Palworld has broken Counter-Strike's all-time concurrent players peak at 1.8 million, and is now #2 most played game on Steam ever. It is only behind PUBG which holds the record at 3.2 million.
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I honestly don't understand how people saw this slop and all just threw their wallets at it. The only way I can cope with this beating fucking Counter Strike is that it's "Adult Pokemon" premise was too interesting to pass up. I can't imagine it'll be like this in a month or several. As an outsider this is beyond bizarre to watch. Maybe PETA got to me but it turns my stomach watching people gleefully butcher and enslave Pokemon.
Yep! Clearly I'm in the minority thinking it's distasteful to take innocent, bright, goofy looking creatures that resemble the childhood characters most of us grew up with and literally fucking slaughtering them with a butcher knife for soup. I'd rather shoot unnamed terrorist #32 in his terrorizing face. Correct.
If the game wasn't also low effort slop that's borderline an asset flip with how many designs they've stolen, I'd probably tolerate it more but I'm awestruck so many people are eating this trash up and celebrating it.
I really hope you've taken a breather inbetween your internet raging to realize the "violent" aspects of this game are completely optional. It's tastefully done, and absolutely no different than killing Minecraft cows for food. Are you a vegetarian when you play Minecraft?
If the game wasn't also low effort slop that's borderline an asset flip with how many designs they've stolen, I'd probably tolerate it more but I'm awestruck so many people are eating this trash up and celebrating it.
If you're going to parrot stuff you heard off Twitter, the least you can do is verify it for yourself first. The designs aren't stolen. Did they steal 3D models? No. Are they shamelessly similar? Yes. But that's allowed, and it's been a staple of the gaming industry for 30 years. We literally call other genres of shamelessly similar games by the games they copy. Soulslikes. Roguelikes. Metroidvanias.
You clearly haven't tried this game. It's not "slop," it's high effort, there is a ton of attention to detail, and the success it has gotten is absolutely earned. I've never seen an indie game get so much right.
It beat Baldur's Gate 3 on Steam. It has more players than the 2023 Game of the Year.
Steam is filled with trash low effort games, yes. But are you really so full of yourself that you think Palworld would sell this well if it were just another shovelware title? If it were "slop?" Grow up, please.
And let's not forget the franchise you're defending. THIS is slop:
Are you a vegetarian when you play Minecraft?
Not taking position, but for example Dead Cells offers a diet option, where you can choose the type of "food" (healing collectibles) you find scattered across the levels. I find that it's an interesting and fun option to offer players.
Does the character laugh with a snobbish "hon hon hon!" when he eats La Baguette?
Are you a vegetarian when you play Minecraft
Forget Minecraft, are they vegetarian? It would be peak hypocrisy to be so considered about how people treat pixel animals and not care how real life animals are treated.
"low effort" lol Not to mention they made an entire game to prepare for palworld...
I'm 100% convinced craftopia was a testbed for the mechanics they wanted in palworld lol
Are you this mad at pokemon too? They obscure all of this, but the premise is the same..
This brings up a weird idea. Are there like regular animals in Pokémon, or is everything non human a Pokémon? Like I feel like they have eaten meat or things that would presumably have meat in it a number of times, are those all Pokémon?
Oh the premise is the same but the difference is I can't go stab my Pikachu, cut it up, then turn it into soup because I got bored. Pokemon still has kid gloves on it to where nobody dies, injuries are superficial, and everything gets better with a visit to a special building. Palworld shatters that and goes "Hey, fellow psychopaths, you can now enslave and butcher all those friendly creatures you grew up with!" like all of us were just fucking drooling at the chance to murder cute animals. Clearly I'm the weird one because I never grew up thinking the Pokemon should be killable.
The uniformed virtue signaling is strong with this one...
All of the "butchering" is optional. Believe me, the game makes it much easier to set up a berry patch that auto-feeds everything in your base, rather than manually butchering everything.
And... Normal Pokemon is enslaving as well. You're literally catching them and forcing them to fight each other to the brink of death. Just to recycle the rhetoric of the crazies 20-25 years ago. It's akin to dog fighting. You're also a child in Pokemon..
