‘It’s not healthy’: Palworld dev says players shouldn’t sink all their time into one game

Palworld‘s community manager recently commented on the state of the video game industry, particularly the appearance of so-called “dead games.” He said it is only natural that a game would lose players over time and that playing one game all the time isn’t healthy.

Palworld has been called a dead game by some because it sees only a fraction of the activity it had on launch when it broke many records with its two million concurrent players. The community manager, John Buckley, said in a July 27 Going Indie video that Palworld wasn’t supposed to be a forever title, nor should any game strive to be, as that would incentivize big-name publishers to bring more live service titles to the industry. “It’s just not healthy for our industry because the more we push this kind of narrative, the more very large companies are going to just say ‘gamers want more live service,'” he said.

Buckley further called these money-grabbing live service titles “soulless” and said most of them die out within nine to 12 months due to a lack of interest. “We all lose in that case,” he said.

He also added that it isn’t healthy for players to continuously sink their time into a single title, encouraging them to explore the world of video games further and play as many games as possible, especially indies. The Palworld dev even went on to say that you should play the “dead games” people speak of, and so long as you are having fun, it won’t matter if “only five people are playing it.”

For those who have quit Palworld in the meantime, Buckley had this to say: “We still love you, and we hope you’ll come back for round two when you’re ready,” adding that they, too, should diversify their experiences with various genres and types of games.