GOTY Dark Horse Balatro's Popularity Explodes Following TGA Nomination
Award shows are worthless, are they?
by Khayl Adam · Push SquareThe seductive cult of Balatro continues to spread, with LocalThunk's poker-themed roguelike claiming untold more converts. The game's surprise Game of the Year nomination at Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards caused an explosive uptick in players across multiple platforms. That's in spite of conventional wisdom, which suggests award shows are mostly pageantry; the addictive nature of the scrappy little indie certainly makes a more convincing case for GOTY than Elden Ring DLC.
As VGC notes (citing PocketGamer's statistics), Balatro has reportedly made more than $4 million on mobile since that version's release ten days ago, on 18th November. That's a lot of copies at around $15, timed to coincide with the game's five nominations at The Game Awards. Balatro is currently up for Best Game Direction, Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game, Best Mobile Game, and, of course, the big one, Game of the Year.
It goes further, however. Doing a little Steamdb detective work, you can actually see the more than 100% uptick of active players on Steam following The Game Awards announcement, marked by the "x" below. Balatro was averaging around 7k concurrents prior; now, that number has been sitting above 15k for the past few days.
Related Articles
News All The Game Awards 2024 Nominees Revealed, Astro Bot Up for 7 Awards
FF7 Rebirth also gets 7 nominations
News Smash Hit Roguelike Balatro Has Sold Over 2 Million Copies, Free Major Update Incoming
Cashing in
Have you heard the good word? Are you a Balatro true believer, and do you think the plucky little underdog can go all the way at Geoff's big show? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source pocketgamer.biz]
- Share:
- 0
About Khayl Adam
Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.
Comments 20
I'm sure it's good but I avoid addiction fueled games like this and Vampire Survivors like the plague. I know my personality and how easily I can lose my self-control.
- 2
- MeanBeanEgg
- 4:09am
I have it on the Switch. Amazing game.
I’m off to go see what this is all about. Toodles…
Phenomenal game. Deserves every accolade and dollar it receives.
cannot see under any circumstance a card game winning goty..
- 6
- LikelySatan
- 4:56am
I enjoy the awards and the excitement around them.
- 7
- PorkChopExpress
- 5:03am
I've tried it. I didn't like it, but this is great for the creator. Maybe I'll like their next game more.
Let's be real here... we all watch the game awards for new game reveal trailers.
- 9
- Deoxyr1bose
- 5:20am
It’s also a lot higher on the PS charts I’ve seen recently. The PS audience doesn’t seem to gravitate towards games like this so it was nice to see that regardless.
- 10
- nessisonett
- 5:24am
The best game this year. Hands down. Sh*ts on the competition really, shows up modern bloated development for what it often is.
It's creator is a millionaire like it's nothing bet he didn't expect it 😅
- 12
- Th3solution
- 5:36am
This is really a fantastic game. It appears simple at first, but it’s quite intricately designed and balanced. There’s a lot of strategy, but it’s not too difficult to pick up and play. Excellent game on the Portal and feels right at home on it.
It's going to be Wukong or the DLC. Even if they don't deserve it.
- 14
- Medic_alert
- 6:06am
I own this game 4 times.....
I recently bought it on android on a particularly slow work day.
I have no regrets.
- 15
- KyushuTrail
- 6:12am
Still waiting for it to release in Japan!
astro bot is the favorite in my eyes for game of the year because metaphor is to japanese to win the american that what it has become goty award.. highest score usually wins the award so wukong has no chance it is the lowest rated game to be a goty contender
nintendo has a chance to steal the highlight of the award show by revealing switch 2..
GOTY in a category, I can see, but GOTY all around, nah. Just like my GOTY is Metaphor, even though I know the most likely GOTY is Astro Bot. It's just more approachable and mainstream. Will I cry if Balatro gets it? No, but I just don't see that happening.
@nessisonett exactly this, superb game, easily the most fun I have had this year with a game, with Astro running it close.
As someone who likes to torture myself by 100%ing every game I start, Balatro was the worst decision to play that I made all year long. This game is over 200 hours in length (but I didn’t see this advertised at the time), and the repetitious grind is maddening. As much I as I enjoy some of the game’s other design choices, the (first) completionist grind killed the joy of the game for me. (Ironically, I didn’t mind the second “completionist++” grind as much, which was shorter and more fun mechanically.)
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...