Palworld Devs Say They Still Don’t Know Why the Game Is So Successful: “If we knew how to do it, we’d do it again, but we have no idea what happened.”
In January 2024, Pocketpair launched Palworld, a game that stunned the gaming world by attracting millions of players in mere weeks. By the end of its first month, it had 25 million players across Steam and Xbox. At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in 2025, John “Bucky” Buckley, who manages the community for Pocketpair and leads its publishing arm, shared the wild tale of this unexpected hit—and the chaos that followed.
Palworld, often called “Pokémon with guns,” broke records fast. It sold 2 million copies in its first 24 hours and became the second game in Steam history to reach 2 million players online at once. The game climbed to number three on Steam wishlists by November 2023, after crossing a million wishlists earlier that year.
Buckley recalled the early signs of something big: “We quickly got over a million wishlists within that first year, so we knew at that point that something was happening. It kept going.” Yet, even now, the team can’t pinpoint why it took off. “People always ask us, ‘Why? What happened? How did you get so much attention?’ We don’t know. If we knew how to do it, we’d do it again, but we have no idea what happened,” he admitted.
The launch night hinted at the madness to come. Most of Pocketpair’s remote team gathered in person for a small celebration. “Not a lot of people know this, but most of our company at that time was a remote company,” Buckley said. “We had an office, but very few people went to the office. But everyone went on launch day. It was going to be a little celebration, a little bit of alcohol, a little bit of fun, and then go home.”
Twenty minutes after launch, their network engineer delivered bad news: “The game has crashed. The Epic servers have crashed.” Buckley described the player count that followed as overwhelming: “Within that first week, we hit this disgusting number that makes me feel sick when I see it.”
The game’s success wasn’t all cheers and profits. Its quirky concept—blending cute creatures with firearms—drew massive attention, but also fierce backlash. “Shortly after Palworld was released it was super popular to hate Palworld,” Buckley said.
“And it wasn’t just your average Twitter user jumping in—it was basically everyone. It was people on Twitter. It was people on Discord. It was some big industry names, which I’m still a bit salty about. It was a lot of LinkedIn circle-jerking. Hating Palworld was the popular thing to do at the time of release.”
Social media buzzed with claims that Pocketpair used AI tools or copied Pokémon designs, rumors sparked by a single Twitter user who later backtracked, saying he disliked the game’s “animal cruelty.”
The hate escalated beyond criticism. Buckley showed GDC attendees a slide of death threats and violent messages aimed at the team, especially the artists. “This is something that we really, really, really suffered with for a long time,” he said.
“This is why we went silent and why we stopped posting numbers and silly memes. We just went silent for like three or four months thinking this would die down. And it basically did.” The studio stepped back from the spotlight to let the storm pass.
Legal trouble added to the strain. Nintendo and The Pokémon Company sued Pocketpair for patent infringement, a move that caught the team off guard. “Nintendo’s Palworld lawsuit came as a shock,” Buckley noted, “because patent infringement was something that no one even considered.”
Despite the rocky start, Palworld remains a hit, with Pocketpair still updating it regularly. The player count has dropped from its peak, but the game’s mark on indie gaming is undeniable.
What fueled Palworld’s rise? Buckley has no clear answer: “Why did we get this many players? I don’t know, please don’t ask me. I know someone will ask me after, but I promise you we don’t know the answer.”
Maybe it was the oddball idea or the shock of its existence. For now, Pocketpair is left with a success they can’t fully explain—and a cautionary tale of fame’s dark side.
What do you think? What’s the real reason behind Palworld’s success? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
