It's easy to think of Balatro, the ludicrously popular deck-builder that recently topped 5 million sales and carved through awards season like a hot knife through butter, as your classic overnight success story. A shining beacon of indie ingenuity that proves the only thing you need to achieve global stardom as a lone developer is a singular vision and the willpower to execute.That would be a colossal misconception.During a recent chat with Balatro publisher Playstack, communications director Wout van Halderen explains that when the company first tweeted about signing the project two years ago the post received a mere smattering of likes. In short: nobody cared.He says the company still jokes internally about the narrative that Balatro essentially materialized out of thin air when the publisher spent months carefully constructing a "Wheel of Attention" to give the project the best chance of success. What appears like a sudden ascent to fame and fortune was actually the result of a painstakingly intentional marketing campaign that acknowledged the title's weaknesses and played to its strengths.How do you sell a game that shines brightest in the hands of players?PlayStack marketing director Liz Cheng-Moore recalls how finagling a marketing strategy for Balatro was "tricky" because, although the title seems to click with players when they're able to go hands-on, the UI-heavy visuals and delicious joker-jostling gameplay doesn't lend itself to conventional trailers.Related:Van Halderen explains Playstack initially tried cutting together a trailer focused on gameplay but found it lacking. When that didn't work, a voiceover was added that still didn't quite hit the mark. Next they dialed in on the jokers themselves. Even then, there was something amiss and visuals alone couldn't showcase the buzz of piecing together that perfect run.Playstack realized it had to fail fast and pivot. "I think the next best thing to playing Balatro is watching someone else playing Balatro and seeing the genuine reactions that they're having to the gameplay," says van Halderen. "You see the enthusiasm."The publisher placed streamers in its sights, but rather than blindly pitching to the biggest names in the biz, chose to start small and expand methodically.Van Halderen explains Playstack was "super specific" in its initial approach. He saw overlap with other popular deck-building and "highly-mechanical" titles like Slay The Spire, Super Auto Pets, and The Binding of Isaac. The next question, then, was who are the top streamers playing those specific games?Related:After compiling a finely-tuned outreach list, it was time to start pitching with the knowledge that, at the very least, Balatro would likely pique their interest—and crucially, the interest of their viewers."I would have loved it if Markiplier played our game—but I had no evidence that would be the case. He eventually did around a year later, which was amazing, but if you put all of your eggs into that one basket you're not going to get a lot of results," says van Halderen."But if you pitch to 300 smaller streamers you'll get the same kind of numbers and a lot more word of mouth. You get all those communities who are now saying 'oh, my favorite streamer played so I'm going to download it and now I want to chat with out players'—so we're building community at the same time."He explains that burgeoning community will likely be vocal on social media and other platforms like Discord or Youtube—and may even encourage other steamers they follow to play the game. It creates a seemingly organic groundswell of positivity that is actually the result of a laser-targeted marketing campaign.Never underestimate the power of a vocal communityVan Halderen says cultivating that digital word-of-mouth was a "hugely powerful tool," because it enabled the publisher to start pitching media on the project from a position of strength.Related:"Once community members are talking about it, I can go to media outlets and say 'check out this game, look at the traction it's getting. I can show you that people are clicking on articles.' I'm very aware that media is not out there to sell my game. I get my coverage, you get your clicks. So we're both happy," continues van Halderen, who notes that data generation is also vital when courting the press."If people are hungry for more information [...] we can answer questions like 'how long are people playing? How many people are playing?' We would see that thousands of people were spending six to eight hours just on the demo, which is huge. So if I go to press and say 'hey, we got 100,000 downloads on the demo and look how much they played,' then the SEO gears start turning and they will start to think 'maybe there's something here. Maybe we'll do a guide and a few thousand people will click on that.'"It's at this stage the "Wheel of Attention" comes into focus. The media feeds into the influencers. The influencers feed the community. The community stokes more conversation. The marketing cycle begins to reach fever pitch.Both van Halderen and Cheng-Moore say Playstack initially expected Balatro to reach a six figure sales milestone—and that wasn't a modest estimate. They were both convinced early on that Localthunk's passion project had the juice.Now, with over five million players and counting, it's fair to say those original estimates were wide of the mark. Their marketing plan, meanwhile, was bang on the money.