Following Balatro's explosive debut, there have been almost too many deckbuilding roguelikes hoping to snatch a piece of the pie for themselves. Even Krafton (the corporate owner of Subnautica 2, PUBG, and Hi-Fi Rush) received a couple of hundred pitches from devs chasing Balatro's coattails.
Speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun at the Digital Dragons conference, Krafton executive Victor Lee says that the average "trend cycle in gaming is just getting shorter and shorter," and advised prospective devs against mindlessly following the Next Big Thing since it'll probably fall out of favor in a year or so.
"I've had maybe 250 roguelike deckbuilders [pitched] in the last 12 months," he adds. "I don't know how to choose. Would you? Like, they're all Balatros with different cards. I don't know how to choose one."
Balatro-likes aren't unique in that respect, however - just look at all the 'friendslop' co-op games that spawned off the back of Peak or the social horror games that stalked out the shadows after Lethal Company.
Lee reckons chasing a fresh Steam trend, no matter the genre, would be fine if devs could pump their games out in a month. "I might even fund it." But for most in-development games that won't be ready for another year or two, there's no guarantee any trend will still be piping hot by the time the project comes out.
"So if you're spending a very small amount of money, taking a very small amount of risk to get something out there very quickly, to see what happens - great," Lee says. "If you're betting your life on a very low risk, low barrier-to-entry genre, really think about how many people actually play that, right? Really think about how big that space is. And again, it was friendslop last year - this year, I don't know what it is right now."
He's not necessarily against working with the developers of a roguelike deckbuilder, either, but Lee's more concerned with whether devs are making a game to chase a trend or making a game out of passion since the latter will probably yield better results. "I would rather work with, you know, RPG players who have only played RPGs and they want to make their RPG and that's going to deliver in 2029," he explains, adding that even if RPGs aren't super hot by then, at least he can be confident the group of RPG fanatics will build something that speaks to other RPG fanatics.
Not sick of roguelikes just yet? Check out the best roguelikes to play right now.
