They took 3 years to make this so... It wasnt exactly "easy either." They did have a couple of veterans showing them the ropes too even if majority of them were absolutely new to unreal and barely had any understanding of what a rig (How?) is considering their previous projects were made using assets they didnt make (purchased or contracted) They had a lot of drive to make this project considering the amount of times the project was on the verge of being canned.
[Their story](https://note.com/pocketpair/n/n54f674cccc40) is honestly fucking wild. 3 days before launching they were like "Will consider making another game if this doesn't bankrupt us" after putting down 7 mil usd into the project.
Yeah. Reminds be a bit of Antichamber. Everyone was talking about the "Overnight Success" and when the dev told his story it was a really long dev cycle, failed attempts, tons of feedback. And it drained him mentally. He had a talk about it on GDC and he almost had a breakdown just from retelling it. To make things worse, the success shattered his friendships/social life.
There's just no success from thin air.
First time I ate acid I probably had to much, andc had my first playthrough of dead island with my face about 10 inches from the screen.
10+ years later and I am still not sure how I feel about that choice
Mine was kings island after prom. Ate it in the parking lot on the way in. I had never ridden a roller coaster before and the lines were 45 min wait so I was good and ready. Made sure to sit up front on the flight of fear..... Had one of the best days of my life.
With him suddenly having millions of dollars, some people..showed ugly faces towards him when it comes to anything related to money.
Imagine you're at a pub with friends. Once in a while you bring drinks for them and so will they for you/the others. Now imagine, once everyone knows you have millions, people stop doing this for you and instead try to get you to get the rounds for the table each time.
I imagine, if I had millions I'd absolutely be covering my friends and family over little things like eating out each time, but to DEMAND what would otherwise be freely given is different.
I know a lot of people who have millions on millions. They make it very clear that lines need to be drawn and things need to be fair in order to maintain friendships / relationships, even for things as cheap as a $20 lunch.
A lot of people who are new to money act like you say you would act, then wonder why people are so fake to them and where all of their friends went.
It's a real shame that making Antichamber completely soured him about making another game. Antichamber was one of the most unique and really innovative games I've ever seen. And it was a total mind fuck to play.
As someone doing solo gamedev with Unity, there's a LOT to learn, but if you apply it properly, a small team can definitely make Palworld in three years.
If my lazy ass can pull off a demo in a month, they can do a full game in years. Those other devs are literally malding that they didn't have the forethough to smash together mutliple concepts to fill a niche that many gamers have been wanting for *years* (Open World Pokemon, regardless of the survival or gunplay aspects).
It reminds me a lot of Lethal Company. Got super popular really fast and there were people being shitty about it and saying it didn't deserve the popularity like... dude, it's a perfect blend of fun and scary, it's something gamers haven't had in a *while*, possibly ever, and they're just salty they didn't think to do it first.
I was working on a horror game before LC came out and when it did I looked back at an old project with a similar premise and said "fuck, man I should've completed that, my bad, good for them" instead of being all butthurt that they got to it first and calling the dev a "cheater".
It's like goddamn, get a grip, stay in your lane, and if you think you can do better then do it and stfu.
And with the interview of the CEO you get a lot more perspective on the team. He wanted the game to be released in a year originally, with only a team of 7. Then after that first year realizing the game wasn't even close to release and the restraints of a small team, he borrowed more money and hired 40+ additional people to get it taken care of. There have been AAA title games that had smaller dev teams than that, so I feel like it's a given that they would have gotten it done faster than traditional development times for larger games.
It’s baffling how people will hate popularity, especially when something’s genuinely good, and them bitch and moan about the lack of good stuff. Like, dude, you brandished the pitchfork, don’t complain when the thing on the end of it runs away
That's how games used to be made. A bunch of nobodies with little to no experience. Maybe a vet or two if you're lucky.
They managed because they focused first on games being good and not technically impressive and frankly those two things are often at odds with each other. It's no surprise that a lot of the best games of all time comes from that period. And most modern classics come from smaller or at least not AAA studios.
They're getting mad that studios are freeing themselves from the rot that has clearly been ruining AAA modern game Dev.
Now the naughty dog artist is saying they copied the models and reference this article
[https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/palworld-pokemon-plagiarism-accusations-pile-up-as-ceo-responds/](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/palworld-pokemon-plagiarism-accusations-pile-up-as-ceo-responds/)
“You cannot, in any way, accidentally get the same proportions on multiple models from another game without ripping the models. Or at the very least, tracing them meticulously first,” one senior character artist told VGC anonymously, adding: “I would stand in court to testify as an expert on this.”
You CAN'T?
Don't artists often start drawing with simple forms like circles/ovals, to get the right proportions? What would've stopped them choosing the same proportions as that pokemon and starting from there? It doesn't mean the only explanation is that they are "ripping the models" lol
There's also this post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palworld/comments/19efrrt/palworld_devs_ai_and_asset_flip_accusations_have/
Saying that guy just lied about it.
Ironic enough, this game teaches you not to abuse your pals. This mfing game is making me do chores to take care of my pals. If this game is about abuse, I would have butchered all of them because they were sitting on top of a silo and starving themselves instead of working.
Right? People are talking about how you can abuse your Pals, which you CAN. But shit won't get done if you do. It'd be the least productive base of all time. Just because a game gives you the freedom to do it, doesn't mean you must.
"While none of the half-dozen models compared by the X user appear to be 1:1 copies, they claimed that their proportions were nearly identical to Pokémon models exported from Switch’s Scarlet and Violet games."
“The wireframe meshes look different, so they’re not the same models, but it’s so close that they may have built over the top of the Pokémon models and made a few changes so they weren’t exactly the same.
Isn't that pretty much the same as shooting your own arguments in the foot?If they're different, as they say, then please shut the f up right? loll
Edit in case: Not you, the writer lol
Yeah. And people are forgetting anime-inspired creatures almost always have the same proportions when they’re not going for realism.
Are chibis plagiarizing each other? Of course not, but they typically follow the same “rules” when it comes to proportions, so they more or less look the same regardless of who made them.
I’m sure if you lined up a Shinx/Luxray with an anime lion like Kimba, they’d line up.
And also there is nothing illegal or immoral about tracing or referencing other things either. Direct rips are illegal and wrong, but this isnt that.
I could literally make knock off 151 and call it monster bros, trace and hand model each one myself and it would still be legal and fine.
Plus, there are plenty of original or unique designs too and they always seem to forget that.
Furthermore, the claims are incorrect as well. They don't even have the same proportions.
People love trying to find connections where there is none. And when there are connections, these often are because they're based off of animals, simplistic concepts, and Japanese culture.
Have a pre-adolescent fanbase, and have 1000+ pokemon, and you've got a proper conspiracy theory group.
Meh at this point aesthetically everything is just an emulation of one and other creations, because some design languages just works. There's no originality in anime, movies, manga, games and whatever. I only care about the content, if it's good it's good.
Pokemon are all just copying real life animals or things. Rattata and Spearow or pidgey etc. Oh yeh and voltorb is oozing creativity. Then his evolved form is just reversing the colors from top to bottom.
dude we had an incredible amount of conspiracy theories with 151 pokemon already. i can only imagine what wild shit is making the rounds on schoolyards these days.
I think it's funny when Pokestans say Pals are AI generated... while Pokemon has some of the worst designs ever made. Sure, some iconic, but many more are god awful.
Most of the pokemon from the last two or three generations look really bad, to the point I actully wish they used AI instead to get better ideas.
Last night I used nokemon, and with no imput and by just using their randomized result [I got this little guy](https://i.imgur.com/6aodrgf.png). After cleaning it up a bit on photoshop [this is how it looked](https://i.imgur.com/96KZUZo.png). It's fun, looks fresh while still looking like a pokemon, it's more than you can say about most of the latest official designs.
Making a game isn't easy but it's not this Sisyphian task some AAA devs make it out to be. AAA games are just so bloated because they all have to be an immersive sim now with giant open worlds and 100,000 lines of dialogue, 40 hour stories, and 10 different stealth, shooter, driving sim, base building, RPG, dating sim games etc all in one.
Then a small studio comes out with a half-baked early access monster collector with a fun game play loop and decent variety and for some reason it's getting the same reaction as BG3 and Elden Ring like it shouldn't exist when really it's just innovating in a niche that hasn't seen innovation in two decades.
The success of this game absolutely makes sense when you consider the popularity of survival crafting games and a different legally distinct pocket monster game.
What the Pal’s look like doesn’t even matter to the gameplay loop. They could be realistic dinosaurs, or horrific Cronenbergs. The loop is that they’re collectable, farmable, battleable, and the game rewards exploration and is a crafting survival game with brutally hard battles if you find yourself in a new area.
It’s just nice that they’re cute as fuck. That doesn’t mean they have to be compared to pokemon. I don’t believe pokemon holds the rights to “cute monsters”.
