Why Balatro’s developer stays anonymous

Balatro just won four Game Developers Choice Awards, including Game of the Year, but the person who made the game wasn’t on stage to accept them.

Instead, Playstack communications director Wout van Haldren spoke on behalf of Balatro’s developer, who goes by the alias LocalThunk, each time the game won an award. “The team does that to give LocalThunk the freedom to work in the style that he likes, which we respect,” Playstack marketing director Liz Cheng-Moore tells The Verge. “That’s our job,” van Haldren adds. 

It’s an arrangement that the Playstack team figured out with LocalThunk ahead of other ceremonies like The Game Awards, where Balatro won three awards and was nominated for Game of the Year. LocalThunk didn’t want to be public, but he also didn’t want to be disrespectful to fans and the industry, so now the Playstack team accepts his awards on his behalf.

Balatro was one of the biggest hits of 2024, launching after a series of popular demos to wide acclaim. Months after its initial launch, the game launched on iOS and Android, and as of January, it’s sold more than 5 million copies. 

LocalThunk was at the Game Developers Conference this week meeting …

Read the full story at The Verge.