Current Events > Palworld loses two-thirds of its playerbase in 2 weeks

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/02/11/palworld-has-lost-two-thirds-of-its-players-in-two-weeks/amp/

Already 2nd to CS2 on Steam and continuing to decline. Looks like Fall Guys 2.0 to me.

The devs made a ton of money. Unimportant.

I mean I said when it blew up that this would happen. It's very much a "flavor of the week" kind of game.

Now we wait and see if the developers actually stick around and live up to their promises or move on to the next thing.

Palbros.....
We got too cocky

Nearly half a million on PC, oh whatever will they do?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9269a2ae.jpg

I mean yeah, from what I understood it's only the bones of the game that's there with very little meat. In pokemon equivalent, you have only the first "gym" available.

A lot of people bought in and jumped on it immediately without understanding what Early Access is (which honestly isn't a surprise to me), and all the content that was available has been completed already.

You can still explore, collect, and base build, but there's nothing there to work toward by doing so yet.

Vyrulisse posted...

Now we wait and see if the developers actually stick around and live up to their promises or move on to the next thing.

Their last game got 3 years of regular updates before they announced palworld if that counts for anything.

Most all of the complaints seem to be around the multiplayer. They probably released prematurely / underestimated how important a stable/secure online play was.

Never played it, but from what I've heard it doesn't really have a post-game so that makes sense.

It's an early access, open world, survival crafting game. There's dozens of other games like it on steam. The only differentiator is that it's got enslavable not!pokemon to industrialize your crafting. The game was always going to be a flash in the pan. I'm more interested to see what the game will be like when they decide it's no longer early access.

While they're in EA limbo the developer's other games still get updates so I doubt they'll abandon it

It was always going to be a big drop. The initial player base was too big from hype. Personally, I downloaded it but I havent even played it. Not a big fan of survival open world crafting bs

yer tell me the early access game with no micro transactions or live service shenanigans that doesnt even have two weeks of content for a casual player is falling off?
heavens to betty i am shook

Yes, the common thing now if days for Gamers is to rush through games as fast as possible without taking the time to appreciate them then complaining that there is nothing to do in the game before moving on to something else and repeating the process.

Dalthine posted...

I mean yeah, from what I understood it's only the bones of the game that's there with very little meat. In pokemon equivalent, you have only the first "gym" available.

There are 4 other "leaders" you can fight, but the game doesn't make it very clear they exist and you just kind of stumble on to them if you manage to take time to explore instead of managing 3 bases.

I would also say there's a lot of lacking automatization which is the whole appeal of having pals. You can have Pals cook food, but there's no system for the pal to keep cooking that food as long as ingredients are available so you need to stop at the base and keep manually starting productions.

I'm still building and collecting but yeah I feel the content is still early access. I am enjoying my purchase. Even 1/3rd of the player base is pretty damn big for a Flavor of The Month I feel.

Well yeah. It exploded in popularity, but it's still an early access game. It still has a very healthy playerbase. Just because it didn't maintain that exceptionally high concurrent players count, doesn't mean the game failed or anything.

Doom_Art posted...

I mean I said when it blew up that this would happen. It's very much a "flavor of the week" kind of game.

Disagree. The bones of the game are good. It's going to have staying power. The dropoff is because people are finishing what's currently available in the early access. Now we wait for more updates

Never saw the appeal in the first place.

AldousIsDead posted...

Never saw the appeal in the first place.

It is a fun indie venture but a very unpolished single player experience.

NoxObscuras posted...

Disagree. The bones of the game are good. It's going to have staying power.

The amount of times and the amount of games I've heard this said

wow you guys are

SALT TEEEEEEE

WingsOfGood posted...

wow you guys are

SALT TEEEEEEE

I mean great for the devs and people who are still into it, but anyone could've predicted that there would be a drop

There's probably going to be a further drop and a sizable chunk of people won't come back

Doesn't mean it's a bad game, but it's how these things tend to go with early access games

It was definitely quite overhyped, but I imagine it's gained enough traction that it'll be around for a while. The dev seems to have an issue with not actually finishing games, but seems like modding is pretty easy.

"Palworld has no cultural significance!"
This is what you sound like

Doom_Art posted...

I mean great for the devs and people who are still into it, but anyone could've predicted that there would be a drop

There's probably going to be a further drop and a sizable chunk of people won't come back

Doesn't mean it's a bad game, but it's how these things tend to go with early access games

ok?

so non-story then?

WingsOfGood posted...

ok?

so non-story then?

Correct

Everybody played it all at once, now it's being spread out more and people have calmed down. It's still being played a ton for a game that's in really access with only the most basic content implemented.

There's not even PvP battles yet.