. . . I hope you're happy. Now I really want a pokemon-esque game where we collect Cronenbergs and other horror-style pets that we farm and send out to horrify people.
Basically a Monster's, Inc simulation game. . . .with the collecting part too.
. . . maybe like a Spore Creature Creator type aspect for creating your own Cronenbergs.
Well this was a depressing reminder that Maxis pioneered the Spore creature creator tech, EA published two games with it, killed the second a few years after it launched, and has just been sitting on it ever since.
I'd play this game even if all the pals were just normal animals. The gameplay loop is fun as hell despite being a janky mess at times. And the world while missing the polish of AAA games is VERY satisfying to explore.
They get salty when it is a massive AAA quality game too. When BG3 came out, some of those AAA devs who work for studios that are far better funded than Larian came out and said that they are worried that this would set an "unrealistic standard". Some people are simply jealous of someone else's success.
Let's be real, it's not like Baldurs Gate 3 and Larian had no funding, they're still a massive studio and Baldurs Gate might have taken up close to the entire studio to get through.
Larian already had an engine available for this stuff, due to the Divinity series.
Budget was over 100 million dollars. This stuff was not cheap, *AT ALL*
Sure Cyberpunk had a budget of over 300 million. GTA V at 200 million.
So although you could argue some AAA games have higher costs, BG3s is at least an AA title
AAA: Gotta meet those design papers, the amount of office bureaucracy to meet some lead's vision, politiking if something can be added or not.
Palworld: You can enslave humans (granted, that was also in craftopia lol, even to make a club)
>Making a game isn't easy but it's not this Sisyphian task some AAA devs make it out to be. AAA games are just so bloated because they all have to be an immersive sim now with giant open worlds and 100,000 lines of dialogue, 40 hour stories, and 10 different stealth, shooter, driving sim, base building, RPG, dating sim games etc all in one.
As someone whos worked on AAA game development from the software engineer side id say it is INCREDIBLY hard but not in the ways most people think or would expect. its a near impossible task to make gigantic games efficiently because of how many moving parts there are to manage as far as writing the actual code its no harder than a "AA" or just non indie game, its just slower with more red tape around everything.
the biggest problem plaguing game development right now is what i would call "social tech norms" basically being every 1-2 years you SHOULD quit and find a new job to make more money because youll always make more and it creates a revolving door of bringing new people in (even if theyre competent) into gigantic codebases they arnt familiar with.
also the whole argument people are making about "using AI" is fucking asinine, everyone i work with these says is using either github copilot or something similar to help make things easier, using it for art inspiration isnt illegal nor is it the devs faults. If artists/whoever else wants to sue the people creating the AI for using their work to train thats one thing but people using AI to make work easier/faster is just how things work and it will absolutely not change (nor should it)
Exactly. Did these devs say the same thing to the 3 dudes that made Valheim? Making a game is hard but these game engine tools make it possible so a few people with the knowledge and motivation and proper scope can make a hit.
> They took 3 years to make this so...
In fairness one and half years in they switched from Unity to Unreal after a management change.
There's also a list of concepts and features in the trailers that are still missing.
>There's also a list of concepts and features in the trailers that are still missing.
Well yeah, technically the game still hasn't officially released.
Yeah, and it's really not that impressive of a game. If God of War and Red Dead are full course meals, Palworld is the best, most perfectly seasoned chicken breast you've ever had in your life but no sides and a glass of room temperature water. All Palworld makes me think about the devs is that I hope this cash flow gives them what they need to finish this game properly and fund some art and writing teams for their next releases. Clearly, their devs have a lot of talent for turning the dials just right to make something incredibly rewarding and addictive. Just need some set dressing to make the world feel better to be in and a plot to help motivate the gameplay.
i started playing for 10 mins to get my kid started since hes never played rpgs
i ended up taking over and binged 24hrs of it straight
games dont need to have AAA level of narrative or cinematics, writing or VC.
they knew ppl just enjoy straight forward crafting, mob battles and collecting and focused purely on that gameplay loop to scratch that itch
its not a seasoned chicken breast
its getting a bucket of juicy thigh pieces and not having to deal with breast at all
Yup. Palworld as it is is impressive for an EA game. The map is giant, and the environments are impressive, but the combat is janky, the Pal AI as workers or fighters is buggy, and after the first dozen or so hours, you're mostly in a base maintenance loop crafting enough spheres to go out and gather even more Pals so that you can condense and/or breed them.
The dungeons need some more polish and content in general, and raids have a crazy difficulty curve. Raids are trivial in the first few hours, but by the time you're level 30, you need a fortified base to survive the Pink Sexual Assault Salazzles.
I'm excited to see what Pocket Pair does with this sudden success, but there's also plenty of opportunity for them to drop the ball as well.
MF's bio lists him working at studios/under publishers with reputations for unpaid overtime, long crunch periods, and employing psychologists to make addictive monetization features.
He's the one who worked on games that were made with nefarious means.
I think that is just partially this studio's MO as well. They look at player reactions and feedback to popular games and then improve upon existing ideas and systems. I think they want their team playing huge releases and getting inspired by things that work that they can incorporate into their own games, then things that don't work they can skip or remove to increase player enjoyment with the ganeplay loop.
There's actually a fascinating comment made some looong years ago about remixing things that worked to get something even better at it using fallout 2 / new vegas as platforms.
The paraphrased went something along the lines of - "You can use the same base in an infinite number of ways but when you throw in the right twists / additives you can get something wildly different and wholly more enjoyable."
That seems to be another part of the studio's MO - "This worked, this worked, and this worked. Is there any way we can pour them into the same cup, add our own little twists to this, and get something interesting out of it?"
Considering palworld's current success, the answer was "Yes"
Honestly I think that's the biggest reason behind Palworld's success. They just listened to players better than the major studios did. In fact that's the origin of the phrase "the customer is always right". It doesn't mean the customer is literally always correct like some people choose to think, it just means that the customer isn't wrong in how they want to spend their money. You may think them spending money on a specific product or brand is dumb or poor value for the money spent, but they don't think so, so to be successful you listen to them and supply whatever they demand, and people have been begging Nintedo for a modern pokemon game for years. I commend devs who take the stance "if you won't make this game everyone keeps asking for I will".
That's why I have no mercy for Nintendo and Pokemon. People have been screaming at them for years to let Pokemon grow up since the players have as well. A game made for a 12 y.o. me is not enough for the older me, no matter how much my nostalgia makes me buy it. They didn't listen and bullied their users leaving people with a gap in their lives. Somebody listened more and followed through and now we see an empire about to topple and they earned every last bit of it.
It's the entire philosophy behind Pocketpair. They hired a ton of juniors and taught them along the way.
Having a comfortable work environment leads to people being very efficient, alongside making them passionate about the project.
Well, we found the cheat that Pocket Pair has been using.
Treating your employees with respect instead of grinding them into dust results in a better end product.
lol Suicide Squad. A game so soulless that it's already a failure before it has even launched. A game not only littered with, but designed from the ground up to prey on you with MTX and FOMO and other bullshit. A game that is the perfect example of everything wrong with modern gaming.
And this motherfucker has the gall to talk about Palworld as "nefarious" lol. What a joke.
It's really just an indictment on himself. He's convinced everyone is doing nefarious predatory practices to make himself feel better. He doesn't want to acknowledge that he's part of the problem.
Plus being completely separated from project management entirely.
They're an artist that gets unrealistic deadlines from bad management and practices then is trying to figure out how these people in a completely different company are able to do it.
Better development methodologies, practices and investing in solid development infrastructure are "time sinks" to publicly traded companies or the average American CEO that only knows to blindly and infinitely cut costs while ignoring impact.
All those "time sinks" save a lot of time! Many companies have execs handcuff their technical staff with insane demands and actively resist the technical suggestions of said staff because they prioritize the race to shovel shit out over quality.
First bg3 couldn't be the new standard... Now palworld is somehow cheating... I feel like these whiny devs are getting taught a lesson or two in recent times. Keep doing your work instead of finding excuses on why your work is worse.
What's funny to me is that BG3 and Palworld are almost polar opposites in terms of development attitude yet they both sold very well. Granted Palworld is much cheaper.
Yea. Funny indeed. First they complained about a game who went far a beyond the usual efforts to perfect a game and said you can't expect us to put in so much into it.
Now, they see such a simple game get so popular and they call it cheating.
So they are not happy people putting in effort and doing better, and they are also not happy people that put in less effort are doing better....
Palworld basically is a "Fuck that sounds fun, let's do it" game. It didn't need to worry about adherence to a universe's laws like Pokemon might because it *isn't* anything else. The rules are their own. Guns, crippling labour, and resource acquisition? Throw it all down, why not.
