Pocketpair CEO ‘proud’ other studios are making games inspired by Palworld

Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe has said he’s “proud” to see other studios making games inspired by Palworld.

When it was released for PC and Xbox in January, Palworld sparked heated debate centred around its perceived similarities to Pokémon, most notably with regard to its creature designs.

Several months later and the shoe appears to be on the other foot, with similarities now being drawn between a number of upcoming games and Palworld.

Last month, Bloomberg reported that Chinese gaming giant Tencent‘s two most accomplished creative studios were developing mobile games in the style of Pocketpair’s game.

Palworld reportedly cost less than 1 billion yen ($6.7 million) to make and has returned tens of billions of yen in profit after attracting over 25 million players in its first month.

And in a post on X this week, Mizobe said various companies are currently making mobile clones of Palworld with budgets of about 10 billion yen.

Rather than being upset about it, he appeared to be flattered that others have seemingly been inspired by Palworld, which he directed.

“I don’t think what Tencent is doing is wrong,” he said.

“I’m proud that other companies want to make games like Palworld. The industry historically innovates when we borrow ideas from games we love.”

This is my original post. I didn’t accuse.https://t.co/p50CuNjLH9

— Takuro Mizobe | Palworld (@urokuta_ja) April 17, 2024

In a recent interview, Mizobe said the company’s in talks to bring Palworld to additional platforms.

He also said Pocketpair would be open to considering offers for partnership or acquisition, but that the company hasn’t engaged in buyout talks with Microsoft.

According to the Xbox maker, Palworld enjoyed the biggest third-party Game Pass launch to date.

A major Palworld update is scheduled to launch this summer, ahead of the game’s Arena mode later this year.