Come on, at least try to make a good argument.
Maybe PETA got to me but it turns my stomach watching people gleefully butcher and enslave Pokemon.
So you gleefully play terrorism stimulator the game?
I'm anti-war and anti-guns, I play a lot of war games and shooters. It's a game.
You really don't see how "killing bad guys doing bad things" is a lot easier to stomach than walking up to a Miltank eating grass and blowing it's head off with a shotgun?
There's a way you do violence with cute characters and it's fucking called Pokemon. It's called Slime Rancher. I don't know who the fuck asked for Happy Tree Friends: The Game but congrats, you got it.
You really don't see how "killing bad guys doing bad things" is a lot easier to stomach than walking up to a Miltank eating grass and blowing it's head off with a shotgun?
Unless you're on the terrorist team, sneaking up on an agent doing his job and blowing his head off with a shotgun.
You've drawn a weird line in the sand here: shooting semi-realistic looking people with a gun and seeing their blood splatter? That's fine. Shooting a cartoon with a gun until it falls over? THE HORROR!
Are you up in arms over Zelda? Mario? There's no blood or dismemberment, they just fall to the ground. "Unconscious" if that helps you release the death grip from your pearls.
You clearly have no idea how the game actually behaves and have invented something you can be upset about. There are lots of videos of gameplay, please find me an example of the violence you find unacceptable.
Yeah you really can't seem to gather the difference between shooting dudes in military gear and squishy, colorful, harmless creatures. The fact you can't connect those two things with the last remaining brain cell you have left is enough for me to not want to continue this back and forth. Zelda doesn't have a Meat Cleaver you can take to your companions. Mario doesn't let you enslave the fucking Goombas.
You are beyond dense and I'm happy for you that you can cognitively disassociate from casually murdering what is essentially cats and dogs. Companions. If you're the kind of freak that gets off on killing their pets, do you, but I don't remember the part in Ark or really any game that gives you benefits for killing your buddies.
Maybe Nintendo will free you from the slop, little pig.
Are we talking about different games here? You've made it clear you have no idea what your talking about. If I'm wrong please show me a clip of what it is you have an issue with, because you're just making shit up.
So you're vegan but for a video game, basically.
Just think it's kinda fucked up to want to kill Pokemon after growing up with them. Think it's kinda fucked up to go "Man I wish I could shoot a Bellsprout in the face." No pearl clutching, just really don't get it whatsoever.
Do people riding horses gross you out too, or relying on dogs to find injured people in accidents? Animals have had jobs with people throughout history.
Do you not fight wolves, attack dogs, dragons, and other animals on any other game you've played?
You don't have to butcher your pals. There is no in game need for it. You have pals, you pet them and feed them and provide for their needs and they help you cut a tree down. Sometimes they don't feel like it and they just don't do it. What's the problem?
No, you have to butcher pals. It's the game
Yeah imagine still playing counterstrike on the same 3 maps and guns for 20 years and spend 1000 dollars on a cool knife.
I've never eaten meat in my life and still feel bad about accidentally sucking a little spider into the vacuum a few weeks ago but I much prefer it to Pokémon because it's saying 'oh this cute little sheep? You can kill it and it's horrible and cruel but it's ok because it's a game' where as Pokémon says 'oh this adorable little guy? Yeah beat him up, capture him and force him to fight for you entertainment, it's super cool and cute and fun just like in real life!'
(Note the only Pokémon game I played was on a Gameboy emulator in the 90s, I've also not played this but it does look more fun than Pokémon)
See I can disconnect from the animals in real life because we don't have a lot of alternatives to meat just yet. I'm not vegan, I eat chicken and burgers nearly daily, but if plant meat tastes the same and costs the same I do think it starts to become our responsibility to transition into that. The meat industry is a necessary cruelty for the moment. What fucks me up is people looking at characters designed to be cute, lovable companions and going "What if I could shoot it though? Capture it and cut it up?" like that's where I start getting a bit sick to my stomach. But people are eating it up so obviously I'm the weird one for not being into that.