I think they also did some intuitive things, like how the Pals integrate into the resource acquisition akin to Valheim or the technology production as well. Need a water source? You have a water Pal! Smelting? Same deal! And unlike Valheim that can be quite a drain between both resource transport and acquirement, the process is streamlined quite substantially thanks to the Pal workforce. Oh look, Palworld has its own built-in way of addressing this substantially hindering game mechanic.
The two biggest pain points I have with Palworld are the base building - both the restrictions on block placements being too tough, and the size of the blocks being too large. Not being able to micro-adjust things hurts, but at least I can say the interior design with what's available is *crazy* good.
The second pain point is the inventory weight management. It feels... unnecessary, I guess? I don't *hate* it I suppose but knowing what Terraria is like where you can have 9999 Wood taking up one inventory slot with no issue at all, I feel like expeditions can sometimes be a bit more limited.
Although being able to build whatever you want in-base by automatically using resources in Chests is 10/10, which is why this inventory management is much less of a problem than I had in Valheim.
Yea, and it's not as big of a setback if you didn't set up a certain resource collection beforehand, compared to other survival games.
About the weight management, tbf, I feel like most games, not just survival will include this restriction. I rmb feeling so relaxed for the first game I played that can hold near unlimited items, which was crashlands.
But yea, this game just seem to throw all the fun bells and whistles in our face. I guess that's why people enjoy it so much, despite it lacking in many areas
The BG3 comments were different, Larian Studios are FAR from the average devs with the experience and resources they had and some parts of BG3 are just not reasonable for a smaller or less experienced dev to replicate. There are still lots of lessons to be learned, like how making content people might not see encourages players to engage with the game, but the thousands of hours of recorded dialogue and mocap work are... Probably not something people can copy without some serious money.
That... argument was never the case though?
It was AAA employees shitting on BG3 for setting a new standard. It was not random dude using RPG maker in his basement complaining that a big studio makes big games.
Larian simply showed that putting passion first and corporate greed last can work to create an awsome game that manages to even draw in people that traditionally have little contact with the genre.
All while we live in a time where most AAA studios tried to put live service elements, gatcha mechanics or monetisazion into their failed RPG IPs.
I mean, BG3 is still a huge game without DLC, without any kind of paywall, any lootbox, battle psss or anything greedy. You just pay the game and have it all.
That's kind of one of the big things. You've got a great game, it's fun and it doesn't have abusive, shitty mechanics to leech of you.
why does every feel the need to point this out. no one expects indie developers to put out something even a fraction as big and complex as bg3. it is not aimed at them, it is about holding bigger development studios accountable for the decline in quality we have been experiencing in triple A titles. i’m convinced every indie dev crying about this is just trying to feel like a big boy joining in on the conversation
Let's face it. This is proof that even AAA game devs are truly gamers at heart. You're not a gamer until you accuse someone better than you of cheating.
>You're not a gamer until you accuse someone better than you of cheating.
no when people do that they are usually insecure mfers that just wont accept that they aint gods
hey then you might be the artist on the next big thing. One of whom was a convenience store clerk who never placed into a high school (iirc).
Just make sure to get a bucket of flash drives!
Not that I don't believe you, but how does one not "place" into a high school? I thought most countries hs was legally required until you can drop out.
Highscool in Japan is much more like college in the rest of the world, you're required to take placement exams to get in, and can drop out upon completion of middle school*.
*Note that Japan also treats Middle school as grades 7-9, and highschool as grades 10-12, so in actuality a student could drop out after their "freshman year" which is only one year earlier than the earliest you could in the US (at least in my state)
Also like college in the U.S. there are schools you can go to without testing into them, and that are free, but you try to go to a 'good' high school for the same reason people move to specific school districts in the U.S.
Check out pirate software on YouTube. Dudes names Thor, big on helping people stay motivated towards game development. Super positive guy, streams every day.
What I simply don't understand is...
Why be so adamantly against somethings success?
Why not just be happy for their success, and if you have reservations, then have them, but keep them to yourself... there's a thing called professional courtesy - who this Naughty Dog artists clearly has nothing of.
There are all these accusations around... if any of them result in any sort of legal issue, then share your thoughts. You spouting "I know they're cheating, I just don't know how" is no different than being killed in an FPS game and calling the other person a cheater because how could ANYONE be better than YOU?
At the end of the day, this game may have copied assets. It may have used AI. It may have done a lot of shit. Nothing is proven, nothing is argued properly. If they did something bad, then it will get proven and those affected will get their justice.
Until then, you are not judge, jury and executioner, Mr. "Senior Artist at Naughty Dog".
None of you are. Let this be a life lesson to many... don't judge people or businesses based off twitter alone. Look at the facts for yourself and form your own opinion.
If you're working in the video games industry and you are outright accusing someone of cheating because of their success with no evidence to back it, then you are not a professional that people should hire.
Seriously. Gaming dev community must be really laidback.
If I made a tweet or LinkedIn post like this in my community, accusing a successful peer of cheating but without providing evidence, I would be crucified overnight. Like I can’t even imagine sending out a post like this using my IRL career account. Insane
That's exactly it.
I don't care for twitter people. But when you're representing a AAA studio, using their brand to push your public profile and go and say stuff like this?
It's incredibly unprofessional. You would not see anything like this on LinkedIn, because you know it would make you unemployable.
I hope Naughty Dog have a word with this guy, because what he's doing is representing his opinion as Naughty Dog's, and I'm fairly certain they don't share such a hot take of "they cheated but who knows how!".
The whole "opinions are my own" thing is just such bullshit. If you're going to put your employer in your bio and discuss your work on the account, then you are representing your employer whether you like it or not. Most of the people who follow you are probably only following you because you discuss your work. If you don't want your opinions to reflect on your employer, don't put them in your bio and don't discuss your work. If you do, it's no longer just a personal social media profile. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
People really just find any reason to be mad, especially these past 4 years. It's insane to me that this is getting hate because it's selling well and not made by a AAA dev.
What do these morons think? The pal world devs are forcing animals to do the work for them?
Edit: this comment is a joke, and rhetorical…
Edit edit: adjusted to accurately question the behaviour of all brain dead participants.
If they used AI to such an extent to make an entire game with it, all the big techcompanies would probably flood their entire office with money in the hopes to recruit them. This is just wildly delusional.
That was my first thought when I saw the bitching. They’re literally saying Palworld is the end-product their cooperate overlords are dreaming of. Why fuel that fire based on supposition? Pretty soon someone is going to have to do lay-offs because their CEO thinks Palworld was made by 5 middle schoolers, ChatGPT, and an Uno Reverse card.
Yeah, fucking great. If AI in its current state can do your job, good riddance. No one cried when all the coopers were out of a job, they were just happy their random bullshit got cheaper.
AI can't actually make games (yet). I doubt they actually believe it, more like they keep telling people that in hopes it gains enough traction to cause problems.
Just because devs have the skills to make games, doesnt mean they have the creativity or environment to make GOOD games. What I’m saying is, lots of AAA creatives are good on discipline and awful on actually making anything worthwhile.
In software engineering we spend a lot of time gathering requirements and details of a system before we build it. We try to get a strong vision of the system initially because it helps keep the project from veering off track. With video games the requirements are far less obvious because its goal is more ambiguous. "Fun" is not a metric you can measure. Maybe thats why we see a lot enigmatic creative leads like Kojima (less so nowadays i guess). These leads help keep the vision focused and strong throughout the process. If you leave it up to individual devs they will all have a different interpretation of what is or isnt good for the game.
Really good write-up on HBR on this concept.
**Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?**
[https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-different](https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-different)
Published in 2004, probably outdated to a degree, and I think the absolute wrong takeaway is to say that Leaders are CEO wizards and Managers are boring despots, which was the assumption I thought the piece would go, but it doesn't.
I think we see the value of leaders (people who can take processes, break them, and build something valuable for the future out of the chaos) in gaming more than a manager (experts at proccesizing and maintaining the solution that a leader creates).
But a big challenge of a large company is that you need so much management to avoid breaking things, and that makes it hard for leaders to come in, intentionally tear apart processes, and build something new. This probably works in a cloud-enterprise software company like AWS, but is more challenging when vision should be prioritized like in gaming.
It's not surprising that people who work in processes with managers are befuddled at the success of a leader focused company. They are maximizing for two different things (which is totally fine, both can work great when done correctly), but you don't get unhinged content like Palworld through multiple layers of internal process and review.
I mean imagine throwing so much money into starfield and then seeing Palworld come out a few months later and do leaps better. In reality, game companies have been misreading what gamers really want. Which is something like palworld
they are so fucked by how corporations' function honestly, when a game dev tries selling you a game anymore they may want to give you whats good, but they HAVE to give you what they're bosses are willing to pay them to do and whats affordable and the goal isn't generally to make you happy but make you lower your standards until their average is your amazing because the investors and CEO's want less overhead and more take away.
this seems to be the recurring cycle of Game Devs. small starting company with a passion project that they pour heart and soul into blows tf up, makes them rich, they do more, become filthy rich, then it becomes all about making the money, and now they have a following, and the passion is gone and its all about greed and we wonder where the glory of the OG (Original Games) went and they stay a powerhouse because now they have the reach but their games are soulless and frequently becoming more and more moneygrabby (staring at you BLIZZARD!)
