The creator of Balatro was confident that only four friends and his parents would buy the game
The creator of the card-based "roguelike" Balatro admitted that the game's success exceeded all expectations. According to LocalThunk, it was initially conceived as an experiment, and the working folder is still simply named "CardGame" and is stored among other tutorial projects.
Balatro
He also responded on social media to a question about whether he anticipated such a fondness for the project: “I expected the game to be bought by four of my friends and my parents — and that would have been great. So no, the whole year has been a series of crazy events.”
Despite the developer's modest plans, Balatro quickly gained popularity. The game was released on PC and consoles on February 20. According to GameDiscoverCo, in the first month on Steam it earned $10.2 million with sales reaching 777.4 thousand copies.
As of August 7, total sales of Balatro on major platforms exceeded 2 million copies.
At the end of September, the game was released on mobile devices, where it topped the sales charts within hours, surpassing Minecraft and Stardew Valley. The mobile version of Balatro brought the developer over $500,000 in the first five days.
Additionally, LocalThunk is actively collaborating with other well-known titles. A recent update added cards featuring characters from Cyberpunk 2077, Stardew Valley, The Binding of Isaac, and Slay the Spire to the game.
