Years before Palworld became the biggest survival game in the world, its CEO loaned out part of the studio's office for poker chip storage
May. 22, 2024Play your cards right
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The offices that house Pocket Pair, the studio behind the world’s biggest survival craft creature collectathonPalworld, were once partially used as poker chip storage.
Pocket Pair CEO Takuro Mizobe took to social media to announce he’d be holding a talk at his former university, Tokyo Institute of Technology, before sharing a random anecdote about his studio’s early years.
In a recenttweet, Mizobe explained that when Pocket Pair was first founded, about 80% of the Ookayama-based team who worked on the studio’s debut roguelike card game Overdungeon were also students at his university. “None of us had much experience in the industry, but we were able to create a game and release it on Steam,” Mizobe continued, “so I encourage everyone to keep creating.”
Mizobe went on to say that after graduating, he “lent part of the Ookayama office” to a friend who then “used it as a poker chip storage area” - a random factoid about the history of a now-famous studio.
Pocket Pair made a somewhat dangerous gamble earlier this year when it released its Pokemon-with-guns survival game. But it paid off, becoming arecord-breaking hitacross Xbox and PC with millions of sales, while also prompting"Genshin Impact-level" clonesthat are both “incredible” and also have budgets “10 times larger” than the breakout indie.
Elsewhere, the Palworld developers have been teasing an upcoming update featuring thegame’s own take on Pokemon Stadium, which just means you can bring firearms into the gladiator PvP mode.
Find out aboutall Palworld flying mounts and how to catch them.
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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
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