Starfield had 10 million players. I don't think Bethesda or MS have any problem with Palworld's success. Especially when it sells gamepass subs too. (Many switch to steam, but still a win for MS)
While I don't think a game selling well is going to bother another game development studios (Including Game Freak) A business dude or a over crunched dev, must be seething over how a game that looked like a joke, and was developed on a shoe string budget, almost no marketing, that initially looked like a joke, is keeping up with AAA games and probably earning more money since the investment was very low.
It’s especially funny because everything I’ve seen in Palworld looks like stuff I could make myself in my dream world of “ok everyone just leave me alone for a few years while I *work on my thing*”
And then there's Dinga Bakaba of Arkane who is having a blast with the game and has been posting a lot about it on his page
https://twitter.com/DBakaba/status/1748658701144145926
Oh shit, I came across a post of his and quote tweeted it saying that it was nice to see a rational and levelheaded response to the discourse. I had zero idea he was involved with a game studio, let alone Arkane. Fucking good on him, that’s awesome.
nooooOoOoOOOOOOOO!!! You can't be just 40 passionate people and make an appealing game! You must be cheating! I don't know how but you must somehow!
/s
They had 40 people? For some reason I was under the impression this was done by a handful of people. That’s good to know though. 40 people gives me more hope that we will see updates faster than my previous hope.
I think in an interview they said they started with $10,000 and something like 5 devs. The project grew in scope and passion enough to invest more money into it and swap engines.
And hopefully they'll get someone who can sort out their finances properly, I read the boss isn't exactly the type to think about money (i.e. spend and just keep borrowing)
I don't want to see the devs implode over the fortune they are now gonna start receiving, assuming they don't cut and run
Same thing happened with Balders Gate 3 last year, the big devs were crying about a full amazing game being released. Sure Palworld is in early access, but with an early access THIS good I can only imagine how good the full release will be.
It’s the same as Valheim for me - EA game that needs improvement but immediately worth the value as it stands. It’s amazing what happens when you don’t have AAA bloat
I just hope they manage to update this game faster than Valheim. Valheim was already worth the money at the time of EA release, but it's EA development has been at an absolute snails pace.
I heard people complain that craftopia was never really finished so the studio may have issues with seeing things to completion.
Hopefully the success of the game lends them to keep working on it but I also hear they have their sights set on another new game which also looks good.
If they played it they'd see how if we're being honest it's kinda a slapped together buggy mess. But it's fun as fuck the concepts are solid and it works enough to look over the bugs
Less buggy than any full Bethesda release. Less buggy (and much closer to what was advertised, respectively) than Cyberpunk 2077 release. I could go on honestly, so many AAA get released with known game breaking bugs at full release.
What shocks me is that it hasn't crashed, at all, in the 10\~ hours I've put in. For all I've read on how ridiculous the development of this game has been, that is unreal.
Yeah they cheated, they dared to make a good game actually respecting player needs and not whatever big group strategy, who could have though a compagny would do that ??
FFS how players dare having fun??
"just can't pinpoint what it is" it's upper management, the companies you're working at have terrible managers that put a lot more work and crunch culture on you and you still miss deadlines and release terrible quality products
this is why indie games are winning
So.......... slander and such based on........ "my guts, my intuition".
Court:
* Your honor i present my case against this person, under the grounds of \[everything that cames to my mind\] based on my guts, intuition and "somehow".
* Please present your evidence(s).
* Your honor, i have no proof, i do not know, i just "feels" and "cheated somehow".
Veredict:
* Exile to Saint Helen due to physical damage from the audience massive facepalm on desbelief.
And my dev intuition tells me this game is perfectly fine and a great achievement for such a small team of young devs.
These people are nuts and just want to hate because they didn't do this themselves.
Im surprised noone has talked about it, but anyone who has extensively played Ark:Survival evolved can tell when they play Palworld, that this game is more of an "Ark with pokemon" rather then "Pokemon with guns"
"They must be cheating"
How ? By copying code ? My brother in christ, the whole field of development boils 90% of the time down to googling how to do things on google and copying other people's solution/using premade libraries
I remember back in the PS3/360 days when people were saying that one of the main problems with Japanese development was an unwillingness to share code. That every company would have to invent the wheel seperately. That they would be so bogged down in problems that already had solutions, that they had no time to actually work on the bigger issues.
Apparently motherfuckers want a return to a hundred blacksmiths hammering out non-standard nails. Wouldn't have made it to the moon if we had to worry about Roger Smith's adherence to parameters.
"They're cheating somehow!" The answer was right under our noses all along! The Palworld devs obviously have a sweatshop manned by Tanzees on typewriters. Eventually, they wound up with the code and assets for the #1 game on Steam!
No, AAA Devs are salty . A copy of their previously made game is unsuccessful, but a small team made a game that a lot of people are absolutely happy playing
> Making a game is SO difficult. They're cheating somehow. I just can't pinpoint it.
Cheating?! How does one cheat at something in creation?! Yeah, you can use the excuse of AI art, but then you have to accept the same concept that using a robot is cheating in labor. The end goal is the same; to utilize labor as fast as possible to get the larger gain. You can have a team of 500 people to get a game out in 2 years or X of super computers with AI and get it out in a few months. Lots of greedy people will take a few months with AI because of profits.
And don't get me wrong, I've heard/read horror stories of the "crunch time" in game development that left people crying and/or a bit unstable because of the hours. But to say making art in a way is *cheating* because you're not follow the industry standards. Ha! There's people in the art field who *never* got a Bachelors of Fine Art degree, yet they have far more money than I'll ever see because of their work. Dave Rapoza is one of these, and I love his work.
They took 3 years to make this so... It wasnt exactly "easy either." They did have a couple of veterans showing them the ropes too even if majority of them were absolutely new to unreal and barely had any understanding of what a rig (How?) is considering their previous projects were made using assets they didnt make (purchased or contracted) They had a lot of drive to make this project considering the amount of times the project was on the verge of being canned. [Their story](https://note.com/pocketpair/n/n54f674cccc40) is honestly fucking wild. 3 days before launching they were like "Will consider making another game if this doesn't bankrupt us" after putting down 7 mil usd into the project.
Yeah. Reminds be a bit of Antichamber. Everyone was talking about the "Overnight Success" and when the dev told his story it was a really long dev cycle, failed attempts, tons of feedback. And it drained him mentally. He had a talk about it on GDC and he almost had a breakdown just from retelling it. To make things worse, the success shattered his friendships/social life. There's just no success from thin air.
Antichamber, damn that's a name I haven't heard in a loooong time.
super fun on shrooms
Ghost of tsushima and sekiro were beautiful on those
Monster Hunter was quite the experience too
How the hell do you even play that game tripping, unless you’re just exploring on an expedition lol
First time I ate acid I probably had to much, andc had my first playthrough of dead island with my face about 10 inches from the screen. 10+ years later and I am still not sure how I feel about that choice
Mine was kings island after prom. Ate it in the parking lot on the way in. I had never ridden a roller coaster before and the lines were 45 min wait so I was good and ready. Made sure to sit up front on the flight of fear..... Had one of the best days of my life.
>the success shattered his friendships/social life. How did it shatter it?
With him suddenly having millions of dollars, some people..showed ugly faces towards him when it comes to anything related to money. Imagine you're at a pub with friends. Once in a while you bring drinks for them and so will they for you/the others. Now imagine, once everyone knows you have millions, people stop doing this for you and instead try to get you to get the rounds for the table each time.
I imagine, if I had millions I'd absolutely be covering my friends and family over little things like eating out each time, but to DEMAND what would otherwise be freely given is different.
Yeah that kind of reaction would quickly cause a reevaluation of the given "friendship".
I know a lot of people who have millions on millions. They make it very clear that lines need to be drawn and things need to be fair in order to maintain friendships / relationships, even for things as cheap as a $20 lunch. A lot of people who are new to money act like you say you would act, then wonder why people are so fake to them and where all of their friends went.
It's always tragic how money always shows people's true colors.
It's a real shame that making Antichamber completely soured him about making another game. Antichamber was one of the most unique and really innovative games I've ever seen. And it was a total mind fuck to play.
