Why Balatro’s developer stays anonymous

is a news editor covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. 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 Halderen 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 Halderen 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. ... Read full article.