Building Balatro: How a Poker Roguelike Sold a Million Copies

The gaming landscape in 2024 has seen an odd fall off in AAA success, with only August’s Black Myth: Wukong reaching the kind of blockbuster levels of sales that the peak of the gaming market expects. Instead, many of this year’s gaming headlines have been taken by smaller studios that have beaten the odds. Games like Helldivers 2, Palworld, Hades II, and Manor Lords. But one title stands out among even these small developer games: Balatro.

Balatro, with a solo developer, and a marketing budget of almost zero, was able to sell over a million copies to become one of the best reviewed games on Steam, outselling many AAA games developed by large studios.

To do this, developer LocalThunk used careful deployments of Balatro’s demo, word of mouth, and strategic influencer marketing via a select group of livestreamers. In doing so, even months before Balatro’s release, it was one of the most anticipated games coming in 2024. But this kind of indie success is never guaranteed, even with these methods. And in this piece, we’ll look at how Balatro succeeded, and lessons that other indie game developers can draw from it.