You may have seen a well-crafted message from Bucky, the Community Manager at Pocketpal, on X recently, detailing his thoughts on the declining player count for Palworld. Well, it’s a wholesome response and what we need right now.
In it, Bucky called out gaming media while reassuring fans that the creature collector will continue to grow:
“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.”
While I’ve read a few of these articles and most simply note that the game has dropped off from its record-shattering concurrent players rather than outright declaring Palworld dead – that leap of logic took place mostly on X – I have to agree with Bucky here. It feels like, two months into 2024, we’ve been inundated with live service games that expect us to play forever, and both media (including myself) and publishers pushing massive budgets are obsessed with game longevity.
Take, for instance, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. One of the reigning criticisms for that title is the fact that it’s a huge departure from developer Rocksteady’s Arkham series of single-player games, which do not, in fact, have much longevity once you complete the story. Many fans of the series have panned the game, especially because there are threads of an interesting story that could’ve made for a great solo experience. They have a long future planned for the live service game, with 12 Brainiacs for the villainous foursome to take on in the coming years – or for as long as they keep the servers up.
I myself have spent the last week playing Ubisoft’s Skull & Bones, and while I’ll save my thoughts for my review, it follows a similar trend: there’s a great single-player pirate game mutilated and buried beneath the publisher’s desire to retain players and keep them playing eternally; in fact, Ubisoft has an ambitious four-year plan for the pirate adventure.
Related: Palworld Is a Lot of Things – But a Satire Is Not One of Them
It’s refreshing that the truly biggest game of this year so far – at least until Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches next week – has been Palworld. Despite being hit with both praise and criticism in equal measure, it broke records and captivated gaming discourse. And it’s even more refreshing that Bucky continued in his X post, stating this:
“There are so many amazing games out there to play; you don’t need to feel guilty about hopping from game to game.
If you are 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 2 when you’re ready.”
We need more of this sentiment – developers being okay with their players going elsewhere – in the gaming industry, no matter what you think of Palworld. In fact, with the staggering amount of layoffs in this post-COVID bust we’re in, I think it’s incredibly important that collectively, as media, fans, and developers, we shift our attention away from the player counts and how long a game remains at the top of charts, and instead celebrate the successes more.
I’m under no delusion that my little plea and support of Bucky’s comments will shift the gaming industry’s needle away from blockbuster games with swelling budgets that, in the end, lead to layoffs and dissatisfied gamers. Bucky, however, concludes his post with an idea we can all get behind that may have more of an impact than you’d think:
“Play lots of games, try different genres, and frequently flick through indie libraries to find hidden gems.”
Palworld Early Access is available now.
