The creators of Palworld on their publishing: it's more of an altruistic endeavor rather than an ambitious business project
A year ago, the studio Pocketpair, known for the sensational game Palworld, decided to try its hand in the publishing niche. In an interview with The Game Business portal, the head of Pocketpair Publishing, John Buckley, mentioned that his team approaches game publishing with a significant amount of altruism.
Palworld
According to Buckley, Pocketpair Publishing is not aimed at making tons of money. For them, publishing is partly a way to give back to the gaming industry and an opportunity to work with exciting projects.
Currently, Pocketpair Publishing's portfolio contains just under a dozen games. Two of them are already released (the horror game Dead Take and the puzzle CASSETTE BOY), while others are still preparing for release. Buckley admitted that, at least Dead Take has performed well, but even if all of them end up failing, Pocketpair Publishing will not shut its doors and will continue to allocate resources to external teams. At least as long as its own studio business remains profitable.
“Of course, if one of these games becomes a mega-hit and sells 25 million copies, I won’t complain,” Buckley joked.
Buckley added that currently, Pocketpair Publishing resembles more of an investor than a classic publisher. Essentially, it offers developers two options. The first is simply game financing. The second is financing and promoting the game in Asian countries. However, unlike real investors, Pocketpair Publishing doesn’t take a stake in the studio or rights to the IP. Such a limited range of services is explained by the fact that besides Buckley, there is currently only one other person on the Pocketpair Publishing staff.