It's so weird seeing palworld go from what was characterized as a steamslop parody of pokemon full of slavery and slaughtering cute animals for fun into a fully fledged "open world pokemon meets survival crafting" concept that not only does what pokemon fans want better than nintendo can do, but also took the heat from the big N and came out unscathed. That's pretty fucking insane.
Like, this little indie game put together by a bunch of people who were making the game they wanted to play got so popular one of the biggest game companies on the planet saw them as a threat and tried to snuff them out like a mob boss putting out a cigar. But then players were finally getting the creature collecting game of the dreams so they rallied behind it and even other developers joined in and all that nintendo got for their trouble was a black mark on their reputation and pocket change, largely because their main tactic of having them burn all their money on legal fees failed and they didn't really plan for anything else in their hubris.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at game freak as they make the next pokemon entries and watch from afar as palworld hits full release and just dumps all over their franchise like the dave matthews band on that boat. How do you compete with something that has no restraints and that fact is what people want? Palworld isn't a theme park experience with linear progression and all the "challenge" nested at the end of the game. It throws you into the world, tells you to survive and grow stronger, and then lets you go ham. You get to participate and work alongside your funky little creatures. You get to customize and empower them. You get to build a mini empire with them at your side. The world is hostile but you have your pals and together you're going to claw your way to the top of the food chain. Pokemon is a guided tour by comparison, and one so sanded down and inoffensive that it treats you like the child you play as. There are no mature alternatives so before it was either suck it up or kick rocks.
And then of course there's the tone. Pals can be violent and the factions you face are actively trying to murder and enslave their way to supremacy of the world. Some of the descriptions in the codex are downright horrifying. What do you mean this funny cartoon squid mummifies things by sucking out their guts? There's a goat demon that kidnaps people in the night and that's its most notable feature. NPCs talk about watching their friends get attacked and devoured by wild pals or lament about how tough surviving is. Everyone has guns and swords and creatures that can elementally annihilate you. Sometimes a pal's special skill is just pulling out a rocket launcher and turning some poor bastard in pasta sauce. That shit fucking rules. These are technically wild animals you are taming and turning into weapons. Violence is inherent. But being evil is a choice. You can be a cruel taskmaster or a psychopathic killer but everyone I know who plays treats their pals like their pets. They take good care of them and get upset when something happens to them. Investment in your pals and having to work alongside them to progress enables an emotional attachment that you kind of have to make up with pokemon, where your creatures are all essentially attack dogs for use in fights. Palworld is different. Not all pals are going to be in your party, many are going to be working at your base or are kept around as mounts, for utility like hauling materials, or even breeding purposes.
On that topic, some pals are purposefully sexually appealing (some by design and others by surprise). There's a whole joke about a separate dating sim where you date pals, which might be a real game someday. There are innumerable furrybait monsters to fulfill any deviant appetite and it's pretty clear at least a few people on the dev team weren't doing this just for laughs. The perverts are calling from inside the house on this one. People joke about certain pokemon appealing to the furries but that's the equivalent of stealing a cookie from the jar while nintendo isn't looking, and something they certainly don't care for. Pocketpair drops an entire pallet of cookies on your front lawn and says "call us for more, ya freaks". Say what you want about it, that tactic has definitely earned some die-hard fans.
I think the crux of palworld's success is that it gives players either what they want or something fresh in a corner of the game industry that has been monopolized so thoroughly that it has stagnated and keeps reusing the same formula from two decades ago. But the problem with keeping up that monopoly and relying on fans to consume your gruel as the only option is that when someone offers a much better dish, the blowback is going to be so much worse than you can imagine. People are going to realize that they don't need to engage with games that don't respect them or their time or their money and are going to flock to that which does. Pockepair stepped up with a passion project to fulfill a long-seated desire for a better experience and nintendo tried to beat them to death in front of everyone for daring to challenge them and got beat back. That's the kind of thing that sets a new standard and I'm curious to see if nintendo learns from this or tries to keep on their bullshit.
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