Palworld CEO surprisingly jazzed about the big-budget clones of its game that are in the works: 'These are incredible times'

pcgamer.com:

You'd think that huge corporations trying to replicate your success with clones of your game would be a bit of a kick in the teeth, but Palworld CEO Takura Mizobe couldn't seem happier. 

As reported by Automaton, Mizobe took to Twitter to respond to the recent announcement of Auroria—a Palworld-like being developed by Tianjin Wumai Technology and published by none other than Tencent. Auroria appears to have all the trappings of Pocketpair's own creature capture game: cute critters, co-op survival sandbox, base building, except this one comes in a more interstellar flavour.

Posting a screenshot of Auroria to Twitter, Mizobe wrote: «Tencent is already making a Palworld clone game! In China, many companies are simultaneously developing mobile clones of Palworld, and the budgets are in the 10 billion yen [approximately $64.6 million USD] range, 10 times larger than Palworld's… Next year, we might see many Genshin Impact-level creature (or bishojo) raising games… These are incredible times.»

Mizobe seems surprisingly jazzed for a game that could end up serving as stiff competition. Then again, Palworld itself isn't exactly a unique concoction, but what is these days? It'll be interesting to see if bigger, higher-budget attempts at Pocketpair's formula will capture the same lightning-in-a-bottle effect that Palworld had earlier this year. The game absolutely gripped folk when it released in January, becoming the second game in Steam's history to hit two million concurrent players. It made more money than Pocketpair knew what to do with, and, while the hype has significantly died down, it still boasts a steady concurrent player count of between 70,000 and 100,000 players.

It's unlikely any follow-up will reach those heights, but more competition is always a good thing regardless. It'll be interesting to see what Tencent cooks up with a higher budget, and if Mizobe is right about their being a ton more in the works, I'll be excited to see how they evolve and differentiate