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Palworld down 1.3m players in Steam’s biggest-ever two-week drop (www.pcgamesn.com)
submitted 10 months ago by nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 129 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yeah, you're prone to having one of the biggest drops when you've got one of the biggest peaks. What a garbage article.

Palworld’s next update and early access roadmap are already on the cards, so it’s now up to Pocketpair to keep supporting the game and listening to players to keep them hooked.

NO IT'S NOT. The only thing it's on them to do is to finish it. They sell the game for $30, and this is not a live service game. They don't need to keep anyone hooked.

[-] lordnikon@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

not to speak for anyone what they ment but I took hooked the saw way I see satisfactory. keeping engment high by taking in feedback to make a really good end product. not use exploitive tricks to get people addicted to something that is not fun.

[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 29 points 10 months ago

It's hard for me to take it that way when the author is citing player count numbers in the headline as though that matters at all in a game with finite content and a low cost of entry. Even you using the word "engagement" in what's meant to be an innocent way just has me thinking about how live service games have poisoned the way people speak and think about video games.

[-] lordnikon@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

your statement about live service poisoning the way people talk about game updates we can both agree on that.

[-] fishos@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

I mean, as it stands now, there's no gameplay other than "build up base", "collect all monsters" and "level up". End game is non-existent. It needs something more or it absolutely will die. There's been a million open world survival games that have come and gone for the same reason. This very well could just be a flash in the pan, largely held up by hype more than anything.

[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 16 points 10 months ago

I can't think of a game that I've played and enjoyed that had an "end game" except rolling credits, and that's totally fine. Flashes in the pan are totally fine. The game can't "die" as long as a single person wants to play it, because it's playable regardless of the presence of the company's servers.

[-] fishos@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

OMG, stfu. No one is talking about "you're still alive as long as someone remembers your name" type bullshit. We mean an active and engaged player base. That's what a games "death" refers to. You are being incredibly obtuse.

[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 19 points 10 months ago

Who cares if there's a huge player base a year from now? Really? This isn't "you're still alive as long as someone remembers your name", this is the game literally still exists and can be played. To play multiplayer, ping your friend on Discord and host it yourself, even if that's thirty years from now, but good luck doing that with The Finals or something. That game really will be dead in 30 years (maybe even 1 year). If Palworld's population is in single digits a year from now, they're still filthy rich, and people who bought the game still have access to it whenever they want. Nothing about the game is worse off for the population not being in the millions anymore.

[-] Pepsi@kbin.social 3 points 10 months ago

why does an “active and engaged player base” matter at all? you can host a personal/local dedicated server, so no worries about them shutting the servers off. the game has no larger community interactions beyond what happens on a server. there’s not even pvp that would suffer from a diminished player base.

do you, like, only play games that other people think are cool?

[-] loobkoob@kbin.social 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I can definitely think of quite a few non-live-service games with an "end game" that I've enjoyed:

  • (Older) Pokémon games with their battle towers, where putting together a flexible team with as few weaknesses as possible is the aim.
  • Loot games like Borderlands, Grim Dawn and Last Epoch where I want to make new builds and test their limits against harder and harder challenges.
  • Factorio, where I want to optimise my factory. Although there's absolutely an argument to be made that that is the game, but I think it becomes more about player-set goals once you've launched the rocket.

All of them are either offline or have offline modes available. All of them have potentially infinite "content" if you're the sort of person who like optimising, or just being able to set yourself new targets. They're all enjoyable to play for their "campaigns" alone, but they also have very strong sandboxes that players can continue to engage with even after the game stops giving them objectives.

I don't necessarily disagree with your overall sentiment, though. I think MMO-style "end games" where you login for your daily, time-gated quests and do the same thing you always do with no variation or sense of progression (be it narrative, emotional, build-related or some other kind of progression) isn't necessarily healthy. And I dislike the way "end games" have tended to move away from being optional post-game content for people who aren't ready to finish playing yet and instead are often viewed as the main game that you have to get through the sorry excuse for a campaign/story to access.

[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

Factorio is definitely the one I had in mind, especially since it's the game I've played most similar to Palworld, and that game is over for me once I've launched the rocket. I did do that twice though, with two very different factory designs. If I'm not compelled to play Palworld two different ways, I'll still have gotten my money's worth.

[-] loobkoob@kbin.social 3 points 10 months ago

that game is over for me once I've launched the rocket

Ahh, well that definitely isn't the case for me! I usually keep playing long after I've launched the first rocket. For me, launching the rocket is a somewhat arbitrary "ending"; it's a good objective for people to focus on - especially new players - but I don't think anything really changes before or after the rocket launch in terms of gameplay loop (and there's no narrative to change). Just like before the rocket launch, there are still things to optimise, new ways to build, etc, (some of which are supported by the science you get from launching rockets, in fact).

