Palworld community manager says it was "super popular" to hate the game post-launch

Pokémon with guns was a concept that drew more ire than Pocketpair was expecting.

Palworld was one of the biggest success stories of last year when it came to releases. The concept of Pokémon with guns was bound to be popular, but when millions of players flocked to Palworld, Pocketpair knew it had something special. That didn't stop people hating on it, though.

Pocketpair global community manager John Buckley said it was "super popular to hate Palworld" in a talk at GDC (thanks, PCGamer).

"I could stand here and tell you we didn't AI generate Palworld, but at least five people in this room are going to say 'liar.' But that's what it is. We've kind of given up repeating this, but we didn't, I promise," he added.

The AI rumours and plagiarism accusations reached a boiling point when Palworld's developer was hit by a lawsuit from Nintendo. "Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan [of Pokémon], so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain," he said. Still, even with these blows, Palworld and Pocketpair are still thriving, something that Buckley attributes to the company's attitude.

"I think a lot of companies might crumble under the threats, under the pressure, under the negativity, but we managed to retain all of our staff. We managed to push on because we're such a close and tight knit company."