This is an excerpt from a longer Deep Dive. To read the whole article, click here.
Earlier this year, Palworld took the world by storm. It became the biggest third-party game launch ever on Xbox Game Pass, dominated the Steam charts, and spawned a craze for monster taming not seen since Pokémon Go.
What makes this story even more special is that Palworld’s developer, Pocketpair, is an independent studio without a big marketing budget. Pocketpair is not alone; we’ve seen a clear uptick in self-published hits lately. What is going on?
Palworld easily crossed the threshold of $400M in gross revenue on PC alone, based on current estimates of 19M Steam sales at about $30 a pop. This massive number doesn’t even include Game Pass revenue and has even led to claims from Pocketpair itself that it’s too much to handle. The game recouped roughly 2,300% of its $7M development budget in the weeks after its release.
In February, it became one of the best-performing Steam releases ever with over 2M concurrent players at one point. Pocketpair said it had attracted 25M players in one month.
Recently, it was confirmed Palworld is coming to more platforms at some point, and Pocketpair is flirting with an acquisition, preferring it over a public offering. Unfortunately, with the amount of attention the developer has been getting, its popularity has also led to some unpleasant feedback.
If a game doesn’t revolutionize anything in terms of platform (like Pokémon Go did eight years ago), most hype cycles in the game industry are short-lived. Looking back now, the same could be said for Palworld. It’s been a few months since Palworld was the cat’s meow, after which many players moved on to the next big thing, Helldivers 2.
After the recent PSN debacle surrounding Helldivers 2, which did the exact opposite of revolutionizing things in terms of platform, it seems that around 9% of Helldivers 2’s player base has refunded the game and moved on. Other recent breakout hits include Balatro and Hades II, although as of yet, neither of these seem to have generated the type of attention that Palworld and Helldivers have.
Palworld’s hype was especially extreme. For a brief moment, it was even more talked about than Diablo IV or Baldur’s Gate 3 at their peaks. That being said, when compared with these other zeitgeist-making franchises released throughout last year, Palworld’s popularity graph has a steeper tail than the others, likely as the result of a lack of substance in its post-launch content roadmap.
While Palworld’s hype has long subsided, it is still the biggest self-published game launch in recent memory, and therefore a great case study of what makes a one-in-a-million marketing message.
Introducing a New Era in PC Gaming
While some have been touting a new era for indie games, we’d caveat this by adding that defining “indie” is not always easy. Since this is a notoriously difficult to define market segment that proves to be quite polarizing, we’re talking about self-published games on PC today.
Early adopters like Giants Software took the leap in November 2021 with its first self-published game Farming Simulator 22 and made the choice to try to keep a bigger share of its revenue.
It seems that a surge of self-published games has taken the business by storm, but is this just perception, or is there actual, hard data to support this claim? And, if so, why is this happening?
It’s not just marketing and distribution that are behind the dawn of this new era. A marketable game starts at the product level. This means certain choices need to be made before the first piece of concept art is drawn up and the first line of code is written. For that matter, after revealing the findings of this piece’s research, we will also cover:
- Product and design takeaways from Palworld and other recent successes.
- Marketing theories for self-publishing.
- Looking ahead: What’s next?
A Word from Our Sponsor: OVERWOLF
Integrate Safe UGC Into Your Game with CurseForge For Studios
Overwolf is an all-in-one platform that lets creators build, share, and monetize in-game apps, mods, and private servers. With over 165,000 creators, and 41M monthly active users, Overwolf supports the world’s most popular AAA titles such as League of Legends, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, and 1,500 other games.
For game developers, Overwolf offers CurseForge For Studios. CurseForge For Studios is a white-label solution that lets game makers and publishers easily integrate mods safely and seamlessly into their games, both existing and new, at zero cost. It’s battle-tested by AAA studios and games, including Maxis (The Sims™ 4), Studio Wildcard (ARK), TakeTwo Interactive (KSP), and others.
CurseForge For Studios offers:
- Cross-Platform Modding: Integrate Overwolf’s open-source SDKs and plugins to let players discover and install mods in-game, across all platforms and storefronts.
- Full Analytics Dashboard: Get a full modding usage dashboard to learn which mods are popular.
- Safe and Secure Moderation: Studios define policies and guidelines on what is permitted, and these are then enforced by Overwolf - with only authorized content being published.
- Creator Relations and Payments: CurseForge supports creators with monthly payments, equity investments, developer contests, and hackathons to get their creative juices flowing, and kickstart content creation for your game.
Content Worth Consuming
Voodoo’s Secret Sauce: From 0 to 250M Hybridcasual Revenue in 3 Years(Deconstructor of Fun): “If you've been curious about how world-leading game publishers are operating in 2024, you're in for a treat. Today, we delve into the unique player in the French tech scene: Voodoo. Headquartered in Paris and overseeing over 100 studios worldwide, Voodoo operates like a well-oiled, data-driven machine. If you’re an indie studio hoping to launch a hit game, you might want to think about partnering up with Voodoo, because they excel at what they do.”
How To Start A Game Studio(The Fourth Curtain): “In this inaugural Lunch Club episode of The Fourth Curtain we discuss starting a Game Studio, something Alex has done a few times. We fail to actually eat lunch, but we do talk about the following topics: 1) Why? Why do you want to start one? What are good reason to do so and what’s a game studio really? 2) Strategies. If you are starting a studio, does it have a strategy? Platform, genre, technology, IP? What’s the “sum is greater than its parts” part? 3) Funding. How to get off the ground...”
Inside Pok Pok: Reimagining Digital Play For Kids (Rise and Play Podcast): “How to combine games and education, and is there a case for it? We interview Melissa Cash, co-founder and CEO of PokPok, a company creating educational and engaging digital content for children. They discuss the challenges and strategies of developing non-addictive, educational content for young children, focusing on the importance of designing tools that integrate seamlessly with a parent’s daily life.”
Are Conversion Rates Dipping Over Time on Steam? (The GameDiscoverCo): “Back in August 2022, we put out a column asking about the ‘best’ time of year to release a game on Steam, according to our data that looks at how well ‘Hype’ is converted*. Almost two years later, we thought we’d come back and look at it again. (*The data point we’re using in this piece is‘# of Week 1 Steam reviews as a % of GameDiscoverCo Hype launch score’. This is a bit abstract, but roughly equivalent - or at least first cousins - with‘Steam wishlist balance at launch compared to total Week 1 sales’.)”
Rise and Fall of Embracer Group | Implications for the Future of Games M&A(GameMakers Podcast): “The GameMakers podcast publishes current, entertaining, and in-depth discussions on F2P game development. Topics that we cover include the business of games, F2P monetization, liveops, game design, game development processes, team structure, and more.”
Our Gamification Consulting Services
Today, we’re highlighting our gamification consulting services! Applying game mechanics to all sorts of applications has proven to boost retention, engagement, and revenue — but doing it right can be harder than it seems. More specifically, Naavik offers constructive gamification deconstructions, gamification workshops, and ongoing flexible support. Here is what one of our clients had to say.
“We have been very happy with the support Naavik provided to Sleepagotchi. They have an incredible expert network, with world-class game designers, narrative designers, and UA specialists. The team helps us in developing and stress-testing new game core loops, think deeply about our game constraints, and something that is rare for a consulting partner - care deeply about our mission and vision.”
- Anton Kraminkin, Founder & CEO of Sleepagotchi
If you’d like to learn more, reach out here! Also check out our expanded consulting service portfolio here.