The indie card hit Balatro has set a new personal record for concurrent players on Steam. On the night of December 27, its peak online player count on the platform reached 38,506 people.
A scene from the advertisement for Balatro
Prior to this, the record was a peak of 37,977 players on March 10, 2024, just three weeks after Balatro's release.
Balatro's online dynamics on Steam
According to the game’s creator LocalThunk, several factors contributed to Balatro setting a new record. These include:
- The Game Awards 2024 — after being nominated in several categories in November, including "Game of the Year," its Steam online player count surged. Although it didn't win Game of the Year, Balatro still won three awards: Best Indie Game, Best Indie Debut, and Best Mobile Game. Since December 13 — the day of the award ceremony — Balatro's online numbers on Steam have been steadily increasing each day;
- A video by Markiplier — at the beginning of the week, well-known YouTuber Mark Fischbach, better known as Markiplier, released an almost hour-long video of him playing Balatro. At the time of writing, the video has garnered over 2.5 million views on YouTube;
- Discounts — Balatro has been sold on Steam at 10% off the regular price over the past three weeks;
- Christmas — Steam users have been actively purchasing Balatro for the holidays.
Let us recall that Balatro's release for consoles and PC took place on February 20, 2024, and six months later, the game was also released on mobile devices. In mid-December, it was announced that sales of the poker "roguelike" reached 3.5 million copies.