Balatro won’t win TGA’s Game of the Year award – but it should

The Game Awards has nominated Balatro for its biggest award – Game of the Year. I don’t think it will bring home the coveted trophy, but there are plenty of reasons why it should.

Balatro’s one-person developer LocalThunk first released his passion project on February 20, 2024. He was hoping to put the release on a resume so he could potentially get a full-time job in game development.

The game was launched to universal acclaim, according to Metacritic, where it sits with a meta score of 90 and a user score of 8.3. This popularity holds on OpenCritic as well, where 100% of critics say they recommend the game.

This popularity led to massive sales for the developer and his publisher, Playstack, as Balatro made $1,000,000 in revenue in just the first eight hours and went on to sell 2 million copies by August 2024.

Balatro’s mobile launch in September kept the momentum going for the popular roguelike deck builder, and took many (including myself) away from the launch of other AAA games like Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. It’s insane just how addictive this little roguelike is.

On Monday, November 18, The Game Awards nominated Balatro in five different categories, including the coveted ‘Game of the Year’ award. It is going up against Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Black Myth: Wukong, and others.

Balatro will always be Game of the Year in my heart

Despite Balatro being popular enough to receive a nomination in The Game Award’s biggest category, I don’t think it’s going to be able to bring home the trophy in December for two major reasons.

The first is simply because Elden Ring’s on the list. FromSoftware fans spent the better part of two years anxiously awaiting the release of Shadow of the Erdtree, and iconic souls-like developers continued their streak of high quality as it became the highest-rated DLC of all time on Metacritic with a score of 95.

Erdtree made more than $5 million in revenue over the first week of being released, proving it is one of – if not the – biggest releases in 2024. Plus, FromSoft has a reputation for sweeping The Game Awards considering how esteemed their studio is after so many high-quality releases.

Balatro/Playstack

Balatro’s gameplay consists of making poker hands to beat a set score.

The second major reason Balatro likely won’t win the big GOTY award is that it’s not a AAA title. The Game Awards has nominated several extremely popular indies in the past with Celeste in 2018, Hades in 2020, and Stray in 2022 – but not one has yet to bring home the coveted award. This is largely because AAA titles are more popular with the general public.

Despite Erdtree being the more popular nominee for Game of the Year and realistically the potential winner, I think Balatro should be the title to break the streak of Indies not bringing home the award.

It’s by far the most non-AAA game released in 2024 and has fans wrapped around its finger with its unique gameplay and collaboration with legendary franchises like The Witcher 3, Among Us, and Cyberpunk 2077.

Balatro/Playstack

Jokers are used to change how the game is played.

Additionally, it has achieved all of its success throughout 2024 with just one person developing the game, similar to ConcernedApe’s Stardew Valley in 2016 and Zeekerss’ Lethal Company in 2023.

Even if I am right about Balatro losing the big GOTY award to Shadow of the Erdtree, the game will undoubtedly bring home the Indie Game of the Year award, and may even sweep the rest of the categories it’s been nominated in.

Regardless of the outcome of The Game Awards, LocalThunk and Playstack should be proud of what they’ve accomplished together throughout 2024, and I am excited to see what they have in store for the future.