(UPDATE) Palworld faces the difficult choice of whether to become a live-service game or stay buy-to-play, PocketPair’s CEO says 

Update (September 15, 2024 9:45 JST): PocketPair has issued the below statement, letting players know that Palworld will not be switching to the F2P or GaaS business model. The developer has considered this choice in the past, but has ultimately decided against it, meaning that the game will remain buy-to-play.

Since its viral early access launch in January this year, Palworld has kept evolving though various changes and additions, the biggest of which have been the Sakurajima update and the introduction of a highly chaotic and entertaining PvP arena. But Palworld still has more growth ahead of it, and the direction in which PocketPair decides to steer this growth will be vital for the game’s future. The developer’s CEO Takuro Mizobe spoke on the topic in an interview recently published by ASCII Japan. 

When asked about future developments planned for Palworld, Mizobe comments, “To be honest, things aren’t decided yet.” While there’s no question about PocketPair continuing to build upon the game’s content with new maps, Pals and raid bosses, the developers will need to make a crucial decision between two business models, according to the CEO. 

Namely, Pocketpair must choose whether to complete Palworld as a buy-to-play game, or change it into a live-service game. “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. 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,” Mizobe notes. 

One of these challenges is making Palworld free-to-play, which is a prerequisite for switching to the live-service business model. “It is common for live-service games to be F2P with paid elements such as skins and battle passes, but Palworld is a B2P game, so it’s difficult to turn it into a live-service game from the ground up.” 

Mizobe names PUBG and Fall Guys as examples of games that successfully switched to a free-to-play model, compensating game purchasers by giving out valuable in-game items. However, Palworld’s developer is aware that this was not simple to execute. “Both (games) took several years to make the shift. While I understand that the live-service model is good for business, it’s not that easy.”  

Aside from the technical difficulties of suddenly going live-service, Palworld’s developers are also keen to listen to players’ wishes. As Mizobe puts it, “The most important thing is whether the players want it or not.” It seems PocketPair wants to explore ways to attract new players while valuing its existing playerbase. Apparently, the developers have even considered monetizing the game by running ads, but Mizobe is not keen on implementing something like this because “Steam users hate ads.” 

As mentioned previously, PocketPair has yet to decide what direction Palworld’s future development will take, but the developer seems to be carefully evaluating the possibilities.