Are „Dead” Games a Good Thing? Palworld Dev Believes That Emphasis on „Endless Development” Is Bad for the Industry
John „Bucky” Buckley of PocketPair studio joined developers criticizing current trends of looking at the success of games (including Palworld) only through the prism of the number of players in a given title.
The developers of Palworld criticize players' obsession with "dead" games. John "Bucky" Buckley, community manager of Pocketpair studio, spoke out again about the decrease in the number of players, not just in the context of his team's biggest hit.
This time, he expressed his views not on the X platform, but in an interview for the Going Indie channel with the revealing title "Dead Games are a Good Thing, Actually." The content aims to demonstrate (in brief) that not only are such declines not uncommon (even Baldur’s Gate 3 has peaked in CCU results), but also that the "dying" of games isn't a new or negative phenomenon.
Soulless games-services
During the conversation, Buckley essentially repeated his words from previous months. According to the developer, there is no reason to play the same game all the time and this approach may even be harmful to both players and devs.
According to him, the belief that games should retain players indefinitely will lead to "receiving only more of these truly heartless game services, which end their existence 9-12 months after the release, because they didn't earn enough money."
Buckley even goes so far as to encourage players to "play and spend as much money as possible on indie games," even those played by "5 people."
"Dead" Palworld is still a big hit on Steam
It must be admitted that talking about the "death" of the game in the context of Palworld is quite an exaggeration. In recent months the game hasn't even come close to the results from the first weeks after the premiere and it is in vain to look for it among Steam's bestsellers.
Nonetheless, it is still one of the most frequently played titles on the Valve platform. At the time of this news being published, Pocketpair studio's game held the 26th position in the Steam ranking. According to SteamDB data, the title is also in the top hundred topsellers.
The fact that many players are still returning to Palworld is also evidenced by the explosion of popularity after the release of the largest update so far. While almost 150,000 players simultaneously isn't as impressive as 2 million from February, it's still a result that even large publishers might envy Pocketpair.
Developers' aversion to CCU
The Pocketpair team has criticized the perception of game success based solely on the number of players compared to the "peaks" of a given game on multiple occasions. In February, Bucky urged fans to play "multiple games" as there is nothing wrong with taking a break from a single title. Later, when fans themselves began to argue in defense of Palworld, the developer advised them to ignore comments about the game's "death."
Tim Bender, the CEO of Hooded Horse, expressed himself in a similar tone. The publisher of Manor Lords and Against the Storm indicated that the pursuit of an "infinite increase" in the number of people in the game (CCU) is the source of many problems in the gaming industry. He recently added that such a trend may even harm early access productions.