I suppose it partially comes down to whether you're an objective-driven player or someone who enjoys the process. For me, it's all about the process/journey, and the objectives are more of a guide than anything. If the objectives are complete and I'm still enjoying the process, and there's still room for me to enjoy the process, then I'll keep playing.

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[-] Kaldo@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago

You are right, but is it any different for games like Ark, Conan, VRising, Rust or any other sandbox builder focused on multiplayer? It's always just a farm-build-collect-repeat cycle. It's why I get bored of them easily at least, the only games in that genre that can usually keep my attention are Factorio and Valheim.

[-] Xanis@lemmy.world 53 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Gotta say, this one's preeetty simple:

Game comes out

People play game

People play game a lot

Content runs out

People leave

Time passes poof! more content

People come back

Games usually have a pretty finite lifespan unless and usually only when built from the beginning to maintain playerbase.

[-] Renacles@lemmy.world 51 points 10 months ago

So a lot of people finished the game and are now playing something else.

It's a real shocker, I guess that means that this game without MTX or subscription service is dead. /s

[-] EatATaco@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

There is nothing in the article about the game being dead, in fact it says it explicitly assumes that it will have respectable numbers once the dust settles.

It's like you made up a reason why the article is wrong about something that it didnt even claim.

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

You missed the '/s' for sarcasm, didn't you?

[-] EatATaco@lemm.ee 6 points 10 months ago

It's absolutely 100% part of the reason why I interpreted it the way it was meant to be interpreted.

[-] Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 15 points 10 months ago

The best part of interpretation is how objective it is eh?

/s

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[-] TIMMAY@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

🤦‍♂️

[-] PenguinTD@lemmy.ca 49 points 10 months ago

it's viral game what do you expect?

[-] CluckN@lemmy.world 33 points 10 months ago

On Saturday, January 27 Palworld peaked at 2,101,867 concurrents, and now on Saturday, February 10, it has 757,508 according to data from SteamDB

Let’s compare that to a recently released AAA game.

Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League has 2,422 concurrent players, while Rocksteady's predecessor Batman Arkham Knight has 2,654 players,

[-] spez_@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Do a proper comparison

[-] Stern@lemmy.world 30 points 10 months ago

Game of the week is game of the week. Fall Guys, Dave the Diver, and Among Us unavailable for comment.

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 21 points 10 months ago

Remember when Valheim was all the rage?

[-] Kaldo@kbin.social 12 points 10 months ago

It's still hard to believe it's been 3 full years since it released and we only got one new biome since then (and yeah I know it had other smaller updates but considering its success and potential I was hoping for much much more from them).

[-] HocEnimVeni@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Valheim still hasn't even been released yet 😭

[-] kaitco@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Heck, I remember when Fall Guys was all the rage.

[-] nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago

I remember when it wasn't full of cheaters, didn't require an epic account and only sold items for wins.

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[-] rbos@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

Still awesome! Am halfway through an immersive mode playthrough in prep for Ashlands!

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[-] Neato@ttrpg.network 14 points 10 months ago

I'd be interested with more content in the early to middle game. More things in the world as well. It feels very empty at times.

[-] Melkath@kbin.social 10 points 10 months ago

Makes sense.

The beginning is fun and really just sucks the life out of you as your are flooded with new mechanics and npcs.

Then the game very quickly shows itself for what it is, an open world game.

It's a glorious grindy repetitive complicated open world game that doesn't hold your hand.

I knew I was in love the moment I started compiling my pal attribute database. 90% of gamers dont like that kind of stuff. They just want to be lead from A to Z.

[-] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 10 months ago

I think it's fun, actually. If the game never updates again I'll be disappointed that it never became what it could have been but I won't regret buying it or spending time playing with my friends.

[-] Zahille7@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Personally I kinda hope it turns even more into Ark. Maybe we could get other big maps in future updates that could act as different "regions" like in Pokemon. It already kinda works like that in the game, but they could introduce new pals that you can only find in certain spots on the new map.

And of course the rest of the story with the crazy world tree and ancient civilization.

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[-] glimse@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

The beginning is fun and really just sucks the life out of you as your are flooded with new mechanics

Uhh are we playing the same game? What new mechanics get introduced that you don't have by level 10?

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[-] Fades@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

How utterly predictable

[-] gibmiser@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Easy come, easy go

[-] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I mean that's modern trends for you.

[-] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 5 points 10 months ago

I don't think this should surprise anyone

[-] strangebananaman 3 points 10 months ago

No surprise lol

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this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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