Playstack, Publisher of Balatro, Acquired for Approximately 24 Billion Yen
Playstack, the indie game publisher behind hits like Balatro, has been acquired for about 1.124 billion British pounds (roughly 24 billion yen). The buyer is VantageCo Limited, a subsidiary of Integrated Media Company, which owns major gaming media outlets GameSpot, review aggregator Metacritic, wiki hosting service Fandom, and PC game store Fanatical. Playstack's parent company TruFin announced on May 21 that it had conditionally agreed to sell 84.5% of its Playstack shares to VantageCo. The deal is expected to close after shareholder approval. Playstack CEO and founder Harvey Elliott stated that the company's organization and operations will remain unchanged, and that it will continue to deliver high-quality indie games. Upcoming titles from Playstack include action RPG Mortal Shell II, delivery game PACS, survival sandbox RPG Lorn Vale, and fishing game About Fishing from the developers of Arctic Eggs. The company also released the puzzle game One Move Away on May 29.