Much like the flu that has struck down half the PC Gamer team this week, Balatro fever continues to spread. It’s been steadily rising in popularity since its Steam release earlier this year, it’s managed to nab an impressive five nominations at The Game Awards and now, in yet another incredible feat, LocalThunk’s poker roguelite has done the impossible: It’s actually knocked Minecraft from its number one spot on the goddamn mobile charts. Kids of the ‘craft are, presumably, in shambles.
That’s the case for both the iOS App Store and the Google Play charts, with Balatro taking the top spot in the paid games category and knocking Minecraft down to the second spot. It’s a huge deal, quite frankly. As far as I can tell, Mojang’s mobile port has enjoyed a near-unrivalled reign over the last several years—a 2018 Sensor Tower report showed that Minecraft had the highest number of days as the number one paid game by a long shot. It’s even had more days as the highest paid app than yer celebrity’s favourite app, Facetune.
That report was six years ago, mind, but I can hardly remember a time when it wasn’t the top paid game—the only incident I can actually recall is when we rather morbidly skyrocketed Plague Inc. to the number one spot during the pandemic.
It’s also worth noting that Balatro is one of the most expensive games on the charts right now, at least in the UK anyway—it’s £9.99 compared to Minecraft’s £6.99, though both games are $9.99 over in the US. Compare that to the cheep-er (sorry) Stardew Valley at £4.99 / $6.99 and, even lower still, Plague Inc.—which comes in at under a dollar. The only charting game that seems to be more expensive right now—at least according to my UK-based iOS chart—is Total War: Empire, which is sitting in third place with a £12.99 price tag.
LocalThunk acknowledged the chart-topping success with a simple Bluesky post that read “We are so back” along with a screenshot of the game at number one. And you know what? Yeah, we are so back. I have been taking a secret pleasure in seeing people downloading Balatro—almost seemingly out of a desire to dunk on it—only to become completely enthralled by what it has to offer. I’ve yet to meet a sane soul who hasn’t fallen at least a little bit in love with Jimbo and the gang, and I’m looking forward to seeing if its sweep continues during The Game Awards next month.
