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Palworld Becomes the Biggest 3rd Party Game Pass Launch Ever - More than 7 Million Players

twilo99

Gold Member
I wonder if Phil made the wrong decision in approaching this dev to bring this game to game pass, instead of SE to bring Visions of Mana.

Ye we joke about Phili boy but who is actually doing the research on what games to bring to GP... like, there's gotta be a whole department doing just that I guess, and someone in there needs a raise for finding this gem
 
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peish

Member
Other than the capturing and breeding mechanics, it's not really a Pokemon game.

Show me a Pokemon game where you can do all this:









I dont get it....where is the fun in those videos?

I wonder what is the age group buying frenzy?
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
I downloaded it to see what the fuss is all about but I haven't played it yet. Too distracted by Tekken 8 on PS5. I would be surprised if I like it enough to buy it.
 

twilo99

Gold Member
How does he keep doing it?

phil_spencer_smiley_cu.jpg

Relentless that lad...
 

Ozriel

M$FT
The game is on a pretty steep downward trend on Steam right now... I wonder where the baseline will ultimately end up in a month or so. But holy shit, what a rags to riches story... these guys are set for life.

It’s still the global top seller on Steam, sold 4 million copies on Steam in the past 6 days and has 1.5x the 24hr peak concurrent player count as the next game.
Not sure what you mean by ‘steep downward trend’.
 
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Mr Moose

Member
I dont get it....where is the fun in those videos?

I wonder what is the age group buying frenzy?
It's a fun game from what I have played (currently lvl 16 or something). Holding button for ages is a bit annoying but Pals can speed shit up.
 
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twilo99

Gold Member
It could be called that, but it's not the same thing as BG3. BG3 was a full release while this is still early access.

Not sure if that means much in this case... I doubt the game will change much between "early access" and "full release"
 

GHG

Gold Member
It's a fun game from what I have played (currently lvl 16 or something). Holding button for ages is a bit annoying but Pals can speed shit up.

The trick is hunting down pals that are so efficient it enables you to automate everything so you never need to hold down a button again.
 
Other than the capturing and breeding mechanics, it's not really a Pokemon game.

Show me a Pokemon game where you can do all this:








To me this essentially looks like the Horizon MMO.

And if that's the case it'll sell like hotcakes.

Edit: This also looks like it's broken. What the hell are these camera angles, they are abysmal.
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I really like Palworld (own it on steam) , but it rubs me the wrong way seeing Xbox try to attach themselves to this game's success when they didn't contribute to it in any way, and it would likely still be as popular without it being on gamepass.

One could probably argue the game likely lost sales because it was on gamepass. With the caveat that some of the lost sales could be countered to a degree, by people trying it on gamepass, then buying it on Steam.
If people can't admit Gamepass helped this game in sales, I don't know what they will ever admit. It's obviously big on steam, but this is a no name game with no marketing at all, and probably almost no funding aside from the day 1 deal they got. I doubt 7 million people would play it on Xbox this fast without GP. I'm positive that a percentage of those players are going to buy it. When a game goes viral like this, having easy access to it just makes it spread faster. It's not like Xbox is claiming they developed the game or something, but they clearly get some credit here for putting it on their service. This is the most obvious case of increased visibility I could possibly think of.
 

Interfectum

Member
Shhhhhh. Let him be. Best not give attention to those that don’t get Palworld.
Autism?

I "get" Palworld, I own Palworld and I'm excited for the studio. From a stats perspective it is falling from its peak over the weekend... falling 600k players in 24-hour peak from 4 days ago. I'm just curious where the new baseline is. No need to get defensive over a two week old game.
 
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twilo99

Gold Member
Other than the capturing and breeding mechanics, it's not really a Pokemon game.

Show me a Pokemon game where you can do all this:









man I am surprised they haven't gotten in trouble with the animal cruelty groups as well...
 

Ozriel

M$FT
I really like Palworld (own it on steam) , but it rubs me the wrong way seeing Xbox try to attach themselves to this game's success when they didn't contribute to it in any way, and it would likely still be as popular without it being on gamepass.

One could probably argue the game likely lost sales because it was on gamepass. With the caveat that some of the lost sales could be countered to a degree, by people trying it on gamepass, then buying it on Steam.

It’s a very popular game, playable on their platform. They paid the 3rd party money to put the Early access version on GamePass. Why would they not promote it?

You’ve certainly waited to the last moment to snatch the ‘weirdest post of Jan 2024’ award.
 

Darsxx82

Member
On Xbox’s part, we’re working with Pocketpair to help provide support for Xbox versions of the game. We’re providing support to enable dedicated servers, offering engineering resources to help with GPU and memory optimization, speeding up the process to make Palworld updates available for players, and working with the team to optimize the title for our

Surely it is more interesting to allocate resources to support the development and optimization of Palwords on Xbox than even the development of some first party project 😅😅
 

GHG

Gold Member
We need more games like The Last of Us 2 where people scream each other's names in distress as their throats are being slit by the protagonist. Not fucking Palworld.

In partnership with PETA, this can be arranged for palworld:

 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
I kinda feel bad for the Enshrouded guys. Their game looks great and has great reviews but launching directly after this had to take away a huge chunk of their potential buyers. Reminds me of HZD launching so close to breath of the wild and HFW launching right after Elden Ring.
 

Rambone

Member
I wonder how many purchase offers this dev is getting. Seems ripe for a bidding war.
 
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Roxkis_ii

Member
If people can't admit Gamepass helped this game in sales, I don't know what they will ever admit. It's obviously big on steam, but this is a no name game with no marketing at all, and probably almost no funding aside from the day 1 deal they got. I doubt 7 million people would play it on Xbox this fast without GP. I'm positive that a percentage of those players are going to buy it. When a game goes viral like this, having easy access to it just makes it spread faster. It's not like Xbox is claiming they developed the game or something, but they clearly get some credit here for putting it on their service. This is the most obvious case of increased visibility I could possibly think of.

Okay, maybe the Xbox announcements helped the word of mouth. I'll give you that.
 

GHG

Gold Member
I kinda feel bad for the Enshrouded guys. Their game looks great and has great reviews but launching directly after this had to take away a huge chunk of their potential buyers. Reminds me of HZD launching so close to breath of the wild and HFW launching right after Elden Ring.

I think enshrouded will do decently well over a period of time if they stick to what they have planned for the game.

They need to stay the course and not change their plans or get distracted by the success of palworld. Last thing we need is everyone making a game in the genre chasing trends like what happened with multiplayer shooters after PUBG.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Xbox marketing is jumping on this shit at the moment. Lucky break for Game Pass as I doubt they expected this success when signing the game for the service.
This is the kind of performance they were hoping Starfield would do.

I bet MS is preparing a bid to buy Pocket Pair already.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I wonder where High on Life sits now for 3rd party GP numbers.


It probably still sits fairly high for third party launches, otherwise first party ones like Starfield are probably at or near the top.
 
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