Last week it was widely reported that Pocketpair was mulling turning Palworld into a live service game or game as a service (GaaS). In a new update, the company denied the claim saying Palworld “will remain buy-to-play and not f2p or GaaS”.
Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe granted an interview with ASCII.jp where he talked about the possible future of their breakout game, Palworld. When asked about the long-term plans for the game Mizobe said, “To be honest, things aren’t decided yet”.
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Explaining further, he said that moving to a live service model would be great from a business perspective but added that the volume of work needed to make that transition may not be worth it.
“When you think about it from a business perspective, making it a live-service game would extend its lifespan and make it more stable in terms of profitability. However, the game was not initially designed with that approach in mind, so there would be many challenges involved in taking it down the live-service path.”
According to the Pocketpair boss, making that transition would likely also mean making the game free-to-play which would be complex at this point considering that millions of players have already purchased the game for $29.99 / £24.99.
“It is common for live-service games to be free-to-play with paid elements such as skins and battle passes, but Palworld is a buy-to-play game, so it’s difficult to turn it into a live-service game from the ground up,” Mizobe explained.
Through an official statement on X, the company has denounced the claim that it was mulling making Palworld a live service game. In fact, it turned out that the widely published ascertion was an old interview that was recycled.
Pocketpair clarifies the future of Palworld
In the clarification posted on X, Pocketpair said the interview referenced in the publications that went viral last week was conducted many months ago when the company was still brainstorming the way forward for the game.
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“This interview was conducted several months ago,” Pocketpair said. “At that time, we were still considering the best way forward for Palworld to create a long-lasting game that continues to grow. We are still discussing this internally, as it is quite challenging to find the ideal path, but we have already decided that the F2P/GaaS approach is not suitable for us.”
“Palworld was never designed with that model in mind, and it would require too much work to adapt the game at this point. Additionally, we are very aware that this just isn’t what our players want, and we always put our players first.
“We are still considering skins and DLC for Palworld in future as a means to support development, but we will discuss this with you all again as we get closer to that point. For now, our priority remains making Palworld the best game possible.”
The company apologized for the confusion last week’s publication might have caused and thanked their fans for the support they have given the game so far. After its release in January, Palworld attracted over 25 million players over a month on PC and console. It became the second most concurrently played game on Steam, although it has now been toppled by Black Myth: Wukong.
The game has since lost over 90% of its players. However, the developers said there was nothing wrong with that and asked players to try other games while waiting for new Palworld content.
Do you think Palworld will succeed if Pocketpair ever turns it into a live service game? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
