Palworld's community manager believes it is "not healthy" to stick to a single game if it is not designed for long-term play

Pocketpair global community manager John "Bucky" Buckley has responded to claims that Palworld is a "dead game," stating that only playing a single game that was not designed for long-term gameplay is "not healthy" for the industry or players.

The details:

• Palworld was a surprise hit earlier this year, with peak concurrent player counts in the millions across Steam and Xbox Game Pass. However, as with all games, players began to move on, causing the player count to fall into the tens of thousands. While this is considered a very healthy playerbase, some have deemed Palworld a "dead game."

• Speaking to the Going Indie YouTube channel, Buckley commented on Palworld being referred to as a “dead game,” arguing that the game was never intended to be played indefinitely. “I don’t think it really serves anyone to push gamers to just play the same game day in, day out,” the community manager explained. “There are games that you can play every single day for months on end and never burn out. League of Legends, DOTA, most MMOs, but they’re designed to be like that.”

• Buckley went on to say that he believes the trend of treating every game as if it was intended for long-term play is actively harming the industry as a whole. He cites "really soulless live service games" that are still being released as examples of the mindset's effects, with companies later shutting them down for a lack of revenue, resulting in losses for developers, publishers, and players.

• Buckley proposes that a solution to the problem is to play a broader range of games, as well as more indie releases created by developers regardless of the player count. “Play all the indies you can,” he said. “Spend as much money on indies as you can. Really, really support the guides who are trying to make fun games. Who cares if there’s only five people playing it? Just enjoy yourself. Just enjoy games. I don’t think it needs to be any more complex than that.”

More gaming news:

• EA CEO Andrew Wilson has stated that he does not believe the ongoing actor strike will have an impact on the company's upcoming or live service games.

• Sales of Xbox consoles have seen another decline over the last quarter, but Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has resulted in a significant revenue boost.