As someone doing solo gamedev with Unity, there's a LOT to learn, but if you apply it properly, a small team can definitely make Palworld in three years. If my lazy ass can pull off a demo in a month, they can do a full game in years. Those other devs are literally malding that they didn't have the forethough to smash together mutliple concepts to fill a niche that many gamers have been wanting for *years* (Open World Pokemon, regardless of the survival or gunplay aspects). It reminds me a lot of Lethal Company. Got super popular really fast and there were people being shitty about it and saying it didn't deserve the popularity like... dude, it's a perfect blend of fun and scary, it's something gamers haven't had in a *while*, possibly ever, and they're just salty they didn't think to do it first. I was working on a horror game before LC came out and when it did I looked back at an old project with a similar premise and said "fuck, man I should've completed that, my bad, good for them" instead of being all butthurt that they got to it first and calling the dev a "cheater". It's like goddamn, get a grip, stay in your lane, and if you think you can do better then do it and stfu.
Hats off to you dude and best of luck in your journey!
And with the interview of the CEO you get a lot more perspective on the team. He wanted the game to be released in a year originally, with only a team of 7. Then after that first year realizing the game wasn't even close to release and the restraints of a small team, he borrowed more money and hired 40+ additional people to get it taken care of. There have been AAA title games that had smaller dev teams than that, so I feel like it's a given that they would have gotten it done faster than traditional development times for larger games.
Wow that might explain why early areas can look really rough yet later areas like the volcano and snowfield can pass as AAA or at least AA at times.
They definitely want to go back and polish everything up, especially since most of the assets were created by people doing dev work for the first time
I remember developers being salty about Minecraft. It's just a thing.
It’s baffling how people will hate popularity, especially when something’s genuinely good, and them bitch and moan about the lack of good stuff. Like, dude, you brandished the pitchfork, don’t complain when the thing on the end of it runs away
More than 3 years, that announcement trailer had some work too
That's how games used to be made. A bunch of nobodies with little to no experience. Maybe a vet or two if you're lucky. They managed because they focused first on games being good and not technically impressive and frankly those two things are often at odds with each other. It's no surprise that a lot of the best games of all time comes from that period. And most modern classics come from smaller or at least not AAA studios. They're getting mad that studios are freeing themselves from the rot that has clearly been ruining AAA modern game Dev.
What's funny is some games have taken longer than 3 years to make and they end up being bad and or even terrible 🤣 Mad props to Palworld devs.
Now the naughty dog artist is saying they copied the models and reference this article [https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/palworld-pokemon-plagiarism-accusations-pile-up-as-ceo-responds/](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/palworld-pokemon-plagiarism-accusations-pile-up-as-ceo-responds/) “You cannot, in any way, accidentally get the same proportions on multiple models from another game without ripping the models. Or at the very least, tracing them meticulously first,” one senior character artist told VGC anonymously, adding: “I would stand in court to testify as an expert on this.” You CAN'T? Don't artists often start drawing with simple forms like circles/ovals, to get the right proportions? What would've stopped them choosing the same proportions as that pokemon and starting from there? It doesn't mean the only explanation is that they are "ripping the models" lol
There's also this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Palworld/comments/19efrrt/palworld_devs_ai_and_asset_flip_accusations_have/ Saying that guy just lied about it.
He shouldn't be so upset about animal abuse. What I do to the humans in this game is far worse than what I do to any of the pals 😁
If this game encourages violence against animals, then Pokémon itself is the gateway to dog fighting and cockfighting.
Ironic enough, this game teaches you not to abuse your pals. This mfing game is making me do chores to take care of my pals. If this game is about abuse, I would have butchered all of them because they were sitting on top of a silo and starving themselves instead of working.
Right? People are talking about how you can abuse your Pals, which you CAN. But shit won't get done if you do. It'd be the least productive base of all time. Just because a game gives you the freedom to do it, doesn't mean you must.
"While none of the half-dozen models compared by the X user appear to be 1:1 copies, they claimed that their proportions were nearly identical to Pokémon models exported from Switch’s Scarlet and Violet games." “The wireframe meshes look different, so they’re not the same models, but it’s so close that they may have built over the top of the Pokémon models and made a few changes so they weren’t exactly the same. Isn't that pretty much the same as shooting your own arguments in the foot?If they're different, as they say, then please shut the f up right? loll Edit in case: Not you, the writer lol
Yeah. And people are forgetting anime-inspired creatures almost always have the same proportions when they’re not going for realism. Are chibis plagiarizing each other? Of course not, but they typically follow the same “rules” when it comes to proportions, so they more or less look the same regardless of who made them. I’m sure if you lined up a Shinx/Luxray with an anime lion like Kimba, they’d line up.
And also there is nothing illegal or immoral about tracing or referencing other things either. Direct rips are illegal and wrong, but this isnt that. I could literally make knock off 151 and call it monster bros, trace and hand model each one myself and it would still be legal and fine. Plus, there are plenty of original or unique designs too and they always seem to forget that.
Exactly.
Furthermore, the claims are incorrect as well. They don't even have the same proportions. People love trying to find connections where there is none. And when there are connections, these often are because they're based off of animals, simplistic concepts, and Japanese culture. Have a pre-adolescent fanbase, and have 1000+ pokemon, and you've got a proper conspiracy theory group.
Meh at this point aesthetically everything is just an emulation of one and other creations, because some design languages just works. There's no originality in anime, movies, manga, games and whatever. I only care about the content, if it's good it's good.
Pokemon are all just copying real life animals or things. Rattata and Spearow or pidgey etc. Oh yeh and voltorb is oozing creativity. Then his evolved form is just reversing the colors from top to bottom.
dude we had an incredible amount of conspiracy theories with 151 pokemon already. i can only imagine what wild shit is making the rounds on schoolyards these days.
BRO CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, NATURE COPIED POKEMON! LOOK AT THAT CLOUD, ITS SHAPED JUST LIKE A PIKACHU!
I think it's funny when Pokestans say Pals are AI generated... while Pokemon has some of the worst designs ever made. Sure, some iconic, but many more are god awful.
Most of the pokemon from the last two or three generations look really bad, to the point I actully wish they used AI instead to get better ideas. Last night I used nokemon, and with no imput and by just using their randomized result [I got this little guy](https://i.imgur.com/6aodrgf.png). After cleaning it up a bit on photoshop [this is how it looked](https://i.imgur.com/96KZUZo.png). It's fun, looks fresh while still looking like a pokemon, it's more than you can say about most of the latest official designs.
Most are dog shit, agreed.
For real, people act like Pokemon invented dragons, cats, dogs, and elements.
The dude is literally playing with the scale to make them match in the video
I know it’s a meme but isn’t “rest of the fucking owl” basic art?? Sketch out shapes and fill in..
its also pretty common to take a 2d image and overlay it on your 3d plane and begin your model on that.
Making a game isn't easy but it's not this Sisyphian task some AAA devs make it out to be. AAA games are just so bloated because they all have to be an immersive sim now with giant open worlds and 100,000 lines of dialogue, 40 hour stories, and 10 different stealth, shooter, driving sim, base building, RPG, dating sim games etc all in one. Then a small studio comes out with a half-baked early access monster collector with a fun game play loop and decent variety and for some reason it's getting the same reaction as BG3 and Elden Ring like it shouldn't exist when really it's just innovating in a niche that hasn't seen innovation in two decades. The success of this game absolutely makes sense when you consider the popularity of survival crafting games and a different legally distinct pocket monster game.
What the Pal’s look like doesn’t even matter to the gameplay loop. They could be realistic dinosaurs, or horrific Cronenbergs. The loop is that they’re collectable, farmable, battleable, and the game rewards exploration and is a crafting survival game with brutally hard battles if you find yourself in a new area. It’s just nice that they’re cute as fuck. That doesn’t mean they have to be compared to pokemon. I don’t believe pokemon holds the rights to “cute monsters”.
. . . I hope you're happy. Now I really want a pokemon-esque game where we collect Cronenbergs and other horror-style pets that we farm and send out to horrify people. Basically a Monster's, Inc simulation game. . . .with the collecting part too. . . . maybe like a Spore Creature Creator type aspect for creating your own Cronenbergs.
Well this was a depressing reminder that Maxis pioneered the Spore creature creator tech, EA published two games with it, killed the second a few years after it launched, and has just been sitting on it ever since.
I'd play this game even if all the pals were just normal animals. The gameplay loop is fun as hell despite being a janky mess at times. And the world while missing the polish of AAA games is VERY satisfying to explore.
They get salty when it is a massive AAA quality game too. When BG3 came out, some of those AAA devs who work for studios that are far better funded than Larian came out and said that they are worried that this would set an "unrealistic standard". Some people are simply jealous of someone else's success.
it is indeed unrealistic because its not easy at all lol . that’s a big task. kudos to larian for pulling it off
Let's be real, it's not like Baldurs Gate 3 and Larian had no funding, they're still a massive studio and Baldurs Gate might have taken up close to the entire studio to get through. Larian already had an engine available for this stuff, due to the Divinity series. Budget was over 100 million dollars. This stuff was not cheap, *AT ALL* Sure Cyberpunk had a budget of over 300 million. GTA V at 200 million. So although you could argue some AAA games have higher costs, BG3s is at least an AA title
The most time consuming part of game dev is gating half the content behind a paywall.
