A developer behind one of this year’s biggest surprise hits is no fan of so-called forever games. In fact, Palworld community manager John “Bucky” Buckley thinks playing the same title over and over is “not healthy” for anyone.
Spotted by VGC, Bucky chatted with YouTuber Going Indie about live-service titles and “dead” games. The developer at Pocketpair explained that there’s nothing wrong with people moving on to new games. “I don’t think you need to be kind of pushing yourself to play the same game all of the time,” Bucky said. “It’s not healthy for us. It’s not healthy for developers. It’s not healthy for gamers. It’s not healthy for the gaming media.”
Bucky worries that large companies will continue to push “soulless” live-service games. In fact, one could argue there has already been a live-service game bubble.
However, Bucky realizes there are games designed to be played for months on end, such as League of Legends, Dota 2, and the MMO genre overall. Thus, the problem is “a lot more people are trying to push gamers to play games that aren’t really designed to be played for months on end,” Buck explained.
A solution Bucky has for people is to just check out as many indie games as possible, regardless of how many others are playing it. This isn’t a new sentiment for the community manager, either. Earlier this year, the Palworld developer spoke out about the “lazy” discourse about the “Pokemon with guns” game losing concurrent players.
Palworld has been a massive success, reaching 25 million players in its first month. Pocketpair hasn’t faced any legal action from The Pokemon Company, even though lots of copying allegations were thrown at the game early on. Most recently, Pocketpair announced a partnership with Sony Music Entertainment for Palworld Entertainment Inc.
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