The dream continues for independent Japanese developer Pocketpair as Palworld has now sold over seven million units in just five days since its early access launch. The open world survival crafting game with monster collection mechanics had sold one million in eight hours, two in twenty-four, three in forty, five million in three days, and six in four days. What’s even more impressive is that, according to Geoff Keighley, these sales are for the Steam version alone. They do not account for sales on the Microsoft Store via PC/Xbox, nor do they account for Game Pass player numbers.
According to industry analyst BenjiSales, it is outselling Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which had sold 6.5 million units in its first week. Of course, that game was sold at full price, whereas Palworld is currently priced at €26, which certainly facilitates sales.
On Steam, the game has even managed to knock down Valve’s own Counter-Strike 2 from the second place on the all-time concurrent player chart. Palworld registered 1.86 million concurrent players around eighteen hours ago. There’s still a long way to PUBG: Battlegrounds’s record of 3.25 million concurrent users, but it’s probably best not to discount this game’s potential to surprise.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has predictably grabbed its hammer to take down the Pokémon mod that modders had quickly cobbled together. Some Pokémon fans have been pointing out monster design similarities that might border on plagiarism, but it wouldn’t be an easy case for Nintendo to win in court. We’ll see if their notoriously implacable lawyers are indeed sent after this runaway indie success or not.