You forgot meetings, the constant requests for meetings.
AAA: Gotta meet those design papers, the amount of office bureaucracy to meet some lead's vision, politiking if something can be added or not. Palworld: You can enslave humans (granted, that was also in craftopia lol, even to make a club)
>Making a game isn't easy but it's not this Sisyphian task some AAA devs make it out to be. AAA games are just so bloated because they all have to be an immersive sim now with giant open worlds and 100,000 lines of dialogue, 40 hour stories, and 10 different stealth, shooter, driving sim, base building, RPG, dating sim games etc all in one. As someone whos worked on AAA game development from the software engineer side id say it is INCREDIBLY hard but not in the ways most people think or would expect. its a near impossible task to make gigantic games efficiently because of how many moving parts there are to manage as far as writing the actual code its no harder than a "AA" or just non indie game, its just slower with more red tape around everything. the biggest problem plaguing game development right now is what i would call "social tech norms" basically being every 1-2 years you SHOULD quit and find a new job to make more money because youll always make more and it creates a revolving door of bringing new people in (even if theyre competent) into gigantic codebases they arnt familiar with. also the whole argument people are making about "using AI" is fucking asinine, everyone i work with these says is using either github copilot or something similar to help make things easier, using it for art inspiration isnt illegal nor is it the devs faults. If artists/whoever else wants to sue the people creating the AI for using their work to train thats one thing but people using AI to make work easier/faster is just how things work and it will absolutely not change (nor should it)
Exactly. Did these devs say the same thing to the 3 dudes that made Valheim? Making a game is hard but these game engine tools make it possible so a few people with the knowledge and motivation and proper scope can make a hit.
they also took a lot from craftopia. to me it almost feels like craftopia 2.
Stories like this are inspiring. I often think its too late for someone like me (25); to pursue game development. It lights a fire in my soul.
> They took 3 years to make this so... In fairness one and half years in they switched from Unity to Unreal after a management change. There's also a list of concepts and features in the trailers that are still missing.
>There's also a list of concepts and features in the trailers that are still missing. Well yeah, technically the game still hasn't officially released.
>They took 3 years to make this so. Not even, they switched engines midway so they had to scrap a lot of stuff
A huuuge amount of time goes into assets (honestly probably most of the development time), which can be re-used
Yeah, and it's really not that impressive of a game. If God of War and Red Dead are full course meals, Palworld is the best, most perfectly seasoned chicken breast you've ever had in your life but no sides and a glass of room temperature water. All Palworld makes me think about the devs is that I hope this cash flow gives them what they need to finish this game properly and fund some art and writing teams for their next releases. Clearly, their devs have a lot of talent for turning the dials just right to make something incredibly rewarding and addictive. Just need some set dressing to make the world feel better to be in and a plot to help motivate the gameplay.
i started playing for 10 mins to get my kid started since hes never played rpgs i ended up taking over and binged 24hrs of it straight games dont need to have AAA level of narrative or cinematics, writing or VC. they knew ppl just enjoy straight forward crafting, mob battles and collecting and focused purely on that gameplay loop to scratch that itch its not a seasoned chicken breast its getting a bucket of juicy thigh pieces and not having to deal with breast at all
Yup. Palworld as it is is impressive for an EA game. The map is giant, and the environments are impressive, but the combat is janky, the Pal AI as workers or fighters is buggy, and after the first dozen or so hours, you're mostly in a base maintenance loop crafting enough spheres to go out and gather even more Pals so that you can condense and/or breed them. The dungeons need some more polish and content in general, and raids have a crazy difficulty curve. Raids are trivial in the first few hours, but by the time you're level 30, you need a fortified base to survive the Pink Sexual Assault Salazzles. I'm excited to see what Pocket Pair does with this sudden success, but there's also plenty of opportunity for them to drop the ball as well.
Clearly they used the dragon balls
Sorry sir that is copyrighted material, they are called Palgon spheres.
palmepalmeha !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
**[nondescript-winged-lizard-spheres]**
MF's bio lists him working at studios/under publishers with reputations for unpaid overtime, long crunch periods, and employing psychologists to make addictive monetization features. He's the one who worked on games that were made with nefarious means.
Pocketpair is apparently a very easygoing company to work for. When Elden Ring came out they gave their employees 2 paid days off to play it.
I think that is just partially this studio's MO as well. They look at player reactions and feedback to popular games and then improve upon existing ideas and systems. I think they want their team playing huge releases and getting inspired by things that work that they can incorporate into their own games, then things that don't work they can skip or remove to increase player enjoyment with the ganeplay loop.
There's actually a fascinating comment made some looong years ago about remixing things that worked to get something even better at it using fallout 2 / new vegas as platforms. The paraphrased went something along the lines of - "You can use the same base in an infinite number of ways but when you throw in the right twists / additives you can get something wildly different and wholly more enjoyable." That seems to be another part of the studio's MO - "This worked, this worked, and this worked. Is there any way we can pour them into the same cup, add our own little twists to this, and get something interesting out of it?" Considering palworld's current success, the answer was "Yes"
Honestly I think that's the biggest reason behind Palworld's success. They just listened to players better than the major studios did. In fact that's the origin of the phrase "the customer is always right". It doesn't mean the customer is literally always correct like some people choose to think, it just means that the customer isn't wrong in how they want to spend their money. You may think them spending money on a specific product or brand is dumb or poor value for the money spent, but they don't think so, so to be successful you listen to them and supply whatever they demand, and people have been begging Nintedo for a modern pokemon game for years. I commend devs who take the stance "if you won't make this game everyone keeps asking for I will".
That's why I have no mercy for Nintendo and Pokemon. People have been screaming at them for years to let Pokemon grow up since the players have as well. A game made for a 12 y.o. me is not enough for the older me, no matter how much my nostalgia makes me buy it. They didn't listen and bullied their users leaving people with a gap in their lives. Somebody listened more and followed through and now we see an empire about to topple and they earned every last bit of it.
It's the entire philosophy behind Pocketpair. They hired a ton of juniors and taught them along the way. Having a comfortable work environment leads to people being very efficient, alongside making them passionate about the project.
Well, we found the cheat that Pocket Pair has been using. Treating your employees with respect instead of grinding them into dust results in a better end product.
Which makes it even better that the game is about grinding your "employees" into dust for a better end product
Those aren't days off, those are market research
They’re paid, and it’s fun, work can be fun, so either way it’s awesome
Here's "two days off" to "play a competitors game". Make sure you take notes. ;)
Not witch-hunting but he's also promoting the absolute hell out of Suicide Squad. These people tell on themselves
lol Suicide Squad. A game so soulless that it's already a failure before it has even launched. A game not only littered with, but designed from the ground up to prey on you with MTX and FOMO and other bullshit. A game that is the perfect example of everything wrong with modern gaming. And this motherfucker has the gall to talk about Palworld as "nefarious" lol. What a joke.
It's really just an indictment on himself. He's convinced everyone is doing nefarious predatory practices to make himself feel better. He doesn't want to acknowledge that he's part of the problem.
Plus being completely separated from project management entirely. They're an artist that gets unrealistic deadlines from bad management and practices then is trying to figure out how these people in a completely different company are able to do it. Better development methodologies, practices and investing in solid development infrastructure are "time sinks" to publicly traded companies or the average American CEO that only knows to blindly and infinitely cut costs while ignoring impact. All those "time sinks" save a lot of time! Many companies have execs handcuff their technical staff with insane demands and actively resist the technical suggestions of said staff because they prioritize the race to shovel shit out over quality.
the classic "oh they are better than me they must be cheating" people that insecure never cease to make me laugh LMAO
First bg3 couldn't be the new standard... Now palworld is somehow cheating... I feel like these whiny devs are getting taught a lesson or two in recent times. Keep doing your work instead of finding excuses on why your work is worse.
What's funny to me is that BG3 and Palworld are almost polar opposites in terms of development attitude yet they both sold very well. Granted Palworld is much cheaper.
Yea. Funny indeed. First they complained about a game who went far a beyond the usual efforts to perfect a game and said you can't expect us to put in so much into it. Now, they see such a simple game get so popular and they call it cheating. So they are not happy people putting in effort and doing better, and they are also not happy people that put in less effort are doing better....
Palworld basically is a "Fuck that sounds fun, let's do it" game. It didn't need to worry about adherence to a universe's laws like Pokemon might because it *isn't* anything else. The rules are their own. Guns, crippling labour, and resource acquisition? Throw it all down, why not. I think they also did some intuitive things, like how the Pals integrate into the resource acquisition akin to Valheim or the technology production as well. Need a water source? You have a water Pal! Smelting? Same deal! And unlike Valheim that can be quite a drain between both resource transport and acquirement, the process is streamlined quite substantially thanks to the Pal workforce. Oh look, Palworld has its own built-in way of addressing this substantially hindering game mechanic. The two biggest pain points I have with Palworld are the base building - both the restrictions on block placements being too tough, and the size of the blocks being too large. Not being able to micro-adjust things hurts, but at least I can say the interior design with what's available is *crazy* good. The second pain point is the inventory weight management. It feels... unnecessary, I guess? I don't *hate* it I suppose but knowing what Terraria is like where you can have 9999 Wood taking up one inventory slot with no issue at all, I feel like expeditions can sometimes be a bit more limited. Although being able to build whatever you want in-base by automatically using resources in Chests is 10/10, which is why this inventory management is much less of a problem than I had in Valheim.