The Pokemon 'fighting' never bothered me because there's never any deaths so in my head they're just friendly sparring. Childish veneer to an otherwise pretty messed up concept. Palworld shatters that veneer and I'm surprised more people aren't repulsed by it.
Interesting, you say you can't not eat meat but it disgusts you to think of a cartoon animal be being killed, I've literally never eaten meat and have a pet chicken which was rescued from being slaughtered after being in a better farm but I see it as silly fun when a game simulates it.
Do you think it's the fact that it forces you to think of the reality that a really lovely and cute creature that does silly little jumps to get your attention and has a real personality is being killed just for you chicken nuggets?
I own a few chickens for the sake of eggs, named them as well, and while I'd happily eat chicken and rice or any other derivative of eating chicken I wouldn't just go out back and carve up one of our hens. I definitely think it's because of the ascribed personality to the animal/creature. Pokemon are well established to be able to think independently, have their own personalities, and many are quite weak in the wild to the point of having near useless attacks. Introducing the ability to have those creatures die isn't bad on its own, there can be gameplay merit to that, but the line for me is when you make a visualization of it. When you take that feature and expand on it and advertise with it.
Sure, your pet will die someday, probably peacefully in its sleep but something like Palword says "What is we make it violent?" It's as visceral to me as someone saying to you that your pet chicken would make some really good nuggets and proceeding to butcher them in front of you, acting disconnected afterwords and saying something to the effect of "What? It's just a chicken."
I guess my brain works differently, I couldn't just ignore the fact that the animal I'm eating did have the personality of a real living cow or chicken, cows sing and play, they're curious and friendly and make friends - chickens mostly just recognise me as someone who carries food to them but they have personalities and emotions when you get to know them. I know that about them so if I was going to eat one of them I'd think about that and think about the brutality of their life and death.
Code is just code. It is (so far) just a series of logic choices that determine which pixel to light up or how fast to vibrate the speaker - it might look like personality but when you kill it there is no fear in it or pain, it doesn't feel anything when you kill it's children or it's friends. I guess I just see numbers when I look at a video game, when I look at a chicken nugget I see real suffering and real death
Careful, the palworld circle jerk machine is in full effect here.
Ah, the classic “people that disagree with me are circlejerking” defense
"could I possibly be wrong?
No, it's a circle jerk..."
I typically associate a circlejerk as a bunch of people who really like something not being open to outside critique and I'll keep it a buck that's exactly what I've experienced from the Palworld crowd.
Calling something “slop” isn’t a critique, and people downvoting it aren’t circlejerking
Calling it slop is shorthand for the critique, friend. I'm sure you're familiar with the term?
The game is a basic, watered down, cheap, imitation of something better. In this case, Pokemon and Ark. The developers had a small budget, have a history of ripping off other games, and is succeeding only off the novelty of the concept "Pokemon with guns" and "Adult Pokemon with slavery!". There is no depth, no substance, it's a sandbox they cobbled together and all of you lined up for your yummy slop and now defend it because god forbid you take a step back from the group circlejerk to analyze what it is you're beating it to.
You'll have post nut clarity in a couple months. Once you all get your fill a new game will take it's place. Among Us, Valheim, Fall Guys, PUBG, H1Z1, Fuck even Lethal Company which I'd consider pretty damn good. They're games that have massive surges but ultimately fall off. No staying power. They're not a Fallout: New Vegas with memes almost everyone can relate with (some exceptions with Among Us). They're not Counter Strike that keep people logging in and have a highly competitive community. They're not Warframe that develop their game in cool new ways to bring old players back. They're not Elden Ring with a story rich world hand crafted with quiet whispers of deeper lore scattered around. They're definitely not Baldur's Gate 3 with some of the most unique companions and interactions that have created memories which will last for years to come.
It's slop. A flash in the pan. Tasteless grool to tide you over until the next bowl, then the next, until someone makes another good game worth remembering. Worth talking about.
…have you played it?