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Balatro<\/em> just won four Game Developers Choice Awards, including Game of the Year, but the person who made the game wasn\u2019t on stage to accept them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Instead, Playstack communications director Wout van Haldren spoke on behalf of Balatro\u2019s<\/em> developer, who goes by the alias LocalThunk, each time the game won an award. \u201cThe team does that to give LocalThunk the freedom to work in the style that he likes, which we respect,\u201d Playstack marketing director Liz Cheng-Moore tells The Verge<\/em>. \u201cThat\u2019s our job,\u201d van Haldren adds. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s an arrangement that the Playstack team figured out with LocalThunk ahead of other ceremonies like The Game Awards, where Balatro<\/em> won three awards and was nominated for Game of the Year. LocalThunk didn\u2019t want to be public, but he also didn\u2019t want to be disrespectful to fans and the industry, so now the Playstack team accepts his awards on his behalf.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n LocalThunk was at the Game Developers Conference this week meeting with other developers, but van Haldren and Cheng-Moore think he\u2019ll generally remain anonymous to the public. It\u2019s not that he wants to be the next Banksy,<\/a> Cheng-Moore says. He just prefers not to be in the spotlight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n His mysteriousness extends to how he communicates with the team and makes games. For example, Cheng-Moore tells me that his recent blog<\/a> was something that he talked about one day and launched the next. \u201cIt\u2019s fully done by him,\u201d Cheng-Moore says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n