Released on just the 19th of January, Palworld has proved to be a surprising hit game to kick off 2024. The largely Pokémon inspired-game, created by the tiny Japanese developer “Pocket Pair” is currently an early access release. However, that hasn’t hindered it’s incredible success out of the gate, with the game already breaking records.
Today, an incredible record has been set by Palworld, as it surpassed Counter-Strike 2’s all-time high peak of players. This puts it firmly in second place on steam for highest peak players, with a shocking 1,864,421 players enjoying the new game at the same time. The only game to currently eclipse Palworld’s peak is PUBG: Battlegrounds, which peaked with 3,257,248 all the way back on January 13th 2018.
Palworld success has been an incredible shock as sales continue to grow exponentially every day. This morning, the official twitter reported that it had managed an incredible 6 million sales in the 4 days since release.
To much surprise to everyone, the game was reportedly created on a budget of just $10,000. The developer, Pocket Pair, also employs a total of just 34 people. To those wondering how much money Palworld has made, we’ve done the rough math. With the current pricing for Palworld of $26.99 the indie studio is believed to have already cleared a stunning $161 Million during it’s first 4 days run, averaging over $40 Million per day in total revenue.
Palworld’s development has proved to be a quite ingenious way for a small developer to succeed in the huge world of gaming today by using all the tools at their disposal. Though currently unconfirmed, rumours have been swirling about the developer allegedly using GenAI to create some of the video game’s content.
Palworld Nintendo Lawsuit Concerns
The clear Pokémon inspiration behind Pocket Pair’s Palworld has not gone unnoticed though. With Nintendo’s notoriously harsh legal team cracking down hard in the past, leading to the shutdowns of many small indie games that paged homage, many have been worried about a similar fate for Palworld due to the amount of similarites.
However, lead developer and CEO Takuro Mizobe insists he isn’t worried about a potential lawsuit. In an interview with the Japanese gaming-news outlet Automaton, Mizobe insisted that Palworld has met all legal requirements. “We make our games very seriously,” Mizobe said. “And we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies.” The developer also noted that there currently have been no legal action taken against Palworld.
Palworld has in fact already found itself dealing with controversy linked to a Pokemón mod for the game. The mod replaced the game’s own “Pal’s” with actual Pokéman characters. All links to it have now been removed by Palworld’s modding community, fearing legal reprecussions from Nintendo.
For now however, the future for indie developer Pocket Pair and Palworld looks incredibly bright. The game seems to break new records every day, becoming the biggest hit so far of 2024. We look forward to keeping up with Palworld as the game develops over time. We’ll be sure to keep bringing you all the latest Palworld news.
