The Palworld game has experienced some crazy levels of popularity, gaining hundreds of thousands of new players and copies sold daily. Six days after the game was released on Steam Early Access, it has surpassed 8 million copies sold! However, while many players have jokingly described its content as “Pokémon with weapons.” The Pokémon Company has issued an official statement confirming that it is investigating the massive phenomenon to take appropriate action.
“We’ve received a lot of requests for another company’s game coming out in January 2024,” company officials said, commenting on the heated fan debate online about Palworld’s inspiration for the design of its “pals.”
“We have not granted any permission to use Pokémon intellectual property or assets in this game,” adds The Pokémon Company. “We intend to investigate and take appropriate action against any actions that violate Pokemon-related intellectual property rights.”
#Palworld has sold over 8 million copies in less than 6 days!
Thank you very much!!
As stated previously, we continue to work at full-speed on addressing bugs and issues!
Thanks for your support!#Pocketpair pic.twitter.com/4PLB1J4CYH— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) January 25, 2024
It is unclear how long this investigation will take and what action The Pokémon Company plans to take against Palworld developer Pocket Pair if it finds that there was indeed a breach. The statement ends with the company’s words: “We will continue to protect and develop each Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future.”
Meanwhile, Palworld continues to set massive engagement records, with more than 2 million concurrent players on Steam. It also tops the charts on Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S and Game Pass, although there are no exact figures for the Xbox platform yet.
Pocket Pair recently shared a roadmap for future Early Access content updates, which includes improvements to AI and routing, the addition of PVP battles, raid bosses, Steam and Xbox cross-play, and other features. For now, the developer has focused on fixing major bugs.
Read also:
- The Pokemon Company intends to investigate the Palworld situation
- Palworld became a bestseller on Steam, selling 4 million copies in 3 days