Palworld is barreling on its way to becoming the most commercially successful game in recent years. In a recent update, Pocketpair has revealed that the game has sold 5 million copies in 3 days. In addition to that, the game has toppled the all-time-peak concurrent players it set over the weekend. It also toppled Dota 2 and Lost Ark to become the third game with the most concurrent players ever on Steam.
“Steam users currently playing #Palworld has exceeded 1.5 million!” the developer announced a few hours ago on X. “Thank you so much for making us the 3rd highest concurrently played game on Steam ever! We are working hard to make the game as enjoyable as possible.”
ALSO READ: Valve Made $980 Million Selling Counter-Strike 2 Cases In 2023
Palworld needs 319,000 more players to topple Counter-Strike 2 and become the second-highest concurrently played game on Steam. The game in the first position and a tall order to beat is PUBG: Battlegrounds which had the highest peak player count of 3.2 million.
Palworld has had an amazing ride since its release on Friday, January 19, and it will be interesting to see how far it will go. Besides the increasing number of concurrent players, Palworld has also set a huge sales record. In just 3 days, the game has sold over 5 million copies.
“#Palworld has sold over 5 million copies in only 3 days!” the developer announced today January 22, 2024. “Thank you soooo much! In addition, thank you for all the illustrations on #PalworldArt and videos on #PalClips from all over the world! Please leave a review if you’ve been enjoying your time in Palworld!”
ALSO READ: Why Is My Gaming Laptop So Slow? 5 Ways To Fix It!
Palworld’s rise to fame has also come with its share of controversy. The number of accounts presenting proof that Palworld stole art concepts from Nintendo’s Pokémon has increased overnight—and some seem to have taken the criticism too far.
Pocketpair CEO addresses Palworld trolls on the game’s art
Palworld’s controversy seems to have spiraled out of control over the weekend. Although the gameplay between Palworld and Pokémon is clearly different, fans of the Nintendo series appear outraged by the character design similarities.
since I'm bored as hell, I'm gonna be making a thread of this i think… Palworld design analysis trying to spot every pokemon they jumbled together pic.twitter.com/Ch9jcx5hCI
— onion_mu (@onion_mu) January 18, 2024
On Sunday, an X user with the handle @byofrog did not only point out the design similarities between Palworld and Pokémon but insinuated the former actually took game assets from the latter. The user posted videos comparing the in-game 3D models between the two games, claiming to show evidence of plagiarism.
ALSO READ: 2 Ways To Play PS5 In Tesla Exposed
While the management at Pocketpair has been mostly silent on the controversy, the company’s CEO and game director Takuro Mizobe posted a response on Monday, January 22, 2024. The CEO addressed what he called “slanderous comments” and “death threats” against the studio’s artists.
“Currently, we are receiving slanderous comments against our artists, and we are seeing tweets that appear to be death threats,” the CEO tweeted in Japanese which GameBaba Universe translated using X’s in-built translator.
“I have received a variety of opinions regarding Palworld, but all productions related to Palworld are supervised by multiple people, including myself, and I am responsible for the production. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from slandering the artists involved in Palworld.”
VGC asked experienced AAA game artists for their views on the model comparison and if Palworld’s character models might have been based on Pokémon’s assets. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one of the senior character artists said:
ALSO READ: #9. Best Valentine’s Day Gift Categories For Gamers In 2024
“You cannot, in any way accidentally get the same proportions on multiple models from another game without ripping the models. Or at the very least, tracing them meticulously first. I would stand in court to testify as an expert on this. There have been times when dozens of artists are given the same concept art to create a 3D model, for example, during art tests for jobs. I’ve seen 30 artists try to make the same horse using the exact schematics. None were as close to each other as these Palworld models are to the Pokémon models. None. The silhouettes and proportions here are near-perfect matches.”
Nintendo has a reputation for being a litigious company. In the past, they have come after content creators that featured mods of their characters. If the evidence against Pocketpair turns out to be overwhelmingly true, the company may be hit by a lawsuit soon.
