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The conversation in the gaming sphere seems to be all about Pokemon and Palworld right now. Mainly, this talk has surrounded the plagiarism accusations concerning the creature design within Palworld, something that The Pokemon Company has made it clear it’s looking into.
It’s an important topic, and plagiarism certainly shouldn’t be taken lightly, but it would also be remiss of The Pokemon Company and Game Freak to only look at Palworld for its potential plagiarism. There needs to be a serious look at the quality of Palworld, its mechanics, and optimization even in Early Access, when compared to any recent Pokemon game, with the understanding that serious change needs to come to the beloved series before its sales begin to take a hit. Otherwise, it might be too late.
Pokemon and Palworld: Game Freak’s Bane
There may be a kind of deja vu among the veteran Pokemon fandom hearing this sentiment that “This should inspire Game Freak to do better,” it’s not the first time it’s been said. This happened with Temtem and it happened with Yokai Watch and it even happened as recently as last year with Cassette Beasts. There has been no shortage of “Pokemon killers” since the franchise rose to dominance in the ’90s and the common thread between all of them, besides the monster catching, is that none of them actually seemed to grab enough attention to faze Game Freak or The Pokemon Company in the slightest. Pokemon is still on top and, if the latest Scarlet and Violet DLC says anything about the future, it seems as though Game Freak is content to stay the course with weak releases that sell like a viral party drug.
Palworld is different, though. Palworld became the Steam game with the highest number of concurrent users of any paid title in the history of the platform within its first week of release. That’s just its Early Access release, too. The higher-ups working within the Pokemon series cannot possibly ignore those numbers, and it’s clear that they won’t.
The Future of Pokemon
With the many controversies of the Switch-era Pokemon titles and with the various features of the games coming and going throughout the years, whether loved or loathed by fans, here’s what Game Freak has made it clear is most important about the series: Pokemon Scarlet and Violet has sold over 23 million units. The latest main-series entries have broken into the best-selling Pokemon games of all time, and considering Game Freak has made it very clear how little it’s interested in fan opinion in the past, that leaves very little incentive for the series not to deliver a similar level of quality in the future.
Palworld has reached more than eight million in sales, though, which is the closest any “Pokemon killer” has ever come to reaching the heights of King Pikachu up there on his shining, golden throne. Regardless of whether or not The Pokemon Company attempts to block Pocketpair and Palworld legally, the next main series Pokemon games need to be a response of sorts. A sign from Game Freak that it understands what made players flock to Palworld. If that doesn’t happen, then the virality of Palworld could spell an exodus from its competition.