WingsOfGood posted...

ok?

so non-story then?

relax dude, people talk about things. it's fine lol

Don't get Wings started I put him on ignore because of his rabid Palworld nonsense

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Everybody played it all at once, now it's being spread out more and people have calmed down. It's still being played a ton for a game that's in really access with only the most basic content implemented.

There's not even PvP battles yet.

this salty bros are HOPING and PRAYING that new features don't get added like that

imagine if a big update happens and people are playing palworld like crazy

these people will LOSE THEIR MINDS

99% of nearly all games get their sales at the first three months. Pocket Pal is a smaller developers. They getting huge gains in this month , its in their interest to support.

they are not going to be strike lighting twice.

Well duh. It rose to record numbers, no way it was going to keep them. Still amazing that it has managed to stay #2.

Crimsoness posted...

Don't get Wings started I put him on ignore because of his rabid Palworld nonsense

well it is nice you un-ignored me, thanks

guess we have to go back to our niche games that maybe 1000 people play at a time now.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Everybody played it all at once, now it's being spread out more and people have calmed down. It's still being played a ton for a game that's in early access with only the most basic content implemented.

There's not even PvP battles yet.

Yeah I imagine the numbers will spike up again when they add PvP. Especially if they also fix the multiplayer servers before then. Public servers resetting progress so often is dumb

Yeah it looks like its still going fairly strong.

Japanties posted...

It's an early access, open world, survival crafting game. There's dozens of other games like it on steam. The only differentiator is that it's got enslavable not!pokemon to industrialize your crafting. The game was always going to be a flash in the pan. I'm more interested to see what the game will be like when they decide it's no longer early access.

It also kind of looks like slop due to mixing and matching a ton of random assets together. It doesn't mesh together the way you should actually want a game to, which makes it look cheap and uninteresting.

It's only like a few weeks, but it looks like it's still going pretty strong. The claims of "pokemon killer" have pretty much completely shut down, which is really the biggest reason there was so much discussion about this game to begin with.

It'll be more interesting to see what happens in like, a few months. When the hype completely moves on to other things and there's reason to stop caring. Like after the hype died out on stuff like Hogwarts Legacy.

Rai_Jin posted...

guess we have to go back to our niche games that maybe 1000 people play at a time now.

time to go back to Starfield

https://www.gamingbible.com/news/platform/steam/starfield-lost-97-steam-players-in-6-months-676996-20240212

Starfield lost 97% of Steam players in 6 months

Proto_Spark posted...

It'll be more interesting to see what happens in like, a few months. When the hype completely moves on to other things and there's reason to stop caring. Like after the hype died out on stuff like Hogwarts Legacy.

I don't see it ending up any different than games like the forest, or valheim, or even ark. If the developers do like they did with the last game and provide a steady stream of updates for years than the game will just settle into a sweet spot with a moderately sized player base that occasionally gets a bunch of new players when there's a big holiday sale and good word of mouth.

What is it with the modern conception that people should be playing games indefinitely? Most actually good games aren't live service and trying to FOMO you into playing every day for years. Anyone playing Palworld from launch has probably put anywhere from 20-60 hours or more into the game by now... when exactly are they supposed to stop?

Tmaster148 posted...

There are 4 other "leaders" you can fight, but the game doesn't make it very clear they exist and you just kind of stumble on to them if you manage to take time to explore instead of managing 3 bases.

My mistake then. It must be that the first one is the only one you get directed towards.

@WingsOfGood

totally not a scam btw

Amocat posted...

?

Bringit posted...

What is it with the modern conception that people should be playing games indefinitely? Most actually good games aren't live service and trying to FOMO you into playing every day for years. Anyone playing Palworld from launch has probably put anywhere from 20-60 hours or more into the game by now... when exactly are they supposed to stop?

Probably from the fact and design of how a lot of those types of games operate around? Because survival crafting games tends to be the one genre where playability is a huge factor in how you can basically forever in the first place because of the creativity behind it.

Which is why I will always see Palworld as more of a meme game because the creativity in it is nonexistent as its developers knew what it was doing with the art design.

Its not a live service game. Of course this would happen. People finish games and move on, no surprise?

Amocat posted...

totally not a scam btw

It's 100% not a scam. It's great fun.

If you don't play the game, why do you care how well or not it does?

C_Pain posted...

If you don't play the game, why do you care how well or not it does?

because it beat AAA dev games and that pissed a bunch of fanboys off, ergo why they want it to fail

Amocat posted...

@WingsOfGood

totally not a scam btw

Why would it be a scam? It's $30 for a game that makes it clear that it's in Early Access. And they've already released 4 patches to fix a ton of bugs. So clearly they didn't just release it and then run off with the money

Crimsoness posted...

Don't get Wings started I put him on ignore because of his rabid Palworld nonsense

Wings isn't a bad guy but he's the sort who gets very obsessed with one particular subject at a time and if someone doesn't match or questions his excitement in that subject he's prone to lashing out