![]() Ultimately, walking into an ongoing discourse and saying: 'Hey, maybe the discourse itself is bad?' won't stop anybody, buzzkills aren't popular. As such, I don't know if Palworld is the hill anyone should die on. But Palworld itself didn't start that particular fire-it was simply shunted centre-stage by both a willingness to do the popular thing and a heavy dose of luck. It stings to watch great works fall into the drain of obscurity, especially when the current soylent slurry of the month is yet another survival game. Is it really a sign of moral decay that people like sipping on some mindless sludge from time to time? It should surprise nobody, and the idea that it's a "bad game" because of its engineered appeal strikes me as strange. It does, unfortunately, cost money to create and market just about anything, and smaller studios can't rely on the luck of the draw that thrust Palworld into the spotlight.ĭespite me and my three mutant hands, I don't think Palworld's success is that complicated. On a third, secret hand that I have hidden under my coat-fatcat corporate machines can crush budding artists and snuff out incredible works in the name of mass appeal, and that's something to be wary of. Music, films, and books have always had cynical works engineered for mass appeal, but none of those mediums are devoid of big-A art. On the other hand, the fact people are playing and enjoying Palworld isn't some great sign that games are in decline either. Even if none of those things will stop people, myself included, from enjoying it for a spell. It isn't wrong to say that Palworld feels like a game designed in a meeting, that it was created to catch the updraft it did with a surgical precision. Palworld may be fun to play, but it's also a valid and valuable critique to point out the ways in which it feels lab-grown. The idea that a game's "fun" is all that matters is something utterly criminal to me-it's a boring way to think about something you like. Because it's interesting, and it's what the medium deserves. ![]() We should think about games in lots of different ways, and we should view them through lots of different critical angles. Games that are "just fun" are also valuable and enjoyable, but simple joys aren't the only metric. Plenty of games that create unpleasant, unsettling, and frustrating experiences are valuable. I have never agreed with the idea that games are '"just fun", and that's all that matters. Games shouldn't 'just be fun', but it's fine if they are To be clear, I do think the game has taken-let's call it 'hefty inspiration'-from existing Pokémon designs, and while I don't think it's some innocent homage, I do think Palworld's characters are substantially different enough to just be uncomfortably similar or parody, rather than overt plagiarism.īut does artistic integrity matter when the game is decent fun? Well yes, but also no. Palworld's distinctly bootleg vibes also call into question its artistic integrity. But I feel like those trends are already-to the detriment of everybody-potentially happening at much larger studios, with a far bigger say in what becomes the normalised industry standard. If it's true that Palworld used AI, you could also argue that its success will set an example that creates dangerous industry trends. That is to say: A lot.īut does artistic integrity matter when the game is decent fun? Well yes, but also no. In a way, Pocketpair mimics corporate trend-chasing to the same extent with it mimics design elements in its games. ![]() Though its past and future projects are cynical-Craftopia, AI: Art Impostor, and the upcoming totally-not-Hollow Knight Metroidvania Never Grave: The Witch and the Curse. For starters, it's an independent studio. Does Palworld actually represent a corporate boot currently kicking talent out of the industry in favour of machine learning? I don't know if it does.
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