Palworld proved to be an incredible success story in 2024, launching to massive sales numbers and record-setting Steam player counts, but the combination of extreme popularity and obvious visual similarities made it an easy target for criticism and straight-up harassment. According to Pocketpair community manager John "Bucky" Buckley, that contributed to the studio's radio silence in the early months after Palworld's launch.
"There were a lot of very upsetting moments in those first couple of months, not just the accusation stuff, but the death threats and stuff like this," Buckley told us during an interview at the Game Developers Conference earlier this month. "I can't remember exactly how many times now, but two or three times, we really tried to push back on the AI stuff specifically. And it was just fueling this fire."
Palworld was regularly accused of using generative AI in its creature designs, but the studio has constantly pushed back on the idea. "We wrote up this huge statement about it," Buckley recalled, "and we edited it several times and refined it and changed it, and we were just like, 'do we post this?' And then everyone's just like, 'what's the point?' I mean, again, it's just this fire, and there's a core amount of people now that'll just always believe it no matter what because it serves their interest, basically. And then we all just kind of looked at each other and we're like, 'should we just stop doing all of this? Can we just kind of take a bit of a break from it?'"
This was around the time of a major update including "Xbox server stuff," Buckley said. "So the team was busy, and the team was getting burnt out from all the social media stuff, and I was getting burnt out, and our CEO was under attack in Japan like every day. Japanese media was on every tweet he's ever made. So we just all kind of – fed up is the wrong word, but we were just all so tired of it. So for a couple months, we went quiet, and that was when the real 'Palworld is dead' stuff came. Our radio silence combined with the natural player decline of those numbers really fueled this 'Palworld is dead' stuff."
Of course, Palworld was never dead, and it's maintained healthy Steam player counts ever since launch – counts that spike dramatically every time there's a new update – and Buckley has always been outspoken about the idea of "dead" games. Whatever your feelings on Palworld, it's clear that the game is here to stay.
