Takuro Mizobe, CEO of PocketPair and creator of Palworld, has given an interview with Bloomberg about his game's enormous success, and in it, he admits that the amount of money that's come in as a result of Palworld's viral success is too much for this small studio to handle. Which really is a nice problem to have.
News in brief
- Palworld has, unsurprisingly, made a huge amount of money
- But PocketPair has no plans to expand or go public
- It will instead focus on more small games
He's determined that Palworld being a huge hit won't change the studio at all, and that he has no plans to change the way the studio runs, move into a larger premises, or stock all rooms with espresso machines and table football. Instead, he wants to keep things the way they are, and use the money to fund some smaller games, essentially keeping everything the way it always has been. While he's also open to an acquisition or partnership, he's not considering taking the company public and offering stock options.
"We are and will remain a small studio. I want to make multiple small games. Big-budget triple-A games are not for us."
It's a refreshing approach to success, and not one we often see in the gaming industry. Many studios, facing a success on the scale of Palworld, would start dreaming of more triple-A game releases, and further huge hits. But Mizobe is realistic, and doesn't expect to see another Palworld-sized success on the horizon. Instead, he's happy to keep his 55-person studio, which he founded in 2015, small and agile. Mizobe is the sole owner of the company, and seems largely happy to keep it that way for the moment.
Palworld launched in January, and almost immediately became a massive hit. The combination of "Pokemon with guns" was clearly one the market had been waiting for, and millions of copies have been sold, and at $30 a pop, that's obviously a lot of money. Since the game was shipped for just under $7 million, the millions PocketPair has received back have more than recompensed that investment.
While it's not likely we'll see another Palworld out of PocketPair, all of this money means the studio will have the financial headroom to consider a number of options for a new game, and won't feel the pressure to chase another potential success. More luck to them.