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Palworld dev hopes to 'help more indie devs' after the survival game's runaway success: 'We were in the same position only a year ago until Palworld changed our lives'

Palworld's community manager John Buckley, inspired by his own game's success, wants to help indie developers after seeing the challenges they face at Gamescom, emphasizing the importance of indie games and their potential to create unique experiences.

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A Palworld developer says that speaking to indie devs has made him want to do more to help smaller teams, since his own game was "in the same position" until its breakout success.

In a blog documenting their experiences at Gamescom, Palworld community manager John Buckley noted that "I spoke with a lot of indie devs this year and got to hear about their struggles and worries." The extent of the difficulties faced by developers at studios of all sizes is not a new phenomenon, but Buckley pointed out that Palworld developer Pocketpair has been fortunate enough to future-proof itself.

"We were in the same position only a year ago until Palworld changed our lives," Buckley notes. "I'd like to do something to help more indie devs out because I really do think the best games are coming from the indie space." While there's no sense of what that help might look like, he says that meeting so many developers at Gamescom "has lit a fire in me" to help out.

Pocketpair went from a little-known, minorly-successful indie studio to a history-maker almost night when Palworld launched earlier this year. Shooting to concurrent player totals of 2.1 million, it become the second highest-played game on Steam until it was overtaken by Black Myth: Wukong earlier this month. That level of success had the potential to transform the studio's fortunes - earlier this month, studio CEO Takuro Mizobe revealed that Palworld's revenue count was "in the tens of billions of yen." That's at least US$70 million, enough to allow the studio's next game to "go beyond AAA," but Mizobe says he's trying to keep the team's budget expectations in check.

Buckley has been a backer of the indie community for some time already. Earlier this month, he encouraged players to check out more games, saying "you won't regret" investing your cash there instead of in the latest AAA battlepass. 

Check out our list of the best survival games.