Palworld has 'absolutely taken over' China

Palworld is incredibly popular in China, a region where long-winded multiplayer games typically do quite well.

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Palworld was one of the most surprising breakout hits of 2024. Released in January of this year, the game quickly racked up 15 million sales on Steam and reached 25 million players total in about a month after launch, becoming one of the fastest-selling video games of all time.

Interestingly enough, a significant portion of Palworld's total playerbase is in China. In a recent interview with GameRant, Pocketpair's Global Community Manager John "Bucky" Buckley revealed some surprising facts about Palworld's success in China.

​​​​​​​"Not at all, [we didn't expect 1/3rd of our players to be from China]. That shocked all of us. Our largest population for Palworld is China--the game absolutely took over China. We definitely did not expect it, but we're happy to enjoy it," Buckley said.

"Our Chinese fans are incredible. We went to two Chinese events this year and the support and love was absolutely amazing."

When asked to guess why Palworld was such a big hit in China, Buckley posited that it might be the game's build-and-collect features alongside the multiplayer action.

"Palworld's a game that if you wanted to, you could sink a lot of time into it, and I think those kinds of games are really popular right now in China. The Chinese market seems to value games with very long life cycles. Maybe that was it, but we don't really know."

In recent news, Nintendo has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair. No details have been announced regarding which patents that the studio is accused of infringing upon, but the ongoing litigation has not stalled Palworld's success. The game recently launched on PlayStation 5 in Japan despite Nintendo's lawsuit.

Pocketpair had quickly responded to Nintendo's lawsuit with a statement of their own.