Palworld gets tons of collaboration pitches that are destined to fail, but Pocketpair's publishing lead John "Bucky" Buckley says the creature catcher isn't the only game surrounded by suitors. Apparently, this is simply the way life goes for games as mega-popular as Palworld, whose recent 1.0 launch helped it earn $700 million in total revenue since 2024.
Buckley explained his view on collaborations in a set of messages in the official Pocketpair Discord server on August 14, reacting to his unexpected admission last week that fans "do not realize the sheer number of collabs we've rejected or scrapped" for not completely meshing with Palworld's survival game ethos. Buckley elaborates on Discord, "I don't think that's unique to Palworld at all btw. I reckon almost every popular game is getting collab offers all the time."
When a fan asks Buckley what type of collaboration proposals got rejected, imagining "something like 'PALWORLD X MR. CLEAN!!!'" – which I'd actually like to hear more about – the publishing head says, "Loads but is that really so surprising?"
He doesn't go into detail, and fans note that Palworld has already had some unexpected collaborations, like its 2025 Ultrakill crossover that was actually instigated by Palworld; apparently, Pocketpair asked for a collaboration since its weapon designer loves the face-melting FPS Ultrakill, and Buckley said at the time on Twitter, "It's really as shrimple as that."
But as far as unsolicited pitches go, Buckley says on Discord, "Many people offered us their games but obviously we don't want to just shove random things in." So Pocketpair would like to hear back from Fortnite, and it would be glad to work with fellow survival games like No Man's Sky and Ark, but don't start getting any ideas about a Five Nights at Palworld situation, or The Elder Scrolls 7: Palworld. Pocketpair needs to be at least a little discerning, and so does every other popular game on the planet.
