Palworld's community manager reminds people impatient for updates that playing other games is fine

If you told me at the start of the year that Palworld would break Steam records, I would've done a hearty "no no" chuckle. But here we are, with the survival game exceeding 19 million players and Pocketpair probably wondering how they managed such a feat. With its success has come the inevitable slew of impatient people saying the game's dead because it's not received updates fast enough, or folks saying it's lost a hefty percentage of its player base, and others saying its viewership numbers over on streaming services have plummeted. Palworld's community manager Bucky has gently reminded folks that not only is this discourse "lazy", but to play other games instead.

Posting their thoughts on Xwitter, Bucky offers the first gentle reminder, "Some of you may have had your fun over the last 3 weeks and found yourself putting the game down. That is fine." Then a second, still gentle, but perhaps with a touch more force behind it:

"This emerging "Palworld has lost X% of its player base" discourse is lazy, but it's probably also a good time to step in and reassure those of you capable of reading past a headline that it is fine to take breaks from games. You don't need to feel bad about that. Palworld, like many games before it, isn't in a position to pump out massive amounts of new content on a weekly basis. New content will come, and it's going to be awesome, but these things take a little bit of time."

Bucky advises us to not feel guilty about "hopping from game to game" and that the devs "hope you'll come back for round 2 when you're ready". No, it's not a groundbreaking take, but I think it's nice that someone dev side has explicitly said it's fine to take a break from their game. Does anyone really expect 19 million players to stick around forever? Come on.

Off the top of my head, I can think of Valheim exploding in popularity, the devs staffing up, then the inevitable decline as folks tick it off and move on. Many stick around, some move on permanently, others will return when new patches drop. This is normal! MMORPGs face a similar cycle, where expansions bring a wealth of newcomers and returning players for a bit, then they meander off once they've had their fill. Again, this is normal!

While Palworld's popularity is undeniable, we weren't so hot on it here. In her early access review, Katharine found simple pleasures in its crafting tasks, but felt its monster taming and combat were largely undercooked.