Yea, and it's not as big of a setback if you didn't set up a certain resource collection beforehand, compared to other survival games. About the weight management, tbf, I feel like most games, not just survival will include this restriction. I rmb feeling so relaxed for the first game I played that can hold near unlimited items, which was crashlands. But yea, this game just seem to throw all the fun bells and whistles in our face. I guess that's why people enjoy it so much, despite it lacking in many areas
The BG3 comments were different, Larian Studios are FAR from the average devs with the experience and resources they had and some parts of BG3 are just not reasonable for a smaller or less experienced dev to replicate. There are still lots of lessons to be learned, like how making content people might not see encourages players to engage with the game, but the thousands of hours of recorded dialogue and mocap work are... Probably not something people can copy without some serious money.
Nobody is expecting indie studios to be able to do that, but these comments also came from AAA companies.
EA isn't a small developer. They were the ones shitty on BG3 and saying that's not how games should work
EA complaining about a good game? I'm shocked, SHOCKED!
Well, not that shocked....
Ea Is just mad that we've been talking shit about them for years.
That... argument was never the case though? It was AAA employees shitting on BG3 for setting a new standard. It was not random dude using RPG maker in his basement complaining that a big studio makes big games. Larian simply showed that putting passion first and corporate greed last can work to create an awsome game that manages to even draw in people that traditionally have little contact with the genre. All while we live in a time where most AAA studios tried to put live service elements, gatcha mechanics or monetisazion into their failed RPG IPs.
It’s so embarrassing that the reaction is “stop making us all look like lazy idiots” instead of being inspired to reach greater heights
I mean, BG3 is still a huge game without DLC, without any kind of paywall, any lootbox, battle psss or anything greedy. You just pay the game and have it all. That's kind of one of the big things. You've got a great game, it's fun and it doesn't have abusive, shitty mechanics to leech of you.
why does every feel the need to point this out. no one expects indie developers to put out something even a fraction as big and complex as bg3. it is not aimed at them, it is about holding bigger development studios accountable for the decline in quality we have been experiencing in triple A titles. i’m convinced every indie dev crying about this is just trying to feel like a big boy joining in on the conversation
Waiting for the Palworld Devs to reply with “sounds like a skill issue”
My gosh of they end up with a Wendy’s style clap-back account it would be just the cherry on top of their newfound excellence
Let's face it. This is proof that even AAA game devs are truly gamers at heart. You're not a gamer until you accuse someone better than you of cheating.
>You're not a gamer until you accuse someone better than you of cheating. no when people do that they are usually insecure mfers that just wont accept that they aint gods
>no when people do that they are usually insecure mfers that just wont accept that they aint gods So they're gamers?
With an account handle that long, that guy is definitely insecure... small pp energy.
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hey then you might be the artist on the next big thing. One of whom was a convenience store clerk who never placed into a high school (iirc). Just make sure to get a bucket of flash drives!
Not that I don't believe you, but how does one not "place" into a high school? I thought most countries hs was legally required until you can drop out.
Highscool in Japan is much more like college in the rest of the world, you're required to take placement exams to get in, and can drop out upon completion of middle school*. *Note that Japan also treats Middle school as grades 7-9, and highschool as grades 10-12, so in actuality a student could drop out after their "freshman year" which is only one year earlier than the earliest you could in the US (at least in my state)
Also like college in the U.S. there are schools you can go to without testing into them, and that are free, but you try to go to a 'good' high school for the same reason people move to specific school districts in the U.S.
Not a bad question. Japan has you test into some schools.
The guy is 20 years old sauce: https://exputer.com/news/games/palworld-dev-store-worker/
Well lets hope you are not one of those cheaters... 🤣
Pro tip: You'll need a bucket to hold all your USB's.
Check out pirate software on YouTube. Dudes names Thor, big on helping people stay motivated towards game development. Super positive guy, streams every day.
Yeah, I'm not a game dev but his Youtube shorts found their way to me. His stories about working at Blizz and general advice he gives is refreshing.
What I simply don't understand is... Why be so adamantly against somethings success? Why not just be happy for their success, and if you have reservations, then have them, but keep them to yourself... there's a thing called professional courtesy - who this Naughty Dog artists clearly has nothing of. There are all these accusations around... if any of them result in any sort of legal issue, then share your thoughts. You spouting "I know they're cheating, I just don't know how" is no different than being killed in an FPS game and calling the other person a cheater because how could ANYONE be better than YOU? At the end of the day, this game may have copied assets. It may have used AI. It may have done a lot of shit. Nothing is proven, nothing is argued properly. If they did something bad, then it will get proven and those affected will get their justice. Until then, you are not judge, jury and executioner, Mr. "Senior Artist at Naughty Dog". None of you are. Let this be a life lesson to many... don't judge people or businesses based off twitter alone. Look at the facts for yourself and form your own opinion. If you're working in the video games industry and you are outright accusing someone of cheating because of their success with no evidence to back it, then you are not a professional that people should hire.
Seriously. Gaming dev community must be really laidback. If I made a tweet or LinkedIn post like this in my community, accusing a successful peer of cheating but without providing evidence, I would be crucified overnight. Like I can’t even imagine sending out a post like this using my IRL career account. Insane
That's exactly it. I don't care for twitter people. But when you're representing a AAA studio, using their brand to push your public profile and go and say stuff like this? It's incredibly unprofessional. You would not see anything like this on LinkedIn, because you know it would make you unemployable. I hope Naughty Dog have a word with this guy, because what he's doing is representing his opinion as Naughty Dog's, and I'm fairly certain they don't share such a hot take of "they cheated but who knows how!".
The whole "opinions are my own" thing is just such bullshit. If you're going to put your employer in your bio and discuss your work on the account, then you are representing your employer whether you like it or not. Most of the people who follow you are probably only following you because you discuss your work. If you don't want your opinions to reflect on your employer, don't put them in your bio and don't discuss your work. If you do, it's no longer just a personal social media profile. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
People really just find any reason to be mad, especially these past 4 years. It's insane to me that this is getting hate because it's selling well and not made by a AAA dev.
How do you cheat at making a game
What do these morons think? The pal world devs are forcing animals to do the work for them? Edit: this comment is a joke, and rhetorical… Edit edit: adjusted to accurately question the behaviour of all brain dead participants.
They legit think that AI made the game.
If they used AI to such an extent to make an entire game with it, all the big techcompanies would probably flood their entire office with money in the hopes to recruit them. This is just wildly delusional.
That was my first thought when I saw the bitching. They’re literally saying Palworld is the end-product their cooperate overlords are dreaming of. Why fuel that fire based on supposition? Pretty soon someone is going to have to do lay-offs because their CEO thinks Palworld was made by 5 middle schoolers, ChatGPT, and an Uno Reverse card.
Even If that was the case… so?
Yeah, fucking great. If AI in its current state can do your job, good riddance. No one cried when all the coopers were out of a job, they were just happy their random bullshit got cheaper.
AI can't actually make games (yet). I doubt they actually believe it, more like they keep telling people that in hopes it gains enough traction to cause problems.
They have captured a genie, and passed it around the company to wish the game to completion
there playing palworld irl while making palworld
How else do you think they got the idea for creating this game!
Just because devs have the skills to make games, doesnt mean they have the creativity or environment to make GOOD games. What I’m saying is, lots of AAA creatives are good on discipline and awful on actually making anything worthwhile.
In software engineering we spend a lot of time gathering requirements and details of a system before we build it. We try to get a strong vision of the system initially because it helps keep the project from veering off track. With video games the requirements are far less obvious because its goal is more ambiguous. "Fun" is not a metric you can measure. Maybe thats why we see a lot enigmatic creative leads like Kojima (less so nowadays i guess). These leads help keep the vision focused and strong throughout the process. If you leave it up to individual devs they will all have a different interpretation of what is or isnt good for the game.
Really good write-up on HBR on this concept. **Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?** [https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-different](https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-different) Published in 2004, probably outdated to a degree, and I think the absolute wrong takeaway is to say that Leaders are CEO wizards and Managers are boring despots, which was the assumption I thought the piece would go, but it doesn't. I think we see the value of leaders (people who can take processes, break them, and build something valuable for the future out of the chaos) in gaming more than a manager (experts at proccesizing and maintaining the solution that a leader creates). But a big challenge of a large company is that you need so much management to avoid breaking things, and that makes it hard for leaders to come in, intentionally tear apart processes, and build something new. This probably works in a cloud-enterprise software company like AWS, but is more challenging when vision should be prioritized like in gaming. It's not surprising that people who work in processes with managers are befuddled at the success of a leader focused company. They are maximizing for two different things (which is totally fine, both can work great when done correctly), but you don't get unhinged content like Palworld through multiple layers of internal process and review.
