Balatro exceeds five million sales across all devices

• Balatro has pulled in a whopping five million sales across all platforms
• This includes mobile, for which it has won numerous awards from ourselves
• Balatro is a critically praised mixture of deck builder, solitaire, roguelike and more

If you’ve been following gaming news for the past few months, you’ll hardly be surprised to learn that LocalThunk’s hit mix of solitaire, roguelike and deck builder, Balatro, has now accrued over five million sales across all platforms. Since releasing, Balatro has been showered with praise from critics and players alike, including multiple prestigious awards.

And while it may be tempting to point out that this figure is dwarfed by other releases in terms of downloads and players, it’s worth noting two key factors. One, that this is a solo-developed project, and two, that these are all premium sales for the developer and publisher Playstack. 

With that in mind, then, this is a particularly noteworthy milestone. Unfortunately, we’re not sure exactly how many of these sales were made on mobile. But the last time we got clear figures was back in December at 3.5 million, which means a whopping 1.5 million have been added since then during its run on mobile.

Place your bets

I think it would be unfair to unilaterally point to Balatro as an indie breakthrough for mobile, especially given how many other great releases have made their way onto the platform. But I think it would be fair to say that this is probably one of the most high-profile successes too, especially with what Balatro has gone through to get so popular; and we’ve still yet to see how Balatro fares long-term sales-wise as it continues to receive crossover updates and more.

I suppose the question then is whether or not this is going to make both average mobile players and those folks in the industry more confident about pushing indie to mobile? Here’s hoping.

If you’re curious about what we thought of Balatro, why not take a gander at our review and see why it got a whopping five stars?