Balatro was recently in the news after some versions of the game were removed from digital stores due to a still-ongoing ratings frenzy. However, this setback hasn’t stopped the popular roguelike deck builder from selling more than 500,000 copies across all platforms in less than two weeks.
Released last month on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and PC. Balatro is a wonderful digital card game that uses poker mechanics and hands as the basis for a strange but entertaining roguelike about scoring massive combos using power-ups and special cards. And now the game has reached a major sales milestone.
According to publisher Playstack Gameson March 6th Balatro reached the whopping 500,000 copies mark in just ten days. In a tweet announcing the news, the editor added: “Thank you for your amazing support – we are beyond grateful!”
This is an impressive number for a relatively small game from a small publisher that involves shuffling cards to form poker hands. But it’s even more impressive when you consider that the game has been unavailable on the Switch eShop in Europe for the past few days. That’s because the game’s PEGI rating changed overnight, which surprised the publisher This resulted in the game being removed from digital stores.
Playstack continues to work on bringing Balatro back to the eShop in countries such as Germany and the UK. It was said recently expects the game to return to all stores before March 9th. Hopefully it happens soon, because this is definitely a perfect game for Nintendo’s aging handheld hybrid.
Personally, I haven’t been able to stop playing Balatro since its release. I even bought another copy of it on Xbox so I could play it more easily in my living room. It’s on my Steam Deck. And I can’t wait to buy it again when it (hopefully) comes out on iOS and Android one day. I am Balatro-pilled and I don’t care.
Balatro is now available on Xbox, PlayStation, PC and (in some countries) Switch.