Palworld

[quikah]

Palworld seems to be the new hotness. Doing crazy numbers on steam. I played a couple of hours (on gamepass). It is a mix of Pokemon and Ark. Pretty odd, wonder how long before Nintendo sues them (they even have Palspheres to catch the Pals). Some of the "Pals" seem rather similar to certain pokemon...

The gameplay/UI is a bit janky at times, but generally decent. There is a multiplayer option that I haven't tried. It is in early access though I haven't found it to be particularly buggy, just lacking in polish a bit. If you are a survival fan give it a try.

 

[Artorias]

Oh you bet Nintendo is going to sue. Two seconds looking at the Steam page and I can see it's literally a Pokémon reskin.

 

[AdamK47]

I don't get it. What's the strong appeal here?

 

[KMFJD]

I have friends playing it and they like it, but they don't think it has lasting appeal at the moment

 

[Newbian]

Oh you bet Nintendo is going to sue. Two seconds looking at the Steam page and I can see it's literally a Pokémon reskin.

On what grounds?

They were not the first animal capture style game and they themselves stole a ton of artwork from another game called dragon quest for the first game and continued to do so for later games.

There have been a lot of games that were even closer to their pokemon games like temtem was and Nintendo didn't care.

 

[rstrohkirch]

I don't get it. What's the strong appeal here?

Do you like ARK?

 

[SteveGrabowski]

So a Chinpokomon clone?

 

[yottabit]

Tried it today for just a bit solo and seems like a game I will like. Played on the couch with a controller

There’s a hilarity to it (grilling and eating pokemon for food to stay alive)

There seems to be some novel improvements to the survival genre like sending your pals to gather resources or guard your base, minimizing some of the grindy tasks. Fast travel right off the bat and the tech tree seems to unlock very fast

The combat and overall gameplay seem “good enough” you can tell a lot of the building system seems lifted from Fortnite

There’s some overally jankyness that in my opinion adds to the hilarity with a “so bad it’s good” quality. I’m excited to try co-op with some friends. I’m not huge into survival games in general but I have played a lot of Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, pocket monster games when I was younger, and FPS/battle royale. So it ticks some boxes

I am really curious how a game that feels like a Beta state gets to be on gamepass (which is where I’m playing, don’t know that I’d recommend spending any real money yet but I’ll update later after trying some multiplayer. It’s unclear to me if the world is even randomized either?

 

[rstrohkirch]

I also bought it and played it for a bit last night. It's literally Pokemon ARK. Anyone who likes this, should also try ARK. They copied a LOT from that game, but as mentioned, being able to assign your dinos...err Pokemon...to do complete tasks is really nice QoL.

It’s unclear to me if the world is even randomized either?

They generally aren't. They make up for it by making the world rather large and eventually having more than one. If they follow the ARK model, they will charge you for each new world. Which generally includes new mobs, biomes, and bosses.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Bought it, played about 95 minutes, refunded it.

 

[yottabit]

Just broke 2M concurrent players on Steam. Crazy

https://steamdb.info/app/1623730/charts/

 

[balloonshark]

I didn't finish watching this video but I thought I would share since I hadn't heard about the game.

 

[AdamK47]

Queue the flood of rushed YouTube content to capitalize on the sudden popularity of this game.

 

[DeathReborn]

In view of the "it's pokemon with guns" & other crap being thrown around, including in the video above (too bad didn't finish) this should enlighten some about the legality question.

 

[Oyeve]

I'm digging this game, and I'm 57.

 

[SmaugBoggs]

In view of the "it's pokemon with guns" & other crap being thrown around, including in the video above (too bad didn't finish) this should enlighten some about the legality question.

I've heard it described this way several times. Interesting video for sure and I'll be curious to see how long this game remains popular.

 

[SMOGZINN]

So this dev made another game called 'Craftopia' that has been around in early access for around 3-4 years now. I'm a fan of it, it is a good game, but very unfinished. Palworld is basically Craftopia 1.5. It looks very similar and has a lot of the same mechanics, the real difference is that Palworld leans much more heavily into the monster capturing and taming, while it is more or less a minor part of Craftopia.

The thing to understand is that Craftopia has barely advanced in those 4 years. As of the last time I was on their discord there is no one on their dev team that speaks English and they are using AI to translate the text, and asking their fans to help correct the weird AI translations. I'm sure that with the money that Palworld is bringing in will allow them to hire some more people and maybe Palworld will advance a bit faster, but one thing to remember is that it will take a while for them to ramp up, and when the money stops rolling in they are likely to move on to the next game instead of finishing this one.

That is the real problem with Early Access, the devs make the vast majority of the money in advance and have no legal requirement to finish the game you paid for. So when it stops being popular it is better to abandon it and try to make something new that will capture the worlds attention for a month or so.

