Context: Pocket Pair is spreading their devs thin on three unfinished early access games (Craftopia, Palworld, Never Grave) and capital G Gamers are crying

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Palworld is $30 on steam. It’s a litttle expensive for an indie game but I’ve gotten my money’s worth already. It’s not perfect but I wasn’t expecting a AAA title. Honestly I’m just impressed multiplayer works as well as it does. I also appreciate that they didn’t shoehorn any awful cutscenes in. No story > bad story. It also runs pretty great, even though my computer is older and I’m using proton/linux.

Compare Pokémon scarlet, $70. Laggy. Unpolished. Missing features from previous games. Unskippable cutscenes with characters just standing around talking to each other. Boring basic story. Nothing to do at the end of the game (no battle tower). No new fun features (the open world feels empty and ugly, compare BotW/TotK). It’s too open, there is no Mt Moon to get lost in.

Even if the team makes no further improvements I’m still having fun with palworld. I don’t see myself ever replaying scarlet.

[–] Idreamofcheesy 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Right, and is OP saying buying another Pokemon game will make gamefreak actually put effort in? Like why would it work the 10th time when it failed the first 9 times.

Gamefreak doesn't put effort in because they don't have to. Fans will continue to buy them regardless of quality.

[–] Sheeple 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Are you assuming I'm buying pokémon games?

I'm playing stuff I actually enjoy like Cassette Beasts. I'm hyped for the upcoming Beastieball too. I tried TemTem but it felt too much "Mobile" for me for a lack of better terms.

I'm pointing out that it's funny to me that fans of Palworld got angry at the very thing Pokémon fans got angry at Gamefreak for (Namely, spreading their team thin on Little Town Hero)

[–] Idreamofcheesy 1 points 9 months ago

Ahhh I misunderstood. in the palworld fans' defense, I imagine gamefreak seeing a game that uses elements of their games but in an innovative way get a huge game l fanbase might convince them to change their strategy a little bit.

Fewer people buying Pokemon games would help as well, obviously, but if sales went down at the same time a game they see as a competitor gets real big, that might actually kick their butts in gear.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Yea I'm with sheeple

I don't think my buying habbits are going to communicate anything to a company. I buy what looks fun to play. "Real" pokemon games look like a worse and worse buy, and that's just how it is. I don't expect them to change their development cycle at all.

At best, I hope Palworld's (and cassette beast's) success attracts better companies to make their own version. If this lights a fire under gamefreak's butt I will be extremely (and happily) surprised.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I really hope Pocket Pair is in it for the long run and carefully manage their success to create new popular series. However, the cynic in me thinks they're going to release as many titles in early access as they can before people realize none of them are ever being finished by the devs who are now multimillionaires and have no financial incentive to continue.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Unless they continue to make blunder for years to come, at this point i doubt they will fold. They already becoming one of the highest selling indie game within one month and made millions to last several years, they can just hire more.

And if they running out of money they can just fire everyone down to the core team and cancel the other game and focus on Palworld, write an "i'm sorry" essay, and continue their day.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I'm like 99.9999% sure that craftopia was an initial attempt at something similar to palworld, it has all the catching mechanics, the skills the pets use, the crafting machines, and their last major update was to add a "seamless" open world. I think they eventually decided that they'd be better served to jump from unity to unreal and just make a whole new game instead of improving craftopia.

I just wish they were more honest about it. I think they're still afraid to call it what it was and so they are pretending to care about craftopias future.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Toxic fans find new straws to grasp at, majority of gaming population don't care and keep having fun with new game. More news at 11

[–] tory 24 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm 60 hours deep on Palworld less than two weeks in while maintaining a full-time job. I don't buy games to make statements, I buy them because they're fun to play. And this particular one really is a ton of fun to play. Yes, they're clearly ripping off pokémon and breath of the wild and elden ring, and I'm sure a few other games. But it's a lot of fun nonetheless.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Same, despite being in early access it’s already a lot of fun. Feels like the game that I wanted gamefreak to make but never did.

[–] KpntAutismus 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

modern games have been underwhelmimg and too expensive for too long. my switch just sits unused in a corner, while i happily play games from my favourite franchises on my (hacked btw) 3DS.

although i imagine games like tears of the kingdom being great fun to play, i'm not paying 50€ for a physical copy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I've also recently regressed to older games. It's been FFVIII and Pokémon Heartgold for the past several months.

[–] KpntAutismus 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

it's impressive how bad pokemon games have gotten. i played sun/moon on 3DS (which isn't even the best one on that system), and later sword/shield on switch. it's just the exact same game with slightly better character customization and worse story.

i'm in the process of playing all ace attorney games because i'm just obsessed with that franchise. 3 of the 6 original games and a spinoff are on switch. the rest of the 11 games are playable on the 3DS, partly through emulation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

The worst part of Pokémon's move to 3d was the loss of any kind of art style.

The new Pokémon games are so boring to look at.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How do you know its only one team working on several games instead of several teams?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Because that company is like 15 people.

There are those among us who love palworld, but REALLY are not happy that we're funding a business plan. That's not what early access is supposed to be. I paid to support the development of craftopia not to help them build a foundation for the tech they wanted in palworld...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh are they that small? Where can I look into that?

How well did Craftopia do? If it wasn't profitable, then how would they continue development on it? Seems like fans of Craftopia should be glad about Pal World and its financial success since that also gives Craftopia a better chance of continued development.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I don't know exactly where you can find the information about the team size, it's something I read about while following craftopia. As for being happy about their situation, I am, but that doesn't mean that they're going to focus on craftopia especially if it was just a vehicle to secure funding to allow palworld to be created.

I'm concerned it's not a priority of theirs at all since palworld is so successful.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

lol the argument that gamefreak fanboys use

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

"Gamefreak can release a new game every year because they have multiple teams"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I am having lots of fun with Palworld, but through GamePass because I can't bring myself to buy it. It didn't sit right with me that the PC GamePass version of the game is lacking features that the Steam version has. This limits me to only playing with my one Xbox friend, but I don't feel like buying yet another early access game.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I bought Craftopia. Had tons of fun with it. TONS. They updated it regularly, and then with the big Open World update, less regularly. Still, being updated.

Next paycheck I'll buy Palworld. Already pirated since this has been a financially stressing month, but I like the game a lot and will buy it.

I really see no merit to all the Pocketpair makes abandonware discourse really, it is not the case.