🕹️ Palworld Support Struggles

Happy Monday. As Palworld has exploded onto the scene, it has frequently been described as “Pokémon With Guns.” Modders have taken this comparison to the next level, by putting actual Pokémon in the game, along with familiar characters such as Ash, Brock, and Misty. Who needs a Master Ball when you can break out a shotgun?

— Tim Rhyne, Derek Neville

MAIN QUEST: 50k support tickets accompany Palworld’s wild success.

Pocketpair’s Palwold exploded over the weekend with reports of over 5 million copies sold in their first 72 hours of early access launch. On Steam, Palworld broke 1.58 million concurrent players over the weekend making them the third-highest all-time behind PUBG (3.25m) and Counter-Strike 2 (1.81m).

This newfound success is not without concerns. They have several unanswered copyright questions about the artwork found within the game. Debates swirl around whether the art was AI-generated, if models were taken from Pokemon’s Scarlet/Violet games, or if guns with Pokemon-like creatures are enough for Nintendo to bring down lawsuits upon Pocketpair. These questions have led to slander against artists, including death-threat tweets.

Even with all of those concerns addressed, the overwhelming viral success has left Pocketpair with over 50,000 support inquiries. This has not hindered customers from supporting the game in mass as the game has climbed from 89% in the first 24 hours to 92.2% positive rating on Steam as they enter day 4 of release.

Step Back: Pocketpair is unable to scale their support or shift engineering teams to fix all the bugs on a AAA studio scale and doing so may result in overstaffing their team for future playerbase levels. Instead, they published a Google doc with FAQs to help slow the intake and get players answers proactively. Additionally, they have been balancing acknowledgment of issues and marketing-related posts on major socials and this combination of public efforts has proven to resonate with gamers.

HUD

• ⛳ Playdemic, maker of Golf Clash, sold to EA for $1.4 Billion in 2021. The Playdemic founders have raised $10 million for their new mobile free-to-play game studio, ForthStar. They will target the male mass market believing that the casual competitive male audience still has potential for successful new entries.

• 🏃‍♂️ Talofa Games closes a $6.3m round for its mobile title Run Legends. Run Legends had over 370k players in their Beta which began in May 2023 and entered its 1.0 launch beginning of 2024.

• 📺 MrBeast shared his results of reuploading a popular 2023 YouTube video to X. 156 Million impressions equated to $263k revenue. He cautions that advertisers likely bought ads specifically for his video and this inflated the results.

MAJOR W

• 🤘 CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, codenamed “Orion,” will consider multiplayer elements.

• 💰️ Obelisk Studio raised $2 million for its first original IP, Displacement, a psychological action-horror.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🧟 The Day Before servers have officially shut down, just 45 days after its disastrous launch. The book has finally closed on the game that once sat at the top of Steam’s most-wishlisted.

• 🙅 “Human trafficking” is a game mechanic possible in Palworld. “On Palpargos Island, capturing humans in Palspheres is considered inhumane.”

CAREER CORNER

• Senior Director, Publishing Strategy & Operations, Americas — Krafton (Santa Monica, CA)

• Senior Communications Manager, Corporate — Epic Games (Cary, NC)

• Data Analyst — Bigger Games (Istanbul, TR)

HIVE MIND

Was this email forwarded to you?

Subscribe to Loading Screen today and turn your gaming knowledge up to 11!