GhostofWar
Regular
A day after that bucky palworld twitter done a bit of expectation policing, I wonder if MS has this locked down on consoles for 6 or 12 months. They did a whole console bundle thing with it somewhere.
Palworld! is the new mass phenomenon. [XBSX|S, PC, XGP]
- Thread starter Cyan
- Start date
cheapchips
Veteran
Modder who accused Palworld of using 3D models from Pokemon games admits that he has faked everything
The modder who accussed Palworld of using the 3D models of from various Pokemon games admitted that he has faked everything.www.dsogaming.com
A gamer faking asset stealing to make a protest about the exploitation of animals wasn't on my list of plausible things for 2024.
Like any other Pokemon game?
PETA is concerned about Palworld. They consider creating a vegan guide for gamers.
Well, the many pokemon sequels are indeed very formulaic, but at least its the formula nintendo itself created, so it can't be called derivative. The game's world also has thematic cohesion, so I would not call it incongruent. You dont see pokemon slaves crafting AK-47s in sweatshops.
I've not played it but from what I've read it sounds to be at best morally ambiguous.
I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3 right now and one of the staples of these games is basically having to kill like every creature in the game you come across for their meat/parts to craft or trade with or something. There is usually no alternative outside just not doing side quests and missing out on a lot of progression potential. Problem is - the game really makes it cruel because many of these creatures are entirely peaceful and they even design some with little baby versions of the creatures that you also have to kill, though not like it's any better if you only try and kill their mother/father adult versions. This isn't like normal hunting, as you're not really hunting for food to survive, you're just trying to get like +5% critical hit damage or something. lol
As somebody who generally tries to avoid killing innocent animals in games, I really do wish they'd offer some sort of alternative or make it so the peaceful creatures' drops aren't so useful. But it's not a huge deal.
Anyways, it's been utterly depressing watching Palworld become a gamer fad and this studio's fairly lazy efforts be rewarded with untold riches. It always amazes me when I see people talk about the game industry as if it's some meritocracy when it so clearly is not. It's not even a Pokemon game, either. It's just some generic survival game with ripoff Pokemon designs. So it cant even be given any credit for 'doing what Game Freak wont' or something like how many are talking about it. There is nothing to 'take away' from this game in terms of inspiration or lessons or anything. These devs simply got insanely lucky. It also shows why so many survival games keep getting made, hoping to become the next 'Twitch fad' which seems mandatory for success in the genre.
As somebody who generally tries to avoid killing innocent animals in games, I really do wish they'd offer some sort of alternative or make it so the peaceful creatures' drops aren't so useful. But it's not a huge deal.
Anyways, it's been utterly depressing watching Palworld become a gamer fad and this studio's fairly lazy efforts be rewarded with untold riches. It always amazes me when I see people talk about the game industry as if it's some meritocracy when it so clearly is not. It's not even a Pokemon game, either. It's just some generic survival game with ripoff Pokemon designs. So it cant even be given any credit for 'doing what Game Freak wont' or something like how many are talking about it. There is nothing to 'take away' from this game in terms of inspiration or lessons or anything. These devs simply got insanely lucky. It also shows why so many survival games keep getting made, hoping to become the next 'Twitch fad' which seems mandatory for success in the genre.
I really don't understand why people are having problems specifically with this game on "moral" grounds. It's a survival game. In almost every survival game, you have to kill (sometimes peaceful) animals to survive. In a way Palworld is better because you don't have to kill them (you get the drops even if you "catch" them, and you can put some of the critters in farms to get even more material drops, no killings). I guess many people are having problem with this game simply because the critters looks cute.
If you have problem with this game then I guess you'll have problem with most games (not just survival games) on the market.
Note that this game does not "force" you to do anything. There's no quest to kill X number of some animals. There no quest requiring you to butcher a critter (AFAIK). You can give your pals a nice working condition if you want to (though your base will be less efficient but that's natural). It's actually up to you. So IMHO this game is actually much better than many other games which do not give you the choice.
If you have problem with this game then I guess you'll have problem with most games (not just survival games) on the market.
Note that this game does not "force" you to do anything. There's no quest to kill X number of some animals. There no quest requiring you to butcher a critter (AFAIK). You can give your pals a nice working condition if you want to (though your base will be less efficient but that's natural). It's actually up to you. So IMHO this game is actually much better than many other games which do not give you the choice.
