Hello there, 

Palworld mastered the game promise and game positioning for an indie studio! It really makes me happy to analyze such a strong game promise.
This success could have been easily predictable considering they had everything they needed for an indie game to succeed and being on top of Steam made the virtuous cycle of hype start. 

Huge congrats to the Pocketpair team!

Palworlds already broke records : 

• Sold 1 million copies in 8h 
• Totaled 3.8 million copies sold in 40h 
• Highest player count on Steam since 2018!

STEP 1: EASY TO UNDERSTAND AND EXCITING GAME PROMISE

Palworld’s game promise is basically “Weaponized Pokemon”.
This promise immediately sparks curiosity and interest for any gamers with Pokemon being one of the biggest IP in the world. 

The full marketing package of trailers and screenshots featuring Pals with guns perfectly conveyed this idea. When they show you a new Pal, they show a hunt with AK47 on top of others Pals pushing their game promise and USP every time.

They took the promise even further by creating a more realistic scenario of what would happen if Pokemon were  part of our world, exploring the darker side of what humans would do.
Which is a question I often asked myself when I played Pokemon to be honest. 

• Use Pals’ powers to fight each others – and not for training purpose.
• Enslave Pals and use them as workers in your factories. 
• Hunting and poaching Pals in protected sanctuaries.
• Creating the most amazing cooking recipes with Pals – as in meat, not as cook.

By going deeper into their game promise, Palworld transcends mere gimmickry, ultimately meeting players’ expectations.

STEP 2: HOT AND SUCCESSFUL GAME GENRE

I was surprised to see “Creature Collector” and “RPG” as the first tags on Palworld’s page. It seems they aimed to stay true to their promise and the direction of a Pokemon-like game. 

Ultimately it still falls into Open World, Survival, Craft game category, one of the hottest genres on Steam.

This is also highlighted as their first USP “SURVIVAL” on their Steam store page description.
As you know many indie successes are in this genre, with Valheim being the first in mind. 
Right from the genre, players know what to expect from the game.

So all those gameplay and USP comes with the sexy and interesting twist of doing all this with Pokemons with guns. 
It’s something more, something new and unique. Which always the key starting point to a succesfull brand.

STEP 3: STRONG VISUAL IDENTITY 

The cartoonish, Pokemon-like visual identity perfectly aligns with the game promise, creating immediate fun and strengthening the promise of “Weaponized Pokemon”. 

It’s an immediate contrast between the visual and the gameplay that raises interest in the game. 

Cute visual like this paired with guns is bound to create viral content on Social Media. The game is doing it’s best marketing just like that. 

Let’s be honest it’s also, looking better than previous Pokemon Open World games, no disappointment here. 

STEP 4: STUDIO STRENGTH

Pocketpair has already released several games.
Most notably Craftopia reaching 16,000+ reviews – an estimated 800,000 copies, despite Mixed review it’s still a huge success. Ongoing support with a patch release earlier in January shows the studio’s commitment to its games and ultimately their players.

They were able to test and learn from another Open World survival craft game to bring those learnings to Palworld.

Craftopia’s success provided them with an existing audience, aiding in Palworld’s announcement with around 100,000 wishlists right from the start. As we know, this signals Steam’s algorithm that the game is solid, leading to further promotion. 

They also ran a Network test back in October to ensure a smooth launch without connectivity issues, which we know can tank a game release and reviews. 

Ultimately, they released a good game according to the 37,000+ reviews in very positive right now.  

STEP 5: THE MULTIPLAYER FACTOR

Multiplayer is one of the biggest factors of success for indie games, looking at you Lethal Company. 

• Peer pressure from your friends who buys the game and want to play together
• Your Steam/Discord list is full of friends playing it 
• Streamers can play together ultimately building content for a long time.

STEP 6: LET THE HYPE DO THE REST

Once you’ve reached Top 10 Wishlisted game on Steam, well it’s hard to fail, IF YOU HAVE A GOOD GAME (the Day Before fiasco…).

The virtuous cycle is starting now: 

• You’re the hottest game right now.
• You’re on game pass and easily accessible for Game Pass owners who want to try it.
• Streamers and Youtubers are interested and want to cover it – Palworld reached top 2 on Twitch on launch day.
• You’re starting to be unmissable, press outlets are creating content about your game because it’s hot and they want their click-bait articles. 

FOLLOWERS/WISHLIST MARKETING ANALYSIS

Examining their follower counts on SteamDB I realized there wasn’t the typical Wishlist/Follower spike associated with streamers picking up the game, an event featuring or a big pulsepoint. 

They steady growth of follower counts is, for me,  a testimony to the strength of their game promise convincing players.

I would also bet they haven’t done any specific paid marketing tactics. They just prove their worth with the game and its gameplay first with video on different Pals almost every week on Youtube and Tiktok with significant success. 

We also see the strength of having a previous game and studio to gather a significant amount of wishlist (I estimate at 100k WL on the first week – based on their ratio when they announced the 1M wishlist).

Keeping on that at launch we can estimate they had 1.8M wishlisters. 

If we consider they sold 1M+ copies on Steam D1, with a better than average conversion rate around 25%, that’s 450k copies from the Wishlist and the rest is new players – a 50/50% ratio between Wishlisters and new comers is quite usual at launch.

But they went above and beyond on the following days, showcasing the ability ot attract new players beyond the initial interest.

As always thanks for the read!