It can be hard to maintain a healthy perspective in the games industry. You're always vying for more players and a better position to keep the lights on. More devs could take a page out of the book of Palworld publisher Pocketpair, which seemingly views anyone else in its periphery as another pal rather than a competitor to be quashed.
A Twitter account dedicated to news and updates around survival games recently shared some information on the new spin-off for monster-collecting series TemTem, called TemTem: Pioneers, which brings in more crafting and resource management. Another Pokémon-esque adventure for PC, there are some surface level similarities between TemTem and Palworld, regardless of how they work mechanically.
The account calls the game a "Palworld rival," a term John 'Bucky' Buckley, the head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, disagrees with. "TemTem are not our rivals," he says. "We respect all developers and their games! We’re all just making games for fun!!"
TemTem are not our rivals. We respect all developers and their games! We’re all just making games for fun!!August 3, 2026
This is characteristically upbeat and well-meaning of Buckley. Generally speaking, when he isn't promoting or commenting on Palworld, he's talking about the games he's loving and trying to encourage people to do the same, whatever those releases may be.
Tribalism around Palworld is as pointless and toxic as it is in every discussion. Despite the Pioneers spin-off introducing more survival elements, TemTem was around for a number of years before Palworld, entering early access in 2020 before going 1.0 in 2022, and it's got its own community as a result.
TemTem's official account agrees with Buckley. "We don't wanna be Palworld's rival!" a response reads. "We deeply respect their game and work, and we just aim to be another option for fans of the genre."
There may be overlap in ideas, but these are distinct games with distinct fanbases, and it's much healthier to treat them as such. Besides, neither of them are getting anywhere near the reach of those ever-popular pocket monsters, that's for sure.
