Critics of Palworld had pointed out that the Pokémon-inspired, open-world survival crafting game from Pocketpair had lost “two-thirds of its players in two weeks” earlier this week, and now, just a few days later, “Bucky,” the developer’s community manager, has hit back at the reports, calling the reporting “lazy.” Bucky said that it’s okay to take a break from games from time to time.
Bucky writes:
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 reach into the millions.
It has taken years to get to this point, and Palworld only really begins from here. Everyone is working hard to fix the issues and prepare new content and Pals. Some of you may have had your fun over the last 3 weeks and found yourself putting the game down. That is fine.
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. 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.
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.
Play lots of games, try different genres, and frequently flick through indie libraries to find hidden gems.
"Sorry, sir… Yes, sir… I'll finish it right away, sir… Yes, sir…"#PalClips pic.twitter.com/mlOBFJsCce
— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) February 14, 2024
Forbes reported earlier this week:
Palworld managed to snag the #2 concurrent peak of all time on Steam at 2.1 million players. … That 2.1 million peak was about 15 days ago, and now we are seeing things closer to 750,000 instead, with its peaks down around two-thirds over that period of time. Again, that is enough to keep it at the #2 spot on Steam right now, behind only CS2, and still doing multiples of another new “hit” game like Helldivers 2 at 120-150K.
What Palworld looks like at the time of this writing:
Fans and critics are saying:
- “It doesn’t NEED to have eternal legs, it’s perfectly fine as a 50+ hour game for 30 bucks.”
- “Its kinda funny that the game can lose 70% of its peak players and still have more concurrent than most games on steam”
- “I honestly didn’t play much more than 5 minutes. as soon as i had to punch trees, I was out.”
- “There’s a finite amount of things to do before it gets stale. It’s really as simple as that.”
- “I’ve played over 200 hours. I’ll be taking a break until PVP.”