At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) last month, we sat down for an extended conversation with John “Bucky” Buckley, communications director and publishing manager for Palworld developer Pocketpair.
We spoke following his talk at the conference, 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During that talk, Buckley went into candid detail about a number of Palworld’s struggles, especially the accusations of it using generative AI (which Pocketpair has since debunked pretty soundly) and stealing Pokemon’s models for its own Pals (a claim that the person who originally made it has since retracted). He even commented a bit on Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit against the studio, saying it “came as a shock” to the studio and was “something that no one even considered.”
We’ve already run a number of shorter stories on some of the highlights of our conversation with Buckley, but given the depth of insight he provided on Pocketpair’s community struggles and triumphs, we decided to publish the full extended interview here as well. If you’re looking for something a bit shorter and easier to follow, you can read at these links on Buckley’s comments about the possibility of Palworld coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, the studio’s reaction to the game being called “Pokemon with guns”, and whether Pocketpair would ever be acquired.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity:**IGN: I'm going to get the really annoying one that I know you can't really answer out of the way first. You talked so, so lightly about the lawsuit in your GDC talk. Has that lawsuit made it harder for Pocketpair to move forward and update the game, having that still pending?**John Buckley: No, it hasn't made it harder to update the game or to move forward. It's just something that weighs over us constantly. It's always on everyone's mind, but it hasn't made the game harder to update or affected development. It's more about the impact on company morale. Of course, we've had to hire lawyers, but that's handled by the top executives. It's more about morale than anything else.
Okay, real conversation time. I was fascinated at the start of your talk when you talked about, sort of cheekily, the ‘Pokemon with guns’ moniker. I was surprised that you didn't seem to like that. Can I ask why?
Buckley: A lot of people don't believe us when we say this, but we never set out to make a "Pokemon with guns." Our goal was to create something akin to ARK: Survival Evolved, with more automation and unique personalities for each creature. We're big fans of ARK, and our previous game, Craftopia, drew inspiration from it. The "Pokemon with guns" label emerged after our first trailer, and while it wasn't our favorite, it's what stuck.
You said in the talk that you didn't understand why Palworld took off the way it did, you couldn't explain it. And I'm not a market analyst, so I certainly couldn't tell you, but I do feel like I specifically remember when "Pokemon with guns" came into the conversation.
Buckley: Yeah, that phrase definitely fueled the fire. Dave from New Blood even trademarked Pokemonwithguns.com. It's fine if people want to call it that, but what bothers us is when they think that's all the game is without playing it. We'd prefer everyone give it a fair chance before forming an opinion.
Well, how would you have phrased it? What would've been your "moniker" for this?
Buckley: I might've called it, “Palworld: It's kind of like ARK if ARK met Factorio and Happy Tree Friends.” It's not as catchy, but it's more accurate.
It doesn't quite roll off the tongue the same way.
Buckley: No, it doesn't, does it? Maybe that's why.
**Another thing that you brought up in the talk were the criticisms people made saying the game was AI slop. How did that impact folks internally at Pocketpair?**Buckley: It was a huge blow, especially to our artists. The accusations were baseless and hurtful, particularly to our Pal concept artists who have been with us from the start. We tried to counter this by releasing an art book, but it wasn't as effective as we hoped. Our artists, especially the female artists, prefer to stay out of the public eye, which makes it hard to refute these claims directly.
Yeah, when you gave your talk you mentioned people not wanting to be super visible online because the internet is bad.
Buckley: Yes, and it's especially challenging in Japan where our artists prefer to remain private. It's still very upsetting for them to hear these accusations, and we haven't found the best way to counter them yet.
We are having this industry-wide conversation about generative AI and generative AI art, and people think that they're really good at spotting it, and you can't always. If something has seven weird fingers, it's probably pretty obvious, but less so in other cases, right?
Buckley: A lot of the arguments against us are pretty hollow. They stem from comments our CEO made years ago and a party game we developed called AI: Art Imposter. People misinterpreted these as our endorsement of generative AI, but that wasn't the case. It's frustrating, but it's part of the narrative now.