I don't really care for the killing of any non-hostile creatures/NPC's in any game but if it's necessary for survival in a survival game then I can at least understand it. From what I've read though this game differs in multiple key respects:
- It rewards forced labour/slavery as a key gameplay mechanic, with more brutal forms of forced labour being more rewarding.
- The creatures that you're killing seem to be portrayed as sentient with human like emotions, e.g. they get depressed the harder you work them, eventually resulting in their death if worked too hard.
- The killing of the creatures is pretty gratuitous. You basically beat them to death with a meat cleaver which is referred to as "butchering" and is apparently so violent they have to pixelate it out. That's most definitely glorifying the act of killing as opposed to most survival games that I'm aware of. You can also pile up the bodies in "mass graves" (see below).
- You can capture and sell humans for profit.... I don't think I need to comment on the moral ambiguity of that. You can also butcher them in the same way as the Pals noted above.
- Most importantly for me, the art style of the creatures in the game, being clearly heavily influenced by Pokémon is design to appeal to children. I've had my kids asking if they can play it just from seeing pictures in articles that I'm reading about it.
I won't be addressing this point by point but I just want to say a lot of games are doing the same thing. On the "slavery" part, games like Conan Exiles even let you capture humans and put them as slaves (it's just that they don't call it that but call them "thralls" instead).
The "butchering" is just a game mechanism for you to "recycle" critters you have captured. As I said, you don't have to do that. As an example, I didn't make the cleaver and never butcher any critter I captured because I don't want to do that. You can choose to do it or not to do it. Just like in many games.
As the design style appealing to children, of course that's one concern but this game is not rated yet and I doubt the developers intend to market this game to children. Of course I don't really know what's their intention.
Personally I think this game is fun to play and even as an early access game it's already worth the money I paid for. I think it's success is also good for the industry because it proved that it's possible to be successful by simply making a game fun to play. I'm tired of seeing those gatcha games (or, similarly, microtransaction heavy games) making tons of money. I won't play them but I think it's ok if people want to play them, but I worry that if we don't have more successful story from normal games we might end up with all games as gatcha games.
TBH I don't see why other games doing the same thing makes this any better. And I don't really see why having these gameplay elements as options as opposed to forcing you to do them really improves things either. I get that you don't have to work seemingly sentient creatures to death, or butcher them for food, or capture and sell humans, but I also understand there are gameplay advantages in doing so.
I'm not suggesting that everyone who plays the game is morally bankrupt or anything, and I'm sure you can play it quite innocently without partaking in the more extreme forms of abuse, and even if you choose to in a tongue in cheek manner that doesn't make you a bad person, but the options still there, and when you combine it with the games art style that appeals to children (regardless of what official rating the game gets) along with it's seemingly viral popularity, I do think that's troubling. It certainly provides an avenue for more impressionable minds to be de-sensitized to this kind of thing, or for less savoury types to outright indulge in it, potentially feeding real life impulses for similar experiences.
When I use other games as example, I just want to point out it's already quite common in games. So if Palworld is concering, then people should already be concering a long time ago.
As an example, Baudur's Gate 3 allows players to do a lot of bad things. Is it troubling? Should game designers avoid allowing players to make morally questionable decisions in games? Should we ban games like GTA? GTA V sold many more copies than Palworld.
Obviously I'm against that, and I see this as a slippery slope. There are already enough people calling for "reducing video game violence." I don't want to be in a world where game designers have to worry about the feelings of mushrooms when making Super Mario games. But of course this is getting political, so I guess I'll stop here.
arandomguy
Veteran
I'll preface I don't know much about this specific game.
But I'm curious about why this game is different than say Ark, Rust, 5 Nights at Freddy's, Among Us, Fall Guys, Getting Over It, and etc. from an industry perspective?
From a broader perspective it seems like it's going reinforce the importance of streamers and going viral on streaming from a marketing perspective in terms of a games trajectory. Wouldn't this just encourage games to be made streamer "friendly?" and marketable?
A day after that bucky palworld twitter done a bit of expectation policing, I wonder if MS has this locked down on consoles for 6 or 12 months. They did a whole console bundle thing with it somewhere.
from what I heard from colleagues of mine who have the game, it seems to be so fun.
it differs in certain details like the fact that you can't be invaded. Basically you can play single player if you want to.
I'm reading that as 'it won't be on Playstation, up to and exactly no more than when that statement ceases to be true", which does logically negate a PlayStation version happening.
