Ten months ago, most gamers had never heard of Japanese developer Pocketpair or its debut title. pal world. However, that quickly changed after the game’s early access release in January, with tens of millions of people diving into the studio’s creature-collecting game over the month or so following its release.
Today, neither Pocketpair nor pal world needs any kind of introduction, as evidenced by the crowds of people gathered around its booth at the Tokyo Game Show. It was there that Game Rant met with Pocketpair’s global community manager, John “Bucky” Buckley, to discuss the company’s rapid expansion. pal worldChina’s success and the future of the game.
The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The first few months were a real whirlwind.
Q: It’s been a pretty wild eight months for you guys, right? Please can you tell us about that trip?
Bucky: How much time do we have? It’s been a real whirlwind. Things were very calm and relaxed for us last year and then pal world launched. January, February, March… it’s hard to even remember what really happened. We had a huge influx of players, messages, comments and bug reports. The media wanted to talk to us. It got a little quiet over the summer and then we released our next update and were at it again. But we are trying to deal with it the best we can.
Q: As someone who was there from the beginning, can you tell us what it was like to suddenly have your company double in size?
Bucky: The office has become hotter, there are many more computers and the air conditioning is not very good. What’s surprising, however, is that the company culture hasn’t changed much. Obviously, things have gotten a little tighter. We have to be more careful with things. But, generally speaking, we have found incredible people. Our office is really packed right now. We hope to move to a bigger place next year, but I think we’ve been very lucky. We have been very fortunate to find such amazing people.
Q: When the game first came out, a lot of people described it as “Pokémon with weapons.” Is that how you saw it?
Bucky: Not precisely. It was never really our intention to make that kind of game. The idea was always to create a monster collecting game with elements of automation and survival. We see it as something closer to something like Ark, Satisfyingeither Conan exiles with a little more creature part involved. Know? While in Arkthe dinosaurs just do their thing, we try to give a little more personality to our game.
Q: Are those the games that inspired you while developing? pal world?
Bucky: 100%. They inspired us a lot. Ark It is one of the best survival games of the last decade. Games like Ark and Oxide We’ve created a whole new wave of games and we wanted to do something like that; something that players could really get lost in and build their own kind of environment. SatisfyingIt’s simply one of the slickest games you can play right now and we love automation in general, so we wanted to add some of those elements as well.
Q: Do you think it is those elements of creation, survival and management that help establish pal world Apart from other creature collecting games?
Bucky: Definitely. I think a lot of people come to Palworld for the Pals, but they quickly realize that’s not what the game is about. It’s more about survival and adventure, and the Friends are there on that journey with you.
Q: It’s still very early, but do you have any news on PS5 sales?
Bucky: They are going well. That’s all I can say for the moment.
The future looks bright for Palworld
Q: What can you tell us about the future of pal world? What can players expect in the future?
Bucky: We’ll be releasing another pretty big update later this year, and next year we’re going to put a lot of effort into optimization – fixing all the bugs and getting the servers perfect. We’re still playing around with PvP (it’s hard to figure that out) and then we’ll work towards a full release of the game.
Q: To what extent are these updates in line with your original vision for the game and to what extent are they determined by player feedback?
Bucky: They are heavily influenced by player feedback. pal world It was always meant to be a game that we released, improved for a while, and then that’s the life cycle of the game. But then, suddenly, millions and millions of people started playing it. They want more friends, more islands, and more bosses, so these updates largely depend on what the players want.
Q: Your CEO has already ruled it out. pal world adopting a free-to-play model, but can we perhaps expect paid DLC at some point in the future?
Bucky: Right now, we’re thinking about masks and things like that. As far as actual DLC or expansions go, it’s largely a post-1.0 conversation. At the moment, there are no plans. There’s nothing in the works, but if the game continues to grow after full release then I think we’ll start considering that sort of thing.
Q: Have there been any ideas about a sequel?
Bucky: Pal World 2? pal worldit’s still like Palworld 0.5 right now. However, we are thinking about the expansion of intellectual property. We recently announced a collaboration with Sony Music and Aniplex, so we’re looking for ways to expand the IP in other ways besides Pal World 2.
Q: How long do you plan to support the first game?
Bucky: As long as people continue to play, we will continue to do so. At the moment, we have two games developed together: craft and pal world. craft eventually it will end and that will free up resources, but we don’t really know what’s next. We have a lot of ideas, but right now we’re not really sure where we want to go.
Palworld has been a great success in China
Q: This year you have one of the most impressive booths at TGS. How much planning does it take for something like this?
Bucky: A lot. Months and months and months. We decided to exhibit at the Tokyo Game Show three or four months ago. There has been a lot of planning. A lot of work. Many different stand designs. Get the cosplayers. Get the pets. TO batch of work. We actually did a pretty big booth in China as a sort of test for this and then brought in some of those assets to help with the build.
Q: You probably have better numbers than me here, but I think about a third of your PC gamers are in China. Did you expect that?
Bucky: Not at all. That surprised us all. Our largest population for pal world It’s China. The game completely took over China. Our Chinese fans are amazing. We attended two Chinese events this year and the support and love was absolutely incredible. We definitely didn’t expect it, but we are happy to enjoy it.
Q: Many Japanese games have tried, unsuccessfully, to expand to the Chinese market. Why do you think Palworld has been so successful there?
Bucky: We would love to know the answer to this question. I think it’s just a combination of rich survival elements. pal worldIt’s a game that, if you wanted to, you could spend a lot of time on and I think those types of games are very popular right now in China. The Chinese market seems to value games with very long life cycles. Maybe it was that, but we really don’t know.
Q: In terms of your audience share, you mentioned China, Japan and then the United States. Can you confirm that is the order?
Bucky: Right now, in terms of active players, yes. China, Japan and then the United States.
The lawsuit recently filed by Nintendo will not change Pocketpair’s plans
Q: I know we can’t talk too much about the elephant in the room, but how has the Nintendo lawsuit changed your plans moving forward?
Bucky: We refuse to let plans be changed. We continue forward.
Q: Did you hear from Nintendo at any point before the lawsuit, or was it just a big surprise to you?
Bucky: No. We haven’t heard anything yet.
Q: So in terms of speculation that the patent is based on mechanics for catching monsters? Still don’t know if that’s the case?
Bucky: We haven’t heard anything.
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