What's your overall take on the state of, not your community specifically, but online gaming communities in general? You're talking about getting all that harassment and stuff, is social media broadly useful for you all anymore?
Buckley: Social media is crucial for us, especially in the Asian market where it's a big part of daily life. Online gaming communities can be intense, and people get emotional. I understand that; I used to play a lot of PvP MMOs. We can take some heat, but death threats are another level. They're usually illogical and hurtful, especially since we're working hard to fix any issues that arise.
Do you feel like social media is trending worse lately?
Buckley: There's definitely a trend of people saying the opposite just to get a reaction. Some big accounts are notorious for this. Luckily, Palworld has avoided a lot of the political and social controversies and mostly gets feedback on gameplay issues.
I thought it was really interesting in your talk that you said that the majority of the heat came from the Western audience. I guess I just assumed it would be equal across the board. Do you have any insight as to why that was?
Buckley: We've tried to figure this out too. In Japan, opinions about us are split, but we focus on the overseas market with a Japanese flair. Maybe it was just easy to target us at that time. The heat from the West has simmered down, but it was intense at first, especially the death threats which were mostly in English.
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So Palworld was extremely successful, and I get the sense, perhaps in a way that was maybe unexpected for you all based on your talk. Has that changed anything about how the studio runs or what your future plans are or anything else?
Buckley: It's changed our future plans, but not how the studio runs. We remain largely unchanged. We're hiring more developers and artists to speed up development, but our company culture and size are still manageable. Our CEO wants to keep it small, around 70 people.
You knew it was a good game, but you didn't know that it was going to be this big.
Buckley: A million sales for an indie game is a huge success. When you hit 10 million, it gets surreal. The numbers don't make sense anymore, and it changes how you operate. It's still hard for us to grasp.
Do you anticipate that Palworld is something that Pocketpair is going to support for a really, really long time to come?
Buckley: Palworld's not going anywhere. We're not sure what form it will take, but it's definitely a long-term project. We're also working on other games like Craftopia and supporting our developers' individual projects. Palworld is now split into the game and the IP, with different trajectories.
Yeah. You talked about that partnership that everybody misunderstood.
Buckley: Yes, and it will probably always be misunderstood. People think we're owned by Sony, but we're not. Our CEO would never allow an acquisition; he values his independence.
I know we talked earlier about the Palworld comparisons to Pokemon, and that you actually feel it's more like ARK. ARK is not actively releasing brand new games every one to two years and has an anime and merch like the way Pokemon does, but Pokemon is gearing up. They've got a release this year. They're constantly doing stuff. Do you see that being competitive in any way or meaningfully impacting you all?
Buckley: I don't think the audiences overlap much. The systems are completely different. We released alongside other survival games like Nightingale and Enshrouded, and we were more focused on them. Competition in games is often manufactured for marketing. We're more in competition with timing than anything else. Interestingly, a significant portion of Palworld players also bought Helldivers 2 on release, which surprised us.
Would you ever release on the Switch?
Buckley: If we could make it work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld's a demanding game. As for the Switch 2, we're waiting on the specs like everyone else. If it's powerful enough, we'd definitely consider it. We've done a lot of optimization for the Steam Deck, so we're interested in more handheld options.
My big takeaway from your talk is that outside of the existing Palworld community of people who have played and enjoyed the game, you feel that Palworld is extremely misunderstood.
Buckley: Yeah, 100%.
What is your singular takeaway message for people who have not played it and you think misunderstand it?
Buckley: I think a lot of people who only know Palworld from the news and drama misunderstand it completely. My advice would be to play it. We should consider releasing a demo or a free trial. People would be surprised by the game if they gave it an hour. We're not as "seedy and scummy" as some think. We've tried to protect our developers, but that may have made us seem inaccessible. It's a double-edged sword.
That’s also just the way the internet works. Whatever other things there are to do in Palworld, what’s funny is a meme video of what is effectively distilled down to Pokemon with guns. So that's what everyone's sharing.
Buckley: We're a nice little company that's done well with every game we've made. Last year was crazy for games, with many successful releases like Black Myth: Wukong, Helldivers 2, and Palworld. Emotions were high, and people got swept up in the excitement.
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