Palworld’s astronomic rise to fame has been a burning topic—likewise its controversies. The latest update from Pocketpair shows that the game has now sold 6 million copies in 4 days. The game’s peak concurrent player count across all platforms has also surpassed 1.7 million.
Palworld’s controversy appears to be growing just as much as its player count. Stephen Totilo of Game File got in touch with Don McGowan who headed the Pokémon Company’s legal team from 2008 to 2020 to hear his views on the controversy. McGowan believed it was similar to thousands of rip-offs he saw when he was with the company.
“This looks like the usual rip-off nonsense that I would see a thousand times a year when I was Chief Legal Officer of Pokémon. I’m surprised it got this far.”
McGowan might have insinuated that Pokémon should have sued Pocketpair long before now. We all know how litigious Nintendo has been over the years. However, as Totilo explained, the case between Palworld and Pokémon is a battle between inspiration and cloning.
In the real sense, Palworld is a different game from Pokémon. They might share things in common but the mechanics are different. It is not as if Palworld is half-backed garbage. The game is interesting and engaging which explains why thousands of watchers have quickly turned to players.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that Palworld has gone viral. Back in June 2021, the game’s trailer earned it the moniker “Pokemon with guns”. At that time, Pocketpair’s CEO Takuro Mizobe said that the game was closer to the survival game ARK.
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“I’m happy to see that it’s gotten a lot of positive feedback,” Mizobe said at that time. “But I have mixed feelings about it. This is because Palworld is completely different from Pokémon.”
Palworld is the most-played game on Steam this week
Since its launch on January 19, 2024, Palworld has risen sharply to become the most-played game on Steam. At the time of writing this post, Palworld had twice as many concurrent players as its closest rival Counter-Strike 2. On Monday, January 22, it had more concurrent players than any other game on Steam too.
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With more players also comes more problems. Pocketpair has had its hands full since the launch of the game. From server issues to bugs, every day comes with a new set of challenges. The developer released an emergency update to the game on Xbox and Microsoft Store PC version earlier today which fixed numerous bugs including sound issues. Some of the issues that have been fixed include;
Xbox version
- The game launches to a static black screen
Microsoft Store PC version
- Game launches to a static black screen
- Control pad is not recognized
- The Key guide display is not displayed correctly
- There is no button to quit the game
Pocketpair CEO addressed the controversy yesterday
Mizobe broke his silence yesterday to address the controversy surrounding Palworld and Pokémon. The CEO posted a response on X calling for an end to the plagiarism allegations. He said the game’s artists have been cyber-bullied since the launch of the game. Although the tweet was made in Japanese, GameBaba Universe was able to translate it using the inbuilt X translator.
“We are currently receiving abusive and defamatory comments against our artists, in addition to tweets that appear to be death threats. While we have received various opinions about Palworld, it is important to note that the supervision of all materials related to Palworld is conducted by a team, including myself. I bear the responsibility for the produced materials. I would appreciate it if these comments towards artists involved in Palworld would cease.”
