Balatro has been played for a grand total of 11,000 years, apparently, but is that plausible?

Balatro has been played for a grand total of 11,000 years, apparently, but is that plausible?

  • Balatro has been played, cumulatively, for 11,000 years
  • At least that’s what developer LocalThunk says
  • Is it a joke, or actually plausible?

As a seasoned gamer with decades of experience under my belt, I must admit that when I first heard about Balatro being played for 11,000 years cumulatively, I raised an eyebrow. It sounded like a joke, a playful exaggeration from LocalThunk. But then, I did the math, and it turns out that it’s not as far-fetched as one might think!


The indie card-battler game called Balatro has been played for approximately 11,000 years in total, according to its developer who uses the handle LocalThunk on Twitter. It could be easy to dismiss this tweet with a banana emoji as a joke, but it seems to have a bit more truth behind it than one might initially assume.

Balatro is a fresh spin on the classic solitaire format, where players aim to create poker hands to surpass specified scores or blinds. What sets it apart is the incorporation of deck-building elements, typically found in less conventional card games. This is achieved by including Jokers that amplify specific hands or provide additional effects, and distinctive poker cards capable of boosting your score or multiplier.

Let’s get right to the point and discuss the validity of LocalThunk’s somewhat humorous assertion. To be honest, I’m not a mathematician myself, but let’s make an informal estimate just for fun.

Let’s consider a year consists of approximately 8,760 hours. If we multiply this by 11,000, we end up with about 96,360,000 hours. That’s quite a large number, isn’t it? Now, let’s talk about Balatro’s downloads. The most accurate figure that can be easily verified is around 2 million. So, for the sake of this discussion, we’ll use that as our starting point.

Dividing 96,360,000 by two million results in approximately 48.18 hours. Although this might sound excessive to some, avid gamers would likely consider it insignificant. In essence, the total playtime for everyone who downloaded Balatro would amount to at least two straight days of gaming. Some players have even reported playtimes as high as 192 hours, and since mobile gaming isn’t included in these figures yet, it’s likely that the actual playtime could be even higher.

Beat that blind

Why don’t you take a look at some of our game lists while you’re here? Our list of top mobile games for 2024 (thus far) is trustworthy and accurate. Since when it comes to mobile gaming, who else does the math for you?

Additionally, if you still need more choices, feel free to explore our alternative collection featuring the best 25 free-to-play games available on both iOS and Android platforms. Enjoy playing without any costs!

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2024-10-10 15:18