It's not easy being a non-Balatro player amidst a horde of committed fans. People say things like, "A joker duplicating the joker that gives you x4 for playing the same hand, and one that did x4 for four of a kind," or, "If you wanna scale that kind of build you basically then need red seals on all your face cards so it all repeats again," and all you can do is sit there quietly wondering what the hell is going on. It's a lonely feeling sometimes.
For the record, yes, I am talking about myself versus the rest of the PC Gamer team, which is deeply enamored with Balatro, the poker-themed roguelike deckbuilder that encourages cheating at a level that would get your fingers broken at any respectable casino. And they are not alone: Publisher PlayStack announced yesterday that more than 500,000 copies of the game have been sold across all platforms in just 10 days.
