The dream continues for independent Japanese developer Pocketpair as Palworld has now sold over seven million units in just five days since its early access launch. The open world survival crafting game with monster collection mechanics had sold one million in eight hours, two in twenty-four, three in forty, five million in three days, and six in four days. What's even more impressive is that, according to Geoff Keighley, these sales are for the Steam version alone. They do not account for sales on the Microsoft Store via PC/Xbox, nor do they account for Game Pass player numbers.
According to industry analyst BenjiSales, it is outselling Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which had sold 6.5 million units in its first week. Of course, that game was sold at full price, whereas Palworld is currently priced at €26, which certainly facilitates sales.
On Steam, the game has even managed to knock down Valve's own Counter-Strike 2 from the second place on the all-time concurrent player chart. Palworld registered 1.86 million concurrent players around eighteen hours ago. There's still a long way to PUBG: Battlegrounds's record of 3.25 million concurrent users, but it's probably best not to discount this game's potential to surprise.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has predictably grabbed its hammer to take down the Pokémon mod that modders had quickly cobbled together. Some Pokémon fans have been pointing out monster design similarities that might border on plagiarism, but it wouldn't be an easy case for Nintendo to win in court. We'll see if their notoriously implacable lawyers are indeed sent after this runaway indie success or not.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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