A developer behind Baldur’s Gate 3 has offered their perspective on the success of Pocket Pair’s action adventure game, Palworld.
Speaking during an interview, Baldur’s Gate 3 Director of Publishing, Michael Douse, shared his views on the success of Palworld, comparing it to Larian Studios’ role-playing game. He wondered why everyone is surprised by the latter’s success. According to him, the development team at Pocket Pair took a bunch of mechanics they knew people liked, made a game that was unbothered by what a game should be, and gave it directly to players who decided to buy it.
Douse further stated that the logic behind Palworld’s success is “really fucking simple”, and not some kind of rocket science. As per him, analysts are confused over its success because they didn’t see it coming. He pointed out that their analysis is based on basic data sets and predictability. He predicted that they’re going to be confused a lot in the future. He added that this goes for him as well, and that he likes being confused. “We work best in chaos,” he said.
Regarding Baldur’s Gate 3’s success and the hurdles that Larian Studios had to face, Douse mentioned that those who are working on anything outside of the PC space have to “advocate very heavily for what you’re doing.” He said that the game industry is still “obsessed” with certain genres. “If you’re a guy whose job it is to say, ‘Well, what projects should we do and what are the risks?’, you’re going to look at our game and go, well, ‘It’s a fucking CRPG. Why would we take a bet on this?’” Douse believes the industry at large should start taking more bets instead of deeming risky ventures as expensive.
In related news, Pocket Pair has been in talks to bring the game to PlayStation and Nintendo platforms, and the studio is also open to acquisition.