What is the sales strategy behind 'Balatro,' the game that sold over 1 million copies in its first month despite being developed by just one person?



Balatro , which features a completely new gameplay as a 'roguelike poker game,' quickly attracted attention since its release in February 2024, achieving a million-seller status in about a month after its release and selling 5 million copies in January 2025, becoming a popular work loved by many users. It is also often surprising that Balatro was developed by only one person. Michele Catano, who is involved in the development of the game, and others analyzed how only one person managed to sell 1 million copies in the first month.

Balatro: How a solo developer sold more than 1M copies in one month
https://www.brothers-in-gaming.com/post/balatro

Balatro is a solo game developed by Canadian game developer LocalThunk and published by Playstack .

Katano and his team analyzed that Balatro has three major features: 'Even though it's basically poker, even people who don't know poker can enjoy it,' 'The rules are simple,' and 'The conditions for victory are clear.' Another attraction is that the flashy effects and sounds liven up a card game that can easily become dull, and there must be many people who have heard about this game through streaming and thought, 'I want to try it.'

However, no matter how interesting a game may seem, sales will not increase unless that interest spreads to the public. Katano and his colleagues point out that the reason Balatro sold so well was solely due to the excellent sales strategy of LocalThunk and others.

According to Katano and his team, LocalThunk and their team promoted sales based on four pillars: 'promotion involving streamers,' 'running multiple demos over time,' 'participating in Steam Next Fest multiple times,' and 'nurturing an active Discord community.'



It all started with a pre-launch

stream by streamer Northernlion on July 19, 2023, which saw Balatro's Steam following increase by nearly 400%. According to Katano, it was shortly after this stream that Playstack started carrying Balatro.

LocalThunk also helped by releasing the demo version multiple times. The first demo, released in June 2023, had almost no impact with no ads, but the second demo was a huge success thanks to Playstack's efforts and the influence of streamers, Katano and others point out.

The transition of Balatro's Steam follower count is as follows. The orange bar shows the growth compared to the previous week, and the blue line in the background shows the number of followers. Balatro's followers exploded during the stream on July 19, 2023, and the number of followers has continued to grow steadily, driven by the second demo and 'Steam Next Fest' on October 9, 2023. The last time the number of Steam followers increased significantly was at Steam Next Fest in February 2024, which was held at the perfect time of two weeks before the release, so the number of followers increased by 20% compared to the previous week, which was the final big push.



However, it is hard to tell whether Balatro's numbers are good or bad just by looking at them. Katano and his team compared the charts with

Animal Well , another independently developed game. Animal Well was nominated for Best Independent Game at The Game Awards 2024, just like Balatro, and was ranked second in Metacritic's Best Games of 2024, beating out Balatro, who came in third.

Metacritic's 'Best Games of 2024' top three are 'FFVIIR', 'Animal Well' and 'Balatro', half of the top 10 are indie games - GIGAZINE



The transition of Animal Well's Steam follower count is as follows. The increase in January 2023 is due to influencers taking up the game, but after that it remains almost flat until the release date in May 2024.



Regarding this, Katano and his colleagues pointed out, 'Balatro's number of followers continued to grow even after its release, reaching 40,000 followers in less than two months after its release, while Animal Well took nearly four months to reach the same number. This means that Balatro's momentum and word of mouth were much stronger.' In addition, Animal Well's sales are expected to be less than 500,000 units in four months.

'We're not comparing the quality of the games, but rather how you market your games is what really matters,' said Catano and his team.

Balatro had a very strong first year, but Catano and others point out that its post-launch performance has not been as good as other popular titles.

Below is a graph showing the average number of concurrent Steam players for Balatro (yellow), The Binding of Isaac (blue) released in 2011, and Slay the Spire (red) released in 2019, from March to August 2024, immediately after the release of Balatro. While games from many years ago have maintained a very stable number of concurrent players for a long period of time, Balatro has a poor retention rate.



As for why Balatro is struggling to retain long-term players, Katano and his team point out that 'the reason lies in the nature of the game.' Slay the Spire and Hades , which was not included in the graph above, are characterized by 'each character and weapon having its own characteristics, which creates the joy of mastering them over time,' whereas Balatro is different in that once you understand a certain strategy, it only depends on the element of luck.

Balatro has announced that it will release a free major update by the end of 2025.




'We expect the next update to include daily/weekly challenges, as many roguelike games have them,' Katano and his team said. 'We think it would be a nice, simple addition that would further engage players.'

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