Balatro, a new roguelike deckbuilder, has only been out on Steam for 10 days but has already sold 500,000 copies. On Mar. 6, publisher Playstack shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) where they celebrated Balatro’s sales numbers and thanked the community for their support.
Excited players flocked to the comments to praise the game, with many fans expressing that Balatro rightfully deserves its success.
Balatro launched on Feb. 20 and describes itself as a “hypnotically satisfying deck builder where you play illegal poker hands.” The game garnered overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews overnight and soon appeared on Steam’s Top Sellers charts. At the time of writing, it’s currently sitting in 20th place, which is a remarkable achievement for the developer.
The card game mixes the familiar rules and card combinations of Poker with simple deckbuilding mechanics to create unpredictable and often chaotic situations. As players continue to progress through Balatro, they unlock different cards (Jokers) that further alter the gameplay.
Many Steam reviews describe Balatro as a “just one more” type of game, where the gameplay is so satisfying and addictive that the hours just seem to pass by. One Steam reviewer gave it glowing praise, saying: “Balatro isn’t only a fun and addictive poker game with a roguelike twist; it’s also secretly a time travel portal to the near future!”
Recently, many survival games on Steam have seen huge sales numbers, including titles like Nightingale, Enshrouded, and, especially Palworld, so it’s refreshing to see a roguelike deckbuilder do so well. Here’s hoping Balatro will break 1,000,000 sales in the not-so-distant future. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to play another game of Balatro—just one, maybe two, maybe three…
