We gotta talk about Palworld

I remember writing a quick piece when this one was presented back in 2021, laughing it off as i thing that would be shot down by Nintendo’ lawyers.

Obviously that didn’t happen (and never will, i would assume), and since it has sold 5 million copies in the span of DAYS after releasing in Early Access this 19th of January, the company behind it being shady con merchants and the fact people are actually defending a game with “bootleg Electabuzz Totoro with gatling gun” is amazing… look, we need to talk about this.

(this is not a review, FIY, just putting this out there early)

Leaving aside the fact most likely this game doesn’t use generative AI for the “‘mons”, they look just rip-offs – sometimes literally as you can some really obvious bits of both official Pokemon designs and even fandesigns – done the ye old fashion way, and the sociopathic premise of “you can kill, cook and enslave your non-Pokemon pals” (even more sociopathical how you can catch human NPCs,) to what seems like a very basic survival and crafting game that defines the “early” in Early Access title.

One that also looks very “asset flippy” as it literal looks they recycled assets from their earlier title, Craftopia, which itself tries to ape BOTW and even “borrows” enemy designs, which already tells you these people don’t give a fuck. Just don’t, and knew exactly how to use the “we pokedo what Nintendon’t” controversial energy to get every publication to talk about it.

That much they did and played it right, because i talked about it back then, and in the time between i wrote this thing it and posted, it sold 3 more million copies for a total of 8 millions, but oddly this isn’t so much about money, per se.

This is one of the reason why people don’t take “GamersTM” seriously, because the community overall is a spinless, hypocritical wormhive, that ultimately tell on themselves, like remember the infamous “boycott Modern Warfare 2 (the original one, i mean, not the current reboot series)” list that after a pathetic string of days could see the very same people online playing Modern Warfare 2? I do.

Or the more recent hating on Cyberpunk 2077, until they released the anime and years after the sale/release they finally made the game they promised. After years of rightful lamentation, everything is forgiven, because “i do wanna play this one”, sweeping aside many justified critiques and previous vitriol, all is forgiven even though it shouldn’t because you’ve been taken for a ride.

You know, the usual stuff.

Look, i understand the boiled piss and anger at Game Freak’s later lack of any quality standards for their mainline Pokemon Games (i’ve played Scarlet/Violet on launch, for fuck’ sake, i know), but this isn’t the getting back at them you think it is, it’s just feeding a shameless company of con-men that never finish their slop, like Craftopia is still NOT out of Early Access, even their latest title is indicative of the kind of shit peddlers they are, with an Among Us -looking thing that does actually uses generative AI to “create” paintings.

I mean, them getting away with even releasing stuff like Palworld (or the mentioned art game i won’t be naming) this ain’t good, because it sends the message that “this is okay”, so prepare for a bunch of even more, even worse crap, obscuring the many actually decent, interesting Pokemon clones that have come out over the years, like the Nexomon games, Cassette Beasts, Coromon, Tem Tem, heck, go back and play Yokai Watch or Digimon games, anything is ethically better than feeding “Patrick Bateman’s Pocket Monsters”.

It’s not that hard to understand that you can both criticize Nintendo/Game Freak and be appalled by this blatant shameless skullduggery that even leaving the Pokemon clone aspect aside, reeks of shady and unfinished, to be generous, like a joke game never meant to exist that actually gets made, undoing any “joke” that might have been there.

Sometime you get people asking why Steam is such a cesspit, and honestly i’d say the userbase has some blame to shoulder, i mean, someone has to pay for the many asset flips, cheap app – and creepy ass – 3D porn games, for the “simulators” that don’t simulate shit, for the “meme games”, for the Bad Rats of the world, otherwise they would die out in obscurity as they deserve.

But they don’t, and stuff like Drug Dealer Simulator has made enough to warrant a sequel.

There’s a good chance Palworld will be another controversial release that basically everyone stops talking about once the novelty, coverage or interest peters out in a month or two, like it never existed (and yes i’m referring to “the wizard game”, which sold millions as everyone and their grandmas could predict), but in the meantime the game with dubiously legal bootlegs of Pokemon fandesigns sold 8 millions, so it’s hard to convince publishers and developers experiencing another internal industry crash to bother putting effort in your games, when Palworld exists in what will most likely be “eternal Early Access”, because why finish it when people pay en drove for unfinished garbo with a disgust for the very thought of a creative idea?

Then again, am i really surprised to see people go insane and actually making successful the videogame equivalent of that Winnie The Pooh slasher movie that came out recently (which has already made his money back and more, enough to warrant not only a sequel, but a fuckin “cinematic universe” )? Not really, but i also didn’t expect this to make Avatar sequel money bucks in a matter of days, i did not expect that, at all.

And unlike the aforementioned “Winnie The Pooh” horror movie (which i will get to eventually because i covered far worse here, so yeah, not above that), i’m absolutely not bothering with this one myself at all, not giving any money to these fucks, so unless a physical edition which i can buy used comes along eventually, don’t expect a review of this from me.

Who knows, by then maybe they will have even finished the game, weirder things have happened, and btw play it if you want, whatever, at this point it won’t really matter if 3 people don’t buy or something like that, but honestly, to me, it feels like you all lost your fuckin minds over “videogames rip-off central”, i guess that’s the point, but then again this is the game industry, and these are The Gamers, in a way there couldn’t be better synergy between the two.

This is the landscape where the brainrot spreads terminally, resulting in fucks that live alongside their own waste yelling at other people to get their shit together, and vomiting shit like “Only the customers opinion matters”, just consume, never even begin to think of thinking, fuck you.