Developer Palworld has commented on the controversy surrounding the decline in the number of people playing the game since its launch, calling the rhetoric “lazy.”
took to Twitter/XPocketpair Community Manager Bucky, who has become the voice of the Palworld development team in the West, reflects on the game's first month since going on sale in early access across PC and Xbox Series
Bucky said: “In May 2023, I was convinced that Palworld could break the 50,000 player barrier. “However, anything above that seems unattainable, and I certainly never expected it to reach millions.
“It's taken years to get to this point, and Palworld is only starting from here. Everyone is working hard to fix issues and make new content and friends. Some of you may have had fun over the past three weeks and found yourself putting the game down. That's okay.”
Palworld's incredible launch saw 12 million sales on Steam alone and a peak number of concurrent players of 2,101,867, the second highest number ever on Valve's platform. On Xbox, Palworld is the largest third-party launch on Game Pass ever with over seven million players and a peak daily player count of just three million. While the number of concurrent players on Steam has been steadily declining since its peak, it's worth noting that Palworld is currently the third most played game on Steam after Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2. It's still very popular.
However, this hasn't stopped some from declaring the Palworld party over, and that's a sentiment Pocketpair seems keen to counter.
“This emerging rhetoric of 'Palworld has lost .
“You don't have to feel bad about it. Palworld, like many games before it, isn't in a position to pump out massive amounts of new content on a weekly basis. New content will come, and it'll be great, but these things take time.”
“There are so many great games to play; you don't have to feel guilty about jumping from one game to another.
“If you're still playing Palworld, we love you. If you're no longer playing Palworld, we still love you, and we hope you'll come back for round two when you're ready.”
“Play a lot of games, try different genres, and frequently browse independent bookstores to find hidden gems.”
Last month, Pocketpair said that Palworld would get PvP, raid bosses, and new islands in future updates, but it targeted critical issues first. Crossplay between Steam and Xbox is also in the works (this should increase the number of players co-op on Xbox at the same time), as well as improvements to the building system.
Palworld's success apparently caught Pocketpair — and the video game industry — so surprised that the developer launched a hiring drive, saying It is “severely understaffed.”
While Palworld is one of the biggest games ever released, it's also one of the most controversial. The pocket said Its employees have received death threats amid allegations of “theft” at PokémonWhich she denied. Shortly after launch, Nintendo moved quickly To remove eye-catching Pokémon modificationthen The Pokemon Company issued a statement“We intend to investigate and take appropriate action to address any actions that infringe intellectual property rights related to Pokémon,” he said. IGN asked lawyers whether Nintendo could successfully file a lawsuit.
If you play, be sure to check back IGN's interactive Palworld map.
Wesley is IGN's UK news editor. You can find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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