Palworld community manager John "Bucky" Buckley has responded to players wondering why Pocketpair doesn't just hire more developers with the money gained from the survival game's overwhelming success in order to develop updates faster, saying that things aren't that simple.
Palworld has done well enough that it had Bucky (who's also Pocketpair's communications director) saying the game hit a "disgusting number" of players in its first week "that makes me feel sick," with the studio using the funds it accumulated to take "risks" as well as set up a publishing branch to help get more indies off the ground.
Over on Twitter, Bucky shares a PC Gamer article about the game (which quotes a GamesRadar+ interview with Bucky) saying that things players see as easy updates could actually take the studio a really long time.
Bucky elaborates in his latest tweet, saying, "The same people who say 'they made $$$$$ just hire more people!' are the same people who get all pissy when a company grows too big and becomes too 'corporate.'" He explains that the studio "could mass hire devs tomorrow," but that "you risk changing the company culture," and that finding the right people to hire is more important than getting the numbers up.
Bucky follows the tweet up, saying: "The word 'sustainable' has become a bit of a boogeyman for many but the goal is to make games in a sustainable way that doesn't mean bloat hiring and burning all your funds." He adds: "That's how game companies fall into the usual traps and become slimy."
This echoes a sentiment from Helldivers 2 boss Johan Pilestedt, who had a similarly huge success weeks after Palworld released, and said that over-hiring to help with the game's server issues only to lay them off weeks later would be a huge mistake.
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