or the talent that consists within them.”

As for why Wonder Woman is being canceled, “our hope was to give players and fans the highest quality experience possible for the iconic character, and unfortunately this is no longer possible within our strategic priorities,” the statement says. “This is another tough decision, as we recognize Monolith’s storied history of delivering epic fan experiences through amazing games.”

Warner Bros. Discovery says in the statement that it remains “focused on and excited about getting back to producing high-quality games for our passionate fans and developed by our world class studios and getting our Games business back to profitability and growth in 2025 and beyond.”

The cancellation and shutdowns are yet another rough spot in Warner Bros.’ gaming efforts. Player First Games recently announced that MultiVersus will be taken offline, ending a development period that has already included a long hiatus and a relaunch. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a flop, with that game receiving its last season less than a year after launch. A previous report from Bloomberg said that WB’s gaming division suffered $300 million in losses last year.

2023’s Hogwarts Legacy has been a success for WB, and the company is reportedly working on a definitive edition for the game with more content.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Andrew Ferguson urging the FTC to require that companies admit when you’re not really buying an ebook or video game. 

Wyden’s letter, shared with The Verge, requests guidance to “ensure that consumers who purchase or license digital goods can make informed decisions and understand what ownership rights they are obtaining.”

Wyden wants the guidance to include how long a license lasts, what circumstances might expire or revoke the license, and if a consumer can transfer or resell the license. The letter also calls for the information “before and at the point of sale” in a way that’s easily understandable. “To put it simply, prior to agreeing to any transaction, consumers should understand what they are paying for and what is guaranteed after the sale,” Wyden says.

Frequently, when you buy digital copies of things like movies, games, music, or books, you don’t actually own that thing — just a license to access it. As a result, you might unexpectedly lose access to games because of PlayStation Network account bans or no longer be able to download and transfer Kindle books to your computer over USB because of an Amazon change. 

Last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law banning digital stores from using words like “buy” or “purchase” unless they disclose that you’re just licensing the content they sell, and shortly after, Valve updated its Steam checkout screen to note just that.

“The shift from physical to digital goods presents some complex legal questions,” Wyden says in the letter. “One thing is clear, however: consumers deserve transparency about their ownership rights in digital goods. Guidance from the FTC on this issue will help ensure that digital goods sellers are aware of best practices and that American consumers can make informed buying decisions.”

We’ve reached out to the FTC for comment.

Verizon and AT&T have each announced milestones in making cellphone-to-satellite video calls in partnership with satellite company AST SpaceMobile.

Verizon has completed its first cellphone-to-satellite video call, while AT&T has completed its first using satellites that will be used as part of a commercial network. There’s lining up competition to T-Mobile’s arrangement with SpaceX and Starlink on satellite-to-cell service which launched a public beta for messaging via satellite earlier this month. AT&T and Verizon have said that T-Mobile and SpaceX’s offerings would harm their networks.

Verizon pulled off “a live video call between two mobile devices with one connected via satellite and the other connected via Verizon’s terrestrial network connection,” according to a company press release. In AT&T’s case, “AT&T and AST SpaceMobile have successfully completed another video call by satellite to an everyday smartphone over AT&T spectrum,” per AT&T’s press release.

Both phone companies relied on AST’s constellation of five BlueBird satellites that were launched last September for the tests. AT&T’s initial video call test happened in June 2023.

Balatro, the hit roguelike with poker imagery and poker hands but no actual gambling, no longer has a PEGI 18 rating in Europe following an appeal, PEGI announced today.

LocalThunk, the creator of Balatro, has publicly shared his frustrations the rating — the game was originally given a PEGI 3 rating, but it was bumped to PEGI 18 shortly after its launch in February 2024 because of the game “contains prominent gambling imagery and material that instructs about gambling,” as explained by publisher Playstack.

Now, Balatro will have a PEGI 12 rating following an appeal submitted by Sold Out Sales & Marketing, which rebranded to Fireshine Games in 2022 and publishes Balatro’s physical edition. “The Complaints Board concluded that, although the game explains the various hands of poker, the roguelike deck-building game contained mitigating fantastical elements that warranted a PEGI 12 rating,” PEGI says.

PEGI is also changing the PEGI 18 rating for Luck Be A Landlord, a roguelike with slot machine mechanics but similarly has no real-world gambling, to PEGI 12 an appeal submitted by Fangamer. “The Complaints Board reasoned that the same arguments as above applied: although the game features a slot machine mechanic, there were no specific transferable gambling skills and the game can therefore be rated PEGI 12.”

PEGI is going to make more classification criteria to address games with gambling imagery but that may not need the PEGI 18 rating. “At this moment, any teaching or glamorisation of simulated gambling automatically leads to a PEGI 18 rating,” PEGI says. “On the basis of these appeals, the PEGI Experts Group will develop a more granular set of classification criteria to handle gambling themes and the simulation, teaching and glamorisation of gambling in different age categories, which will now include 12 but also keep 18 as an age category for games that simulate gambling typically played in casinos and betting halls.

“After an appeal from my publisher, Balatro has been reclassified by PEGI from 18 plus to 12 plus,” LocalThunk says in a post on Bluesky. “This is a good step from PEGI — bringing nuance to their ratings criteria that used to be 18 plus or nothing. I hope this change will allow developers to create without being unfairly punished.”

“Playstack is pleased to confirm the PEGI Complaints Board’s decision to reclassify Balatro to a PEGI 12 rating, following appeals from Playstack and our physical distributor, Fireshine Games,” Playstack communications director Wout van Halderen says in a statement to The Verge. “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. We believe it is a sign of a healthy classification board that it evolves in line with cultural expectations and continue to ensure that audiences understand the type of content present in games.”

“I’m happy that PEGI finally made the right call here and lowered Luck be a Landlord’s age rating,” says Dan DiIorio, the solo game developer at TrampolineTales, in a post on Bluesky. “I just hope that this sets a standard and other games are treated the same way Balatro and Luck be a Landlord were. Now give games with loot boxes (actual gambling) higher age ratings!”

Update, February 24th: Added statements from LocalThunk, TrampolineTales’ Dan DiIorio, and a revised statement from Playstack.