What you need to know
- On launch, Palworld took the world by storm becoming the surprise hit of early 2024.
- Since its meteoric rise, it has only had one place to go: down. Twitch viewership is down 65% since launch.
- Palworld is not a 'live service' game yet, because new content hasn't been released and for the game to continue to have this high of engagement is a good sign.
There is a lot of talk out there that Palworld is dying or even might be in trouble. There is a sentiment like this quote by Nico Arnold from GamingGadgets.de:
"The significant drop in Twitch numbers presents a new challenge for Palworld's developers. It will be intriguing to observe how they navigate this phase and what strategies they will employ to maintain an active player base in the face of these changes."
I find this disingenuous as the game is still outperforming any game released in 2024 on Steam, and the developers have already had the fan base buy-in with the initial purchase. If the game was a free-to-play model, there might be a concern. Still, all the Palworld developers need to do is make a good, enticing DLC that they can charge $9.99 for, and they will have a great model to continue to create and provide content to the 19 million + players who bought Palworld or played it on Game Pass.
Twitch viewership is also a flawed metric to judge a game's success or user interest. However, even if Palworld has fallen off in the zeitgeist of gamers, that is ok, and a game doesn't need to live forever to provide value to the market.
Is Palworld still popular on Twitch?
In a new report by GamingGadgets.de, an analysis revealed that Palworld viewership is down 65% in the last two weeks. This comes at a time when many other news outlets are also talking about a decrease in player count. As of this morning, Palworld is still around 460,000 concurrent players and 3rd overall on Steam. Just because the game doesn't keep 2,000,000 concurrent players like it had at its peak doesn't mean it is dying.
The report by GamingGadgets.de paints the drop in viewers of Palworld negatively but fails to consider that most people don't choose to watch a game. They are watching content creators, and once their favorite content creator moves on to a new game, so does the viewership. Here is the quote from GamingGadgets.de
"The online data shows that the average viewing numbers have dropped by more than 65% from a staggering 184,615 at the game's peak to a little over 50,000 people. It was also discovered that the total hours watched for Palworld over the same period dropped by 65% from 53,160,669 to 18,223,383."
Viewership has shifted back to old fan favorites like Minecraft and World of Warcraft as phase 2 of Season of Discovery just released, as well as a ton of viewership moving to Sony's first day and date published game to hit Steam in Helldivers 2, which is doing fantastic.
Will Palworld be successful in the future?
One of the worst things we, as gamers and media, can do is send a message to the world and game developers that a game is only good if it can hold the community's attention forever. We don't expect this from a book, TV show, or Movie. Most entertainment is a singular experience, and it's about the journey along the way and the memories gained, not some dragged-out grind required to experience the whole gamut of the game's content.
Palworld has fewer players because it is possible to experience everything in the game in 40 to 50 hours. Many players caught all the Pals they wanted, built their super base, and hatched their favorite Pals from eggs. For a game still technically in Early Access, Palworld hit unbelievable heights. Palworld's developer, Pocket Pair, should not stress about how to bring back all 19 million players. They should focus on making a great game, giving new content, and delivering on the road map they presented.
The best part of being a gamer is that there are always new experiences to try and enjoy. The industry grows as gamers focus on more games and begin grazing more and more, trying out different platforms, publishers, and genres. There is no better way to enjoy a massive selection of games than through Xbox or PC Game Pass. If you haven't tried Game Pass out or need to add some more time to your subscription, check out the deals below.
I'm not worried about Palworld's future. The game should continue to be good and not stress about artificially forcing player engagement through grind mechanics or time-gating content. If it does this, it will continue to be one of the best games of 2024.
