John Buckley, the community manager for Palworld, is telling gamers to stop playing a single game all the time in a new interview with the Going Indie YouTube channel. Following its wildly successful release earlier this year, Palworld saw a dip in its daily player count, which currently sits at around 60,000 a day. At launch, that number was two million.
Buckley isn’t upset with this shift, however, explaining that the title wasn’t meant to be played forever.
“I don’t think you need to be pushing yourself to play the same game all the time,” Buckley explained. “It’s not healthy for us, it’s not healthy for developers, it’s not healthy for gamers, it’s not healthy for gaming media. And it’s just not healthy for our industry, because the more we push this kind of narrative, the more very large companies are going to just say ‘gamers want more live service.’
“And we’re just going to get more of these soulless live service games that come out then get shut down 9-12 months later because they’re not making enough money. And we all lose in that case.”
Palworld was released in early access in January 2024 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. As of February 2024, the game had sold over 15 million copies. Following the release of the Sakurajima update in July, the game saw a 700% increase in concurrent players.
“Play all the indies you can,” Buckley continued. “Spend as much money on indies as you can. Really, really support the guides who are trying to make fun games. Who cares if there’s only five people playing it? Just enjoy yourself. Just enjoy games. I don’t think it needs to be any more complex than that.”
