Palworld Community Manager Urges Calm Amid Fluctuating Player Numbers Post-Update

Grace Edwards 03 Jul 2024

Palworld is enjoying a substantial boost to its player numbers thanks to the launch of its first major update, but its community manager is asking players not to worry about defending it from criticism over an overall drop in players from its huge peak earlier this year.

After Palworld launched into early access in January, it surged to more than 2 million concurrents - enough to establish it as the second most-played game by concurrents in the platform's history. Those numbers were pretty clearly unsustainable for an early-access survival game, and Palworld quickly slipped to its new normal - a still-respectable daily peak of around 25-30,000 players.

With the release of its Sakurajima update on June 27, however, that figure has picked back up a bit. While it's still well short of its record, those daily peaks are now comfortably into the six figures, with a monthly peak of 143,308 players. But even amid all those ups and downs, one Palworld developer is asking the game's ardent fans not to get involved in arguments over player counts.

Community manager Bucky took to Twitter to ask Palworld players to avoid being baited into debates over player numbers on social media. Bucky appreciates the support but insists that it's not productive. The posts stirring up these controversies are simply there to garner engagement, and the number of players doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Bucky assures players that the numbers will fluctuate with each update, and even if just one person is playing, it doesn't diminish the enjoyment and memories that come from the game.

Besides this sentiment, Palworld's enduring success is another reason why its player count doesn't really matter. As well as cementing a second-place spot on Steam that's unlikely to be bested for some time, it's vastly surpassed its developers' expectations. With 15 million Steam players, the revenue generated is likely substantial enough that Pocketpair, the developer, won't be worrying about cash flow for quite some time.

Palworld earns its spot on our list of the best survival games.