Palworld developer Pocketpair revealed that the team is currently thinking whether to switch to a free to play model to make it live service.
Palworld was the first and (so far) biggest surprise hit of 2024. Launched in early access on PC and Xbox on January 19, the game developed by Pocketpair went on to break several sales records; in just a month, Palworld had sold 15 million copies on Steam alone and also had around 10 million players on Xbox (though the game is included with the Game Pass subscription there).
However, these incredible figures suddenly slowed down. Nowadays, the game is played by around 25-30K concurrent players on Steam, down from the massive peak of 2.1 million players registered at launch. Pocketpair is working on improving the game to renew the interest of players, as well as potentially releasing it on other platforms.
In an interview with the Japanese website ASCII, Pocketpair CEO and producer Takuro Mizobe revealed that the team currently faces the difficult choice of switching to a free-to-play model, which he believes is the only way to make a true live service game.
