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Yeah, you're prone to having one of the biggest drops when you've got one of the biggest peaks. What a garbage article.
Palworld’s next update and early access roadmap are already on the cards, so it’s now up to Pocketpair to keep supporting the game and listening to players to keep them hooked.
NO IT'S NOT. The only thing it's on them to do is to finish it. They sell the game for $30, and this is not a live service game. They don't need to keep anyone hooked.
not to speak for anyone what they ment but I took hooked the saw way I see satisfactory. keeping engment high by taking in feedback to make a really good end product. not use exploitive tricks to get people addicted to something that is not fun.
It's hard for me to take it that way when the author is citing player count numbers in the headline as though that matters at all in a game with finite content and a low cost of entry. Even you using the word "engagement" in what's meant to be an innocent way just has me thinking about how live service games have poisoned the way people speak and think about video games.
your statement about live service poisoning the way people talk about game updates we can both agree on that.
I mean, as it stands now, there's no gameplay other than "build up base", "collect all monsters" and "level up". End game is non-existent. It needs something more or it absolutely will die. There's been a million open world survival games that have come and gone for the same reason. This very well could just be a flash in the pan, largely held up by hype more than anything.
I can't think of a game that I've played and enjoyed that had an "end game" except rolling credits, and that's totally fine. Flashes in the pan are totally fine. The game can't "die" as long as a single person wants to play it, because it's playable regardless of the presence of the company's servers.
I can definitely think of quite a few non-live-service games with an "end game" that I've enjoyed:
All of them are either offline or have offline modes available. All of them have potentially infinite "content" if you're the sort of person who like optimising, or just being able to set yourself new targets. They're all enjoyable to play for their "campaigns" alone, but they also have very strong sandboxes that players can continue to engage with even after the game stops giving them objectives.
I don't necessarily disagree with your overall sentiment, though. I think MMO-style "end games" where you login for your daily, time-gated quests and do the same thing you always do with no variation or sense of progression (be it narrative, emotional, build-related or some other kind of progression) isn't necessarily healthy. And I dislike the way "end games" have tended to move away from being optional post-game content for people who aren't ready to finish playing yet and instead are often viewed as the main game that you have to get through the sorry excuse for a campaign/story to access.
Factorio is definitely the one I had in mind, especially since it's the game I've played most similar to Palworld, and that game is over for me once I've launched the rocket. I did do that twice though, with two very different factory designs. If I'm not compelled to play Palworld two different ways, I'll still have gotten my money's worth.
that game is over for me once I've launched the rocket
Ahh, well that definitely isn't the case for me! I usually keep playing long after I've launched the first rocket. For me, launching the rocket is a somewhat arbitrary "ending"; it's a good objective for people to focus on - especially new players - but I don't think anything really changes before or after the rocket launch in terms of gameplay loop (and there's no narrative to change). Just like before the rocket launch, there are still things to optimise, new ways to build, etc, (some of which are supported by the science you get from launching rockets, in fact).
I suppose it partially comes down to whether you're an objective-driven player or someone who enjoys the process. For me, it's all about the process/journey, and the objectives are more of a guide than anything. If the objectives are complete and I'm still enjoying the process, and there's still room for me to enjoy the process, then I'll keep playing.
You are right, but is it any different for games like Ark, Conan, VRising, Rust or any other sandbox builder focused on multiplayer? It's always just a farm-build-collect-repeat cycle. It's why I get bored of them easily at least, the only games in that genre that can usually keep my attention are Factorio and Valheim.
Gotta say, this one's preeetty simple:
Game comes out
People play game
People play game a lot
Content runs out
People leave
Time passes poof! more content
People come back
Games usually have a pretty finite lifespan unless and usually only when built from the beginning to maintain playerbase.
it's viral game what do you expect?
So a lot of people finished the game and are now playing something else.
It's a real shocker, I guess that means that this game without MTX or subscription service is dead. /s
On Saturday, January 27 Palworld peaked at 2,101,867 concurrents, and now on Saturday, February 10, it has 757,508 according to data from SteamDB
Let’s compare that to a recently released AAA game.
Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League has 2,422 concurrent players, while Rocksteady's predecessor Batman Arkham Knight has 2,654 players,
Do a proper comparison
Game of the week is game of the week. Fall Guys, Dave the Diver, and Among Us unavailable for comment.
Remember when Valheim was all the rage?
It's still hard to believe it's been 3 full years since it released and we only got one new biome since then (and yeah I know it had other smaller updates but considering its success and potential I was hoping for much much more from them).
Valheim still hasn't even been released yet 😭
Heck, I remember when Fall Guys was all the rage.
I remember when it wasn't full of cheaters, didn't require an epic account and only sold items for wins.
It was all about Shotgun Roulette last week
Amongus
That one is a special case. Yes, it got completely annihilated in numbers by even the goose goose duck clone, but, the thing is, the majority of its userbase just started playing on Mobile (where the game is free) well before the game left its popularity peak. So, the steam numbers are hardly representative of its playerbase, and the app's download count shows it.
PUBG did not have a similar story at the time of its release, but does right now. It's one of the most played games in the world... On chinese phones, so, uh, kind of invisible depending where we're looking for. To put it into perspective: PUBG straight up dethroned the biggest, most profitable shooter in the world Crossfire, by splitting the population, and the takeaway there most people would have is "What the hell is a Crossfire????".
Still awesome! Am halfway through an immersive mode playthrough in prep for Ashlands!
I'd be interested with more content in the early to middle game. More things in the world as well. It feels very empty at times.
How utterly predictable
I don't think this should surprise anyone