9 mo. ago

Palworld hits 19 million players in less than two weeks - beating the latest Pokémon

www.gamingonlinux.com Palworld hits 19 million players in less than two weeks - beating the latest Pokémon

Palworld continues being an absolutely ridiculous success for developer Pocketpair, as they've announced it's hit 19 million players in less than two weeks.

33 comments

Good!

Pokemon has refused to evolve in any meaningful way over several decades. Just sitting at the top and trying to own the entire concept of "monster friends" isn't a real strategy. At minimum I hope palworld wakes gamefreak up, but honestly I just hope it takes the bandaid off and more devs flow in to the space.
- "I hope more devs flow in to the space"
  
  You mean Cassette Beasts, Beastie Ball, FUCKING DIGIMON, TemTem etc?
  
  Yes. I've seen most of Digimon and bought Temtem over a year ago. But seeing how many Pokémon fans are in a tizy after Pal, I hope it keeps diversifing.
  
  I'm curious why you would reply this. Kinda feels like a "Oh you like X name 3 Y's". Am I misreading the tone? Idk.
  
  So why is palworld seemingly so much more successful? Niche games like these mean nothing if they don't appeal to a broad enough audience to be successful. I would have initially said the same thing about palworld but now it's the #1 game on steam of all time and in hindsight it is so easy to see why.
- i mean it made an honest attempt with Arceus, its just the step reletive to how big the IP was mismatched
- Kinda reminiscent of the fein bros trying to copyright 'react' videos on yt. Sad and lame.
I'm aware that the game is more Ark-like than Pokémon-like, but the sales comparison reminded me Masuda's rather shitty public message justifying Dexit, it sounds outright hilarious in hindsight: "the world of Pokémon keeps evolving". Now we only need Palworld devs saying "evolution is the survival of the fittest!" for extra burn.
- Gotta be honest, maybe it really is the coat of paint, but I could not at all get into ark. Palworld has me hooked tho.
  
  Pal world is a lot more casual and a lot less buggy than ark.
  
  Ark had basic structural problems. Even ark lovers strugglento get into ark
  
  The creature capturing mechanics in pal world are much more forgiving. It took minutes to "tame" a dinasour in arc and it only gets worse. In pal world it's just "throw a ball". That alone makes pal world better.
  
  I love ark, but i hate ark and wouldn't expect anyone to get into it
  
  The "coat of paint" is a bigger deal than we players often pretend that it is. It's what put us in the mood to play, so it's often the difference between "play 5min, go play something else" and "fuck, it's already morning!".
  
  Plus what other posters here said, Ark had quite a few other problems.
  
  Same here, ark was just a mess, and I couldn't get into it at all.
Still don't get this kinda stuff, it's not even vaguely competing in the same ring as Pokemon. But hey if it pisses off the brats into Pokemon then it's fine by me ┐(シ)┌
- Palworld is sick as fuck, played pokemon as a kid and got tired of it, but this is a refreshing new take with great gameplay
  
  Palworld isn't a take on Pokemon though, it's a take on ark
  
  Love how people on Lemmy kept the Reddit tradition of just downvoting a harmless opinion when they don't agree
- I mostly found Palworld fans obsess over Palworld and force it into every conversation.
I do wonder what will happen with those 19 million once the shine wears off. Getting to max level and “catching them all” isn’t really that difficult nor that terribly time consuming. If I had kept playing, I would have hit 50 by now and probably have most of the available pals. And to be fair, I may get back to it and do so, but once I’m done with that I’ll probably put the game away.

I suppose a goal one could have is to work toward being as efficient as possible with their base. But unless there’s some compelling feature after maxing out level and catching the pals, the game is effectively won. Which may be fine and be what is intended (until an expansion arrives).
- It's definitely more shallow as a singleplayer experience. In the end it's a survival game and those shine with emergent gameplay when you play with others. Looking at stuff like Rust I believe there will be a core playerbase that sticks around just for that.
  
  But even if singeplayer isn't its main focus, it's definitely a breath of fresh air to have a creature collecting game, that isn't a slow strategy combat slog for once, like Pokémon for the past 20 years.
  
  Good points!
I'm not sure what the raw numbers prove. I paid $1 for a free trial of Gamepass to play it. It's an Ark clone with Pokemon. Wasn't that impressed. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills listening to people rant and rave about it.
- More like a Craftopia clone.
  
  Which bodes poorly for the people who bought Cradtopia. I remember how mad people were at Wildcard for releasing Scorched Earth while Ark was still in Early Access. Can't imagine how upset they would have been if they had released an entirely different game.

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