Palworld's Unexpected Path: From Massive Success to Indie Focus
Pocketpair, the developer behind the wildly successful Palworld, has amassed significant profits. These earnings could easily fund a "beyond AAA" title, yet CEO Takuro Mizobe has opted for a different trajectory. This article explores his reasoning.
Pocketpair Prioritizes Indie Development and Community Support
Palworld's phenomenal success has generated tens of billions of yen in revenue for Pocketpair (approximately tens of millions of USD). Despite this windfall, Mizobe has reiterated his disinterest in pursuing a large-scale, AAA-style game.
In a GameSpark interview, Mizobe explained that Palworld's development leveraged profits from previous titles, Craftopia and Overdungeon. While the current financial success could easily fuel a much larger project, he believes Pocketpair lacks the internal structure to manage such an undertaking effectively.
Mizobe stated, "Developing our next game with these proceeds would create a project exceeding AAA scale, a scale we're not organizationally prepared for." He prefers focusing on projects appealing as "indie games," believing the current indie game environment, with improved engines and industry conditions, allows for global success without massive teams. He credits the indie community for Pocketpair's growth and aims to reciprocate this support.
Expanding the Palworld Universe Beyond the Game
Mizobe previously stated that Pocketpair isn't interested in significant team expansion or lavish office upgrades. Instead, their focus is on expanding the Palworld IP into diverse mediums.
Palworld, currently in early access, continues to receive positive feedback and substantial updates, including a PvP arena and the Sakurajima island update. Furthermore, Pocketpair, in collaboration with Sony, established Palworld Entertainment to manage global licensing and merchandising.
