Mario Bautista
Balatro’s mobile launch has already earned indie developer LocalThunk and publisher Playstack over $500k, according to Appmagic estimates.
The hit poker roguelike was released on iOS and Android on September 26 as a $9.99 premium game. At the time of writing, it is top of the iOS and Android paid game charts – and ahead of perennial leader Minecraft – in many major western markets including the US, Australia, Canada, UK, France and Germany.
Appmagic estimates the game has now generated over $550k for publisher Playstack and developer LocalThunk, a figure which does not include Apple and Google’s 30% cut. Some rough calculations therefore place total gross spend on mobile platforms to date at over $710k, meaning it has been downloaded around 71k times in the five days it has been on sale.
Cut another way, Balatro mobile has been earning PlayStack and LocalThunk about $100k per day so far. And that’s not including earnings from the Apple Arcade edition.
Balatro+, the Arcade edition of the game, is number one in Apple’s ‘Top Arcade Games’ UK chart at the time of writing, ahead of Football Manager Touch and Solitaire.
Typically, Apple covers the development and/or porting cost of the games it signs to its Arcade subscription service, and then pays out monthly fees to the developer from what it calls the ‘bonus pool’. These ongoing monthly payments are based on retention and engagement, but it is unclear exactly how the tech giant calculates the fees.
Apple Arcade’s bonus pool payments have, however, been described to us previously as very generous, though some developers have noted delays to their Arcade income recently.
