Indie hit Balatro is now experiencing a second wave of popularity. The poker roguelike continues to sell well on Steam, attracting more and more players this holiday season.
According to SteamDB, Balatro peaked at 38,506 concurrent players on December 27. The previous record of 37.9k CCU was set on March 10, three weeks after launch.
As can be seen from the chart below, Balatro’s player count has been growing since the end of November. These are impressive results for a single-player indie game, especially given that there were no major content updates or DLCs (besides several free collaborations with other popular titles).
Developer LocalThunk commented on the recent surge in popularity, attributing it to a “crazy December.” Here are the key factors that helped Balatro surpass its all-time CCU peak:
- Balatro saw a spike in concurrent players after receiving several The Game Awards nomination, and it eventually took home three awards: Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game, and Best Mobile Game;
- Two sales events — Balatro received a 15% discount during the Autumn Sale (right before TGA) and is currently 10% off during the Winter Sale;
- On December 23, popular YouTuber Markiplier (37.2 million subscribers) released a video on Balatro, and it has already collected over 2.5 million views;
- Christmas season — people are actively buying the game during the holidays.
Balatro currently has an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on Steam, with 98% of the 84.9k user reviews being positive. Interestingly, over 33k reviews have been left in the last 30 days, thanks to all the recent buzz surrounding the game.
This makes Balatro the highest-rated game release of 2024 on Steam, surpassing titles such as Black Myth: Wukong, Satisfactory, TCG Card Shop Simulator, and Tiny Glade.
In other news about Balatro, the game recently won Game of the Year at The Indie Game Awards 2024. “Our games are able to take big design and aesthetic risks in a way that AAA cannot, and I believe 2024 was truly a banner year for independent games,” LocalThunk said in his acceptance speech.