Palworld Is Just A Reminder That The Most Popular Games Aren't Always The Best

Summary

Palworld, an indie game by Pocketpair, has achieved unexpected success, selling 4 million copies across PC and Xbox and becoming one of the most-played games on Steam.
Despite its success, Palworld has faced controversies, including accusations of plagiarism and reports of bugs and technical issues, especially on Xbox.
Critics and audiences often have different opinions on what makes a good game, and Palworld is likely to be a divisive title that sparks discussions and debates within the gaming industry.

Palworld released in early access late last week, and since then has sold a completely unexpect🦂ed 4 💮million copies across PC and Xbox, despite also having released for free on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Game Pass. It is already one of the most-played games of all time on Steam, being one of the six games 🌱on the platform ꦺto ever have more than a million concurrent players, with an all-time peak of 1,291,967 players. That puts it right behind PUBG: Battlegrounds, Counter-Strike 2, Lost Ark, and Dota 2.

It’s a shocking success from indie studio Pocketpair, though perhaps not entirely unpredictable – the game’s reveal drew a lot of attention on social media, garnered itself the unofficial tagline ‘Pokemon with guns’, and even had people speculating that the game was fake. There was plenty of press and audience attention on the🅰 game, and that combined with word of mouth throughout its release weekend propelled it to instant success.

But the game still has its controversies, despite that runaway success. It has been dogged by accusations of plagiarism, with players claiming that the designs of its Pals are too close to those of Pokemon to be coincidental. Even worse, some are accusing Pocketpair of using AI to design its Pals, and though these claims are largely unsubstantiated, 🦄Pocketpair has used generative artificial intelligence in previous games. Also, as is common with many contemporary early access games, players have reported that Palworld is very buggy to the point of being broken, especially on Xbox.

Pocketpair has been very public, even earnest, about its use of AI in i🧸ts previous games – if Palworld was made with the use of generative AI, it would be out of character for Pocketpair to hide it.

The controversy is reminding me of last year’s discourse about Hogwarts Legacy. The Harry Potter spin-off sold 22 million copies in 2023, generating over a billion dollars in revenue. Players loved it, leading to huge sales, while critics were mixed about it. While some publications gave the game glowing reviews, others highlighted that it was unoriginal, lacked innovation, and had technical issues. Of course, there was also plenty of debate over the fact that JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books and owner of the IP, has made transphobic comments and buying the game was tant💙amount to putting money in her pocket, which many people were uncomfortable with. In the end, while✨ Hogwarts Legacy made a ton of money, it got almost no awards. Not to mention that gamers quickly fell out of love with it and moved onto the next big thing.

Both games are controversial, for different reasons. Both lean on IP – Hogwarts Legacy on the licensed Harry Potter universe, and Palworld on the Pokemon IP it’s continually compared to. Both released at least a little bit broken. And I can’t help but see more commonalities with other video games that flew off the shelves – of the best-selling games of the last ten years by sales, 20 out of 27 were based on existing IP. Most used the hype cycle of being part of a franchise to push themselves into prominence. Even comparing the list of Game of the Year winners to lists of the best-selling games of that year will show that in the last decade, the game that critics have agreed is the best has never been the best-selling one. Often, the agreed GOTY isn&rsquꦆo;t even in the top ten of best-selling games.

It’s no revelation that critics and audiences rarely agree on what makes a good game, and Palworld is likely to be one of those games that divides the gaming industry♒. Right now, like many popular games, Palworld has a rabid fanbase, is busting the usual benchmarks of commercial success, and is inspiring a lot of discussion on social media. But lest we forget, this is an early access game that’s only been out for a couple of days. It’s objectively broken on at least one of its two platforms, and it’s not likely to be the Game of the Year by any stretch. At this point, maybe it’s enough of ✅an accolade that it’s going to make a lot of money.