Market intelligence firm Newzoo has shared its own data on Palworld, the breakout hit from Japanese indie studio Pocketpair. Here is how the game performed in key markets last month.
- According to a new infographic from Newzoo, Palworld was the highest-grossing premium game of January 2024 in the US and UK.
- These countries were also the game’s top markets by monthly active users (MAU).
- In January, Pocketpair’s new title ranked 11th in MAU across PC and Xbox, and 2nd in the adventure genre.
- 7.8% of the global game audience played Palworld (based on an aggregate of 37 key markets, excluding China and India). Users spent an average of 16 hours in the game, ranking it 9th in playtime among adventure titles and 99th across all genres
- Its audience overlaps with games like Lethal Company, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Among Us. For example, 38.5% of Palworld players have ever spent money on Lethal Company, and 36% have previously purchased BG3.
- 51.6% of Palworld users stopped playing Fortnite last month to try Pocketpair’s survival game, followed by Lethal Company (29.1%) and The Finals (22%).
Palworld remains the biggest launch of 2024. It has already sold over 12 million copies on Steam alone and attracted 7 million players on Xbox, including Game Pass subscribers. It also peaked at 2.1 million concurrent players on Valve’s platform — the second-best result of all time, behind only PUBG (3.25 million).
It is worth noting that since its launch on January 19, the game has experienced a drastic drop in player count, currently averaging 400k peak CCU per day. However, this is not a warning sign at all because: a) 400k concurrent players is still an impressive feat that most games will never achieve; b) Palworld is currently in Early Access and doesn’t offer unlimited content, so audience churn is not surpsing.
Palworld’s concurrent player count (via SteamDB)
Pocketpair community manager Bucky recently addressed the headlines about the drop in player count, saying that it is fine to take breaks from games. “Palworld, like many games before it, isn’t in a position to pump out massive amounts of new content on a weekly basis,” Bucky wrote. “New content will come, and it’s going to be awesome, but these things take a little bit of time.”
“If you are still playing Palworld, we love you. If you’re no longer playing Palworld, we still love you, and we hope you’ll come back for round 2 when you’re ready.” And this comes from a person who was convinced that the game could surpass 50k CCU, so the actual numbers are likely above all expectations.