In a time of uncertainty for live-service games, Pocketpair makes it clear that Palworld is staying as a premium title

Those of you worried that Palworld will go the full live-service route likely don’t need to be, as developer Pocketpair has no plans to make it free-to-play.Palworld is the kind of game that’s pretty perfectly poised to go free-to-play if it wanted to, as all those sales certainly put it in a strong position for a good long while. Many games of its ilk typically are free-to-play these days, opting for microtransactions and DLC as the main form of revenue, but in a recent interview with ASCII Japan (as translated by Automaton), Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe was asked about whether Palworld will switch to the live-service model in its lifetime. To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings “When you think about it from a business perspective, making [Palworld] a live-service game would extend its lifespan and make it more stable in terms of profitability,” Mizobe said. “However, the game was not initially designed with that approach in mind, so there would be many challenges involved in taking it down the live-service path.” He also pointed out how games like PUBG and Fall Guys managed to successfully switch to a free-to-play model, but noted that both of them “took several years to make the shift. While I understand that the live-service model is good for business, it’s not that easy.” Regarding the Future of PalworldTL;DR – We are not changing our game’s business model, it will remain buy-to-play and not f2p or GaaS.Recently, an article was published in which we discussed the possible future direction of Palworld and ideas for continuing the game for a…— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) September 14, 2024To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settingsHowever, these comments drew some concerns from fans that Pocketpair does have plans to turn Palworld into a live-service title, so much so that the official Palworld Twitter offered some clarity on Mizobe’s comments. Explaining that this interview was held several months ago, the post said that the team was “still considering the best way forward for Palworld to create a long-lasting game that continues to grow. We are still discussing this internally, as it is quite challenging to find the ideal path, but we have already decided that the F2P/GaaS approach is not suitable for us.”Palworld was never designed with that model in mind, and it would require too much work to adapt the game at this point. Additionally, we are very aware that this just isn’t what our players want, and we always put our players first.”Things like skins and DLC are still being considered down the line to “support development,” but Pocketpair plans to discuss that with players whenever it gets closer to doing so.Earlier this week Palworld was spotted on a list of games appearing at Tokyo Game Show, and it points towards a PS5 release, so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks if you’ve been desperate to play on a Sony console.