Palworld devs say you should play games that aren’t Palworld

It won’t hurt their feelings

Pocketpair, the makers of Palworld, want you to know it’s okay to play other video games that aren’t Palworld. That’s good news for anyone who was wondering whether such liberties were permissible, I guess, and it’s also Pocketpair’s explanation for why the Pokemon-like game’s player count has dropped in the month following its launch on Steam, Xbox, and Game Pass.

Since it launched in January 2024, Palworld went from an all-time peak concurrent player count of over 2 million people on Steam to, at the time of writing, just over 200,000 on SteamDB.

“This emerging ‘Palworld has lost X% of its player base’ discourse is lazy, but it's probably also a good time to step in and reassure those of you capable of reading past a headline that it is fine to take breaks from games,” Bucky said in the tweet. “You don't need to feel bad about that. 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's going to be awesome, but these things take a little bit of time.”

With Palworld quickly approaching the 1-month mark, it's interesting to look back at my own thoughts for launch.

In May of 2023, I was convinced that Palworld could break the 50,000 player mark. Anything above that seemed unobtainable though, and I certainly never expected it to… pic.twitter.com/1rZaV30QON

— Bucky | Palworld 🔜 Tokyo Game Show (@Bucky_cm) February 14, 2024

I admit that I don’t quite get the logic of calling that conclusion lazy. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where people moving on to play other games doesn’t count as losing part of your player base. And that’s okay! Palworld is an early-access game with a very finite number of things to do and goals to accomplish. It’s only natural that people will move on to something else for a while, and the player count will drop.

With the splash that Palworld and its initial limited adventure made, those numbers will probably skyrocket again once a new continent or expansion of some kind turns up. Bucky said Pocketpair is working on much more for Palworld, but it’ll take “a little bit of time.”

“If you are still playing Palworld, we love you,” Bucky said. “If you're no longer playing Palworld, we still love you, and we hope you'll come back for round 2 when you're ready. Play lots of games, try different genres, and frequently flick through indie libraries to find hidden gems.”

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