Here’s your daily Palworld sales update: the open world survival crafting game with monster collection mechanics has now surpassed eight million units sold on Steam alone in less than a week from the early access launch. It also broke the two million concurrent players milestone on Valve’s platform, a feat that was only ever managed by PUBG: Battlegrounds back when the Battle Royale game was at its height. There’s still over a million difference between the two, but it would not be wise to discount Palworld at this point.
There’s not much official data on the Xbox version of the game, but Simon Carless from GameDiscoverCo said yesterday that they estimate at least 1.5 million downloads. Circana’s Mat Piscatella tweeted that Palworld surpassed Fortnite last Monday in the United States when it comes to daily active users on Xbox. The average amount of playtime on that day was over 200 minutes.
With Pocketpair’s game becoming a global phenomenon, it is no wonder The Pokémon Company took notice. After taking down the mod that added actual Pokémons in Palworld, they have now released a full statement, saying they will ‘investigate’ the game.
We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024. We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon. We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future.
Many lawyers have since chimed in, suggesting it’d be a hard case to bring in court. We’ll see if The Pokémon Company decides to pounce or not. Meanwhile, Pocketpair has released a roadmap for the upcoming Palworld updates.
