Balatro creator says it's "useless" for him to give advice to other devs because "I only have one data point" and it was a 5 million-sale success story

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This industry moves too fast to follow anyone's footsteps

ben starr dressed in harlequin makeup chomping down on a banana
(Image credit: LocalThunk)

LocalThunk, developer of the phenomenally successful Balatro, has weighed in on a conversation about indie games, his unique place within the industry, and why "I really hate when people in my position don't see the absurd bias we have."

Mat Piscatella, an industry analyst at Circana posts on Bluesky that "it's impossible to selectively 'find' and fund the one next massive viral hit indie game." When a game like Balatro sells over 5 million copies, publishers obviously want to find the next one, but who would have predicted a poker roguelite would be nominated at The Game Awards?

"'Find the next Balatro' – c'mon now," Piscatella adds. "Fund a bunch of new games and hope to stumble upon the next big thing that the dumb money will chase after it's been released." I agree. I'm no CEO, but I think it makes more sense to fund lots of small games and hope one of them hits the big leagues rather than pumping all that money into one game that's just trying to capitalize on a trend.

LocalThunk himself replies: "I really hate when people in my position don't see the absurd bias we have – it's useless for me to give out advice because all I have is one data point. I spoke about this in my first blog post. I'll share what I do/did, not preach that everyone should do it too."

Issy van der Velde
Issy van der Velde
Contributor

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.

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