 

[rstrohkirch]

That is the real problem with Early Access, the devs make the vast majority of the money in advance and have no legal requirement to finish the game you paid for. So when it stops being popular it is better to abandon it and try to make something new that will capture the worlds attention for a month or so.

I'm not sure how other people view this topic, but I simply look at the content vs what I paid, at that time. It's just like Valheim. People complain all the time that the devs are glacial with their updates and that they should be doing much more. But they paid $20 for the game and have over hundred hours in it. I paid $25 for Pal and if I get 20-25 hours of enjoyment out of it, then great. They don't ever need to update the game again.

 

[yottabit]

So this dev made another game called 'Craftopia' that has been around in early access for around 3-4 years now. I'm a fan of it, it is a good game, but very unfinished. Palworld is basically Craftopia 1.5. It looks very similar and has a lot of the same mechanics, the real difference is that Palworld leans much more heavily into the monster capturing and taming, while it is more or less a minor part of Craftopia.

The thing to understand is that Craftopia has barely advanced in those 4 years. As of the last time I was on their discord there is no one on their dev team that speaks English and they are using AI to translate the text, and asking their fans to help correct the weird AI translations. I'm sure that with the money that Palworld is bringing in will allow them to hire some more people and maybe Palworld will advance a bit faster, but one thing to remember is that it will take a while for them to ramp up, and when the money stops rolling in they are likely to move on to the next game instead of finishing this one.

That is the real problem with Early Access, the devs make the vast majority of the money in advance and have no legal requirement to finish the game you paid for. So when it stops being popular it is better to abandon it and try to make something new that will capture the worlds attention for a month or so.

I mean, I don't know how much money they made on Craftopia but they made over a quarter billion dollars in Steam sales so far with Palworld, so I would say they made the right decision lol

 

[SMOGZINN]

I mean, I don't know how much money they made on Craftopia but they made over a quarter billion dollars in Steam sales so far with Palworld, so I would say they made the right decision lol

Sure, as the developers they made the right decision, assuming that their goal was to make a bundle of money (and who's isn't?). But is this really what we as consumers want out of video games? Half finished messes?
If we keep rewarding this behavior soon there will be nothing but games that are little more than a few hours of YouTube bait. The devs make a few million, change their name, and barf out another game in the hopes they win the lottery.
If that is where we are at, I have no idea why they would even put another second into doing anything but marketing this game. It has at this point probably made 90% of all sells it ever will make. Better to abandon it and work on the next idea.

 

[yottabit]

Sure, as the developers they made the right decision, assuming that their goal was to make a bundle of money (and who's isn't?). But is this really what we as consumers want out of video games? Half finished messes?
If we keep rewarding this behavior soon there will be nothing but games that are little more than a few hours of YouTube bait. The devs make a few million, change their name, and barf out another game in the hopes they win the lottery.
If that is where we are at, I have no idea why they would even put another second into doing anything but marketing this game. It has at this point probably made 90% of all sells it ever will make. Better to abandon it and work on the next idea.

Just don’t buy Early Access then. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe they will use the influx of cash to finish Craftopia but like others have said you shouldn’t pay for a game with expectation of anything more than the functionality it has at time of purchase

The only Early Access game I’ve bought in the past few years is Hades and that was because I had a lot of faith in the studio Supergiant

I might buy Palworld since I’m having as much fun as I am in the Gamepass version, but I wouldn’t be particular upset if they never expanded it significantly (which I’m sure they will)

 

[Newbian]

I mean, I don't know how much money they made on Craftopia but they made over a quarter billion dollars in Steam sales so far with Palworld, so I would say they made the right decision lol

Remember different countries pay different amounts for the game and most are less then the $30 base USD price as you can see here:

https://steamdb.info/app/1623730/

And then steam also takes 20%-30% depending how much the game sells and since the game engine is unreal they also take 5% of it's gross sales after the game makes one million.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Yeah, early access is a 100% no go for me.

Hell, one year after launch is still a no go for me...

Give me a finished, stable, complete edition for $10. I can wait.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Just don’t buy Early Access then. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe they will use the influx of cash to finish Craftopia but like others have said you shouldn’t pay for a game with expectation of anything more than the functionality it has at time of purchase

The only Early Access game I’ve bought in the past few years is Hades and that was because I had a lot of faith in the studio Supergiant

I might buy Palworld since I’m having as much fun as I am in the Gamepass version, but I wouldn’t be particular upset if they never expanded it significantly (which I’m sure they will)

Mostly I don't. I have a bunch of them wishlisted as I wait for them to come out of early access, but even then I have found that you have to be carful that they are are not abandoned and was moved out of EA to scam a few more dollars out of people that don't read the reviews first.

All I am saying is that we are rewarding companies for making incomplete games, while there is very little reward for finishing them.