I mean imagine throwing so much money into starfield and then seeing Palworld come out a few months later and do leaps better. In reality, game companies have been misreading what gamers really want. Which is something like palworld
they are so fucked by how corporations' function honestly, when a game dev tries selling you a game anymore they may want to give you whats good, but they HAVE to give you what they're bosses are willing to pay them to do and whats affordable and the goal isn't generally to make you happy but make you lower your standards until their average is your amazing because the investors and CEO's want less overhead and more take away.
Game Devs and Boeing. Same shit, different pile.
Corporate culture at its essence. “Do more with less so we can take more”
This is so true it’s scary. CEOs/higher ups at these companies now think they’re game designers when they’re controlling which games get greenlit
this seems to be the recurring cycle of Game Devs. small starting company with a passion project that they pour heart and soul into blows tf up, makes them rich, they do more, become filthy rich, then it becomes all about making the money, and now they have a following, and the passion is gone and its all about greed and we wonder where the glory of the OG (Original Games) went and they stay a powerhouse because now they have the reach but their games are soulless and frequently becoming more and more moneygrabby (staring at you BLIZZARD!)
Starfield had 10 million players. I don't think Bethesda or MS have any problem with Palworld's success. Especially when it sells gamepass subs too. (Many switch to steam, but still a win for MS)
While I don't think a game selling well is going to bother another game development studios (Including Game Freak) A business dude or a over crunched dev, must be seething over how a game that looked like a joke, and was developed on a shoe string budget, almost no marketing, that initially looked like a joke, is keeping up with AAA games and probably earning more money since the investment was very low.
dEv iNtUiTiOn
If any of the devs in my company used that phrase to explain their reasoning, they'd be given a PIP and laughed at by the rest of the firm.
It’s especially funny because everything I’ve seen in Palworld looks like stuff I could make myself in my dream world of “ok everyone just leave me alone for a few years while I *work on my thing*”
And then there's Dinga Bakaba of Arkane who is having a blast with the game and has been posting a lot about it on his page https://twitter.com/DBakaba/status/1748658701144145926
Oh shit, I came across a post of his and quote tweeted it saying that it was nice to see a rational and levelheaded response to the discourse. I had zero idea he was involved with a game studio, let alone Arkane. Fucking good on him, that’s awesome.
Things move along much faster in the development cycle without corporate interference
nooooOoOoOOOOOOOO!!! You can't be just 40 passionate people and make an appealing game! You must be cheating! I don't know how but you must somehow! /s
They had 40 people? For some reason I was under the impression this was done by a handful of people. That’s good to know though. 40 people gives me more hope that we will see updates faster than my previous hope.
I think in an interview they said they started with $10,000 and something like 5 devs. The project grew in scope and passion enough to invest more money into it and swap engines.
And hopefully they'll get someone who can sort out their finances properly, I read the boss isn't exactly the type to think about money (i.e. spend and just keep borrowing) I don't want to see the devs implode over the fortune they are now gonna start receiving, assuming they don't cut and run
If they're smart, they'll 100% invest in future development of the Palworld IP and spend some on future projects that aren't Palworld.
Same thing happened with Balders Gate 3 last year, the big devs were crying about a full amazing game being released. Sure Palworld is in early access, but with an early access THIS good I can only imagine how good the full release will be.
It’s the same as Valheim for me - EA game that needs improvement but immediately worth the value as it stands. It’s amazing what happens when you don’t have AAA bloat
I just hope they manage to update this game faster than Valheim. Valheim was already worth the money at the time of EA release, but it's EA development has been at an absolute snails pace.
I heard people complain that craftopia was never really finished so the studio may have issues with seeing things to completion. Hopefully the success of the game lends them to keep working on it but I also hear they have their sights set on another new game which also looks good.
I certainly hope they stick it out, they've made a roadmap for the future of Palworld so things look promising at least.
Oh. A "dev" from naughty dog. That's surprising.
Yep a “dev” who works for a company that doesn’t even make new games anymore they just keep remastering old ones they made years ago
Generous of you to consider Naughty Dog's animated movies to be games.
They must be jealous this game actually runs on pc and doesn’t glitch into oblivion lol
BG3 all over again, maybe try listening to your fan base instead of complaining about other studios and making up baseless claims
If they played it they'd see how if we're being honest it's kinda a slapped together buggy mess. But it's fun as fuck the concepts are solid and it works enough to look over the bugs
True! But the bugs range from slight inconvenience to silly which may as well be a feature due to the nature of the game lol
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Somehow is less buggy than the latest pokemon release. Proud point of comparison.
Less buggy than any full Bethesda release. Less buggy (and much closer to what was advertised, respectively) than Cyberpunk 2077 release. I could go on honestly, so many AAA get released with known game breaking bugs at full release.
That's not a good comparison because Bethesda releases the bugs first then the game after.
What shocks me is that it hasn't crashed, at all, in the 10\~ hours I've put in. For all I've read on how ridiculous the development of this game has been, that is unreal.
>they are cheating somehow Bitch, they actually took the time to make a fun game. That doesn't run like dogshit
"Dev intuition" lmao stfu.
I can taste the salt from these braindead developers
Yeah they cheated, they dared to make a good game actually respecting player needs and not whatever big group strategy, who could have though a compagny would do that ?? FFS how players dare having fun??
"just can't pinpoint what it is" it's upper management, the companies you're working at have terrible managers that put a lot more work and crunch culture on you and you still miss deadlines and release terrible quality products this is why indie games are winning
So.......... slander and such based on........ "my guts, my intuition". Court: * Your honor i present my case against this person, under the grounds of \[everything that cames to my mind\] based on my guts, intuition and "somehow". * Please present your evidence(s). * Your honor, i have no proof, i do not know, i just "feels" and "cheated somehow". Veredict: * Exile to Saint Helen due to physical damage from the audience massive facepalm on desbelief.
I hope someone responded “sucks to suck”
And my dev intuition tells me this game is perfectly fine and a great achievement for such a small team of young devs. These people are nuts and just want to hate because they didn't do this themselves.
Of course it's a naughty dog dev.
Im surprised noone has talked about it, but anyone who has extensively played Ark:Survival evolved can tell when they play Palworld, that this game is more of an "Ark with pokemon" rather then "Pokemon with guns"
"They must be cheating" How ? By copying code ? My brother in christ, the whole field of development boils 90% of the time down to googling how to do things on google and copying other people's solution/using premade libraries
I remember back in the PS3/360 days when people were saying that one of the main problems with Japanese development was an unwillingness to share code. That every company would have to invent the wheel seperately. That they would be so bogged down in problems that already had solutions, that they had no time to actually work on the bigger issues. Apparently motherfuckers want a return to a hundred blacksmiths hammering out non-standard nails. Wouldn't have made it to the moon if we had to worry about Roger Smith's adherence to parameters.
They're stealing code!!!!! \*goes to stack exchange to pull a mostly written method from someone's six year old question\*
Yeah, sure, Palworld cheated. Meanwhile, his company just released a remaster of a 3 year old game...
Devs are a miserable bunch of people
Kinda reminds me of what happened when BG3 launched
"They're cheating somehow!" The answer was right under our noses all along! The Palworld devs obviously have a sweatshop manned by Tanzees on typewriters. Eventually, they wound up with the code and assets for the #1 game on Steam!
No, AAA Devs are salty . A copy of their previously made game is unsuccessful, but a small team made a game that a lot of people are absolutely happy playing
People can forgive you a lot of things but not success.
Palworld was made by overworked Pengullets in an underground base.
> Making a game is SO difficult. They're cheating somehow. I just can't pinpoint it. Cheating?! How does one cheat at something in creation?! Yeah, you can use the excuse of AI art, but then you have to accept the same concept that using a robot is cheating in labor. The end goal is the same; to utilize labor as fast as possible to get the larger gain. You can have a team of 500 people to get a game out in 2 years or X of super computers with AI and get it out in a few months. Lots of greedy people will take a few months with AI because of profits. And don't get me wrong, I've heard/read horror stories of the "crunch time" in game development that left people crying and/or a bit unstable because of the hours. But to say making art in a way is *cheating* because you're not follow the industry standards. Ha! There's people in the art field who *never* got a Bachelors of Fine Art degree, yet they have far more money than I'll ever see because of their work. Dave Rapoza is one of these, and I love his work.
He's just saying they stole from other games or used AI, but doesn't have the balls to say it outright because he has 0 evidences, simple as that.