Developed by a single person, Balatro is a unique poker-themed rogue-like deckbuilder which hooked many players upon its initial release back in February of this year. Since then, the game has only grown in popularity – with its Game of the Year nomination seemingly helping to push Balatro past 5 million total copies sold.

Following the announcement of its Game of the Year nomination during the 2024 Game Awards, Balatro saw a major spike in players – reaching new heights on mobile app stores while also continuing to sell more units across the board.

Just one month on from the announcement that the game had sold 3.5 million copies, the Balatro team have revealed that the title has already hit another major milestone of 5 million units, saying:

“The last few weeks have been pretty wild. To everyone who picked up Balatro after seeing it at @thegameawards, we hope you're having an amazing time with it! If this is your first time picking up an indie title, try to make it a habit! There's some amazing stuff out there!”

As noted by the developers themselves, much of the recent uptick in sales seems to be as a result of its aforementioned GOTY nomination – and so it will be interesting to see how the game continues to perform from this point onwards.

Regardless, Balatro is an excellent game and so it will likely have reached this milestone figure with or without the added attention from The Game Awards – but the accolades certainly do help.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Balatro? When did you pick up the game? Has the game peaked, or is 5 million copies sold just the beginning? Let us know your thoughts down below.