Balatro Has Already Made $4.4 Million On Mobile

Hard to believe that this time last year, none of us had even heard of Balatro. The roguelike card game has had so many of us in its clutches throughout 2024, adding to its fanbase in September when it was released on mobile. The decision to put Balatro on mobile has been a hugely successful one so far too with the game generating $4.4 million during its first two months on the platform.

That’s according to a new report from PocketGamer.biz (thanks, Eurogamer). Using numbers provided by AppMagic, it confirmed that in just two months, Balatro has made $4.4 million on mobile alone. That means more than 440,000 people have downloaded the game. Probably quite a few more than that actually since Balatro is also available via Apple Arcade.

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Solo developer LocalThunk has already confirmed Balatro will never have monetization and paid gacha mechanics, nor will there ever be in-game ads. That means once you’ve paid for the game, regardless of platform, it won’t demand or even ask for any more money from you. Great for players, but that does mean once that initial revenue hit during Balatro’s first two weeks on mobile, the money generated since has been on a gradual decline.

Balatro Has Already Made Millions On Mobile

Pretty Good Going For A Game With No Ads Or Microtransactions

That was until Balatro got nominated for 2024’s Game of the Year. The game made more than $500,000 during its first week, and then almost double that during week two which remains its best week to date. Its revenue has been dropping with each passing week since then, down to roughly $250,000 in the week before its GOTY nomination. However, the interest in the game shot back up once the nominees were announced with Balatro enjoying its second-best week on mobile to date last week.

Bringing in $727,000 during its GOTY nomination week, the seven-day stretch wound up being significantly better than its mobile launch week. While there will almost certainly be a drop, it seems likely this week will be a big one too. Balatro was hit with quite a bit of unfair critique after it was nominated for Game of the Year, however, many of those criticizing the game have since played it only to come back and admit it’s every bit as good as everyone claimed and that it really does deserve to be in the running for Game of the Year.

Balatro isn’t the only mobile game that’s been pulling in people from all over the gaming industry and beyond lately. Pokemon TCG Pocket has made quite the splash during its first month with its players averaging a total of $6.5 million per day spent on Poke Gold and Booster Packs.

Balatro takes the classic card game of poker and adds roguelike gameplay, using Joker cards with various abilities to build your deck and attempt to defeat pesky blinds.

Released

February 20, 2024

Developer(s)

LocalThunk

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty