Palworld's Communications Director Addresses AI Controversy and Misunderstandings

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) last month, we sat down for an extended conversation with John “Bucky” Buckley, communications director and publishing manager for Palworld developer Pocketpair.

We spoke following his talk at the conference, 'Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.' During that talk, Buckley went into candid detail about a number of Palworld’s struggles, especially the accusations of it using generative AI (which Pocketpair has since debunked pretty soundly) and stealing Pokemon’s models for its own Pals (a claim that the person who originally made it has since retracted). He even commented a bit on Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit against the studio, saying it “came as a shock” to the studio and was “something that no one even considered.”

We’ve already run a number of shorter stories on some of the highlights of our conversation with Buckley, but given the depth of insight he provided on Pocketpair’s community struggles and triumphs, we decided to publish the full extended interview here as well. If you’re looking for something a bit shorter and easier to follow, you can read at these links on Buckley’s comments about the possibility of Palworld coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, the studio’s reaction to the game being called “Pokemon with guns”, and whether Pocketpair would ever be acquired.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity:**IGN: I'm going to get the really annoying one that I know you can't really answer out of the way first. You talked so, so lightly about the lawsuit in your GDC talk. Has that lawsuit made it harder for Pocketpair to move forward and update the game, having that still pending?**

John Buckley: No, it hasn't made it harder to update the game or to move forward. It's just something that weighs over us all the time. It's always on everyone's mind, but it hasn't impacted our ability to update the game. It hasn't affected development in that regard. It's more about the company's morale than anything else. And, of course, we've had to hire lawyers, but I'm not involved in that, and really, no one else at the company is, except for the top executives. It's just about morale more than anything else.

Okay, real conversation time. I was fascinated at the start of your talk when you talked about, sort of cheekily, the ‘Pokemon with guns’ moniker. I was surprised that you didn't seem to like that. Can I ask why?

Buckley: A lot of people don't believe us when we say this, but many think it was our goal from the start, like it was written on a whiteboard before development began. But that was never the case. We always wanted to create something similar to ARK: Survival Evolved, but with more automation and more personality in each creature. We're huge ARK fans, and our previous game, Craftopia, incorporated elements from ARK that we loved. We aimed to expand on that concept, making each creature unique and special.

When we released the first trailer, the 'Pokemon with guns' label emerged, and while we weren't thrilled about it, it is what it is.

You said in the talk that you didn't understand why Palworld took off the way it did, you couldn't explain it. And I'm not a market analyst, so I certainly couldn't tell you, but I do feel like I specifically remember when "Pokemon with guns" came into the conversation.

Buckley: Yeah, that definitely played a big role. Dave from New Blood even trademarked Pokemonwithguns.com, which added fuel to the fire. But even now, in 2025, if people want to use that label, that's fine. What bothers us is when people believe that's all the game is without even playing it. We'd prefer everyone gives it a fair chance before forming an opinion.

Well, how would you have phrased it? What would've been your "moniker" for this?

Buckley: I might have called it, “Palworld: It's kind of like ARK if ARK met Factorio and Happy Tree Friends.” That's how I would've described it.

It doesn't quite roll off the tongue the same way.

Buckley: No, it doesn't, does it? Maybe that's why.

**Another thing that you brought up in the talk were the criticisms people made saying the game was AI slop. How did that impact folks internally at Pocketpair?**

Buckley: It had a massive impact, and it still does. You'll find comments on any Palworld post or news article saying, "I hate this company. They use AI," which is completely false. It's upsetting, especially for our artists, particularly our Pal concept artists. Two of them have been with us since day one, and this kind of criticism hits them hard. We've tried to counter these claims, but it's challenging. We released an art book, which helped, but not as much as we hoped.

Yeah, when you gave your talk you mentioned people not wanting to be super visible online because the internet can be harsh.

Buckley: Yeah, they don't want to be visible. It's not an excuse, but the vast majority of our artists are female, and in Japan, it's not customary to be public about these things. So they don't want to be on camera or have their names out there. It's still very upsetting for them to hear these false accusations. We haven't found the best way to refute them yet.

We are having this industry-wide conversation about generative AI and generative AI art, and people think that they're really good at spotting it, and you can't always. If something has seven weird fingers, it's probably pretty obvious, but less so in other cases, right?

Buckley: A lot of the arguments against us are pretty hollow. It all stems from comments our CEO made in 2020 or 2021. There was a Kotaku article about AI art, and our CEO simply commented, "Sugoi," which means amazing in Japanese. People interpreted that as him being overly enthusiastic about AI art, but it was more of a casual reaction.

Additionally, in 2022 or 2023, two or three members of Pocketpair developed a game called AI: Art Imposter, a party game where players generate AI images. We thought it would be seen as a fun, ironic concept, but it was misinterpreted as our endorsement of generative AI. It was popular in Japan, though, and we're happy it was enjoyed there.

What's your overall take on the state of, not your community specifically, but online gaming communities in general? You're talking about getting all that harassment and stuff, is social media broadly useful for you all anymore?

Buckley: Social media is crucial for us. I attended a publisher roundtable yesterday, and the opinions were split. Some believe it's essential, while others think it's not the way to go anymore. It's particularly important for us because our primary market is in Asia, where social media is a significant part of daily life. You can't ignore it.

Online gaming communities can be intense. People get emotional and sometimes lash out, which I understand from my own experience with PvP MMOs. We can handle some of the criticism, but the death threats are ridiculous and illogical. We're not breaking the game on purpose; we're trying to fix things as quickly as possible. We live and breathe this game, and it hurts us more than anyone when things go wrong. I wish people would be more sympathetic to that.

Do you feel like social media is trending worse lately?

Buckley: There's a trend where some people say the opposite just to get a reaction. It's become more common, and there are accounts notorious for always opposing popular opinions about new games. It's about getting clicks and trends. Luckily, Palworld has mostly avoided getting caught up in political and social controversies; we mostly get feedback about game issues.

I thought it was really interesting in your talk that you said that the majority of the heat came from the Western audience. I guess I just assumed it would be equal across the board. Do you have any insight as to why that was?

Buckley: It's puzzling to us too. In Japan, opinions about us are split 50/50. We're a divisive company there. Not many Japanese game companies focus on overseas markets first, and we do, which might contribute to the divisiveness. We consider ourselves indie, which some Japanese gamers don't like. The heat from the Western audience might have been because we were an easy target at the time. It's much more manageable now, but the majority of the death threats were in English.

Palworld Screens

17 ImagesSo Palworld was extremely successful, and I get the sense, perhaps in a way that was maybe unexpected for you all based on your talk. Has that changed anything about how the studio runs or what your future plans are or anything else?

Buckley: It's changed our future plans, yes. It has not changed the studio's core operations. For better or worse, we remain basically unchanged.

You said the community team did not get bigger in response. Did the studio get bigger in other ways?

Buckley: Yes, our server team has grown, and we're constantly hiring more developers and artists. One of our goals is to speed up development for our fans. However, the company culture hasn't changed much. We're bigger now, with about 70 people, but we haven't reached a tipping point yet. Our CEO wants to keep it small, avoiding getting into the hundreds. This level of success was unexpected.

You knew it was a good game, but you didn't know that it was going to be this big.

Buckley: A million sales for an indie game is a huge success. Two million? That's incredible. When you reach 10 million, it becomes surreal. Steam sends us monthly reports with numbers that don't make sense anymore. It's a weird and surreal experience, and we're still trying to grasp it.

Do you anticipate that Palworld is something that Pocketpair is going to support for a really, really long time to come?

Buckley: Palworld's definitely going nowhere. We're not sure what form it will take in the future, but it will be something we continue to support. At the same time, we want to go back to making other games. We're still working on Craftopia, and we want to support our developers in pursuing their own projects. Palworld has split into the game itself and the IP, which are taking different trajectories.

Yeah. You talked about that partnership that everybody misunderstood.

Buckley: Yes, it's still misunderstood. Someone asked me yesterday why I wasn't wearing a Sony jacket, and I had to explain that we're not owned by Sony at all. It'll probably always be misunderstood.

Do you think you guys ever would get acquired?

Buckley: No, our CEO would never allow it. He likes being his own boss and doing his own thing. He doesn't want people telling him what to do. I'd be shocked if it ever happened, maybe only if he's old and wants to sell for money. But in my lifetime, I doubt it.

The game path is where we're focused, while Palworld as an IP is being steered by Aniplex and Sony Music, with us offering advice.

I know we talked earlier about the Palworld comparisons to a Pokemon, and that you actually feel it's more like ARK. ARK is not actively releasing brand new games every one to two years and has an anime and merch like the way Pokemon does, but Pokemon is gearing up. They've got a release this year. They're constantly doing stuff. Do you see that being competitive in any way or meaningfully impacting you all?

Buckley: I don't think the audiences cross over that much. The systems are completely different. We released after Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and while some fans compared us favorably, I think a lot of it was just online stirring. We don't see Pokemon as a competitor. We were more focused on other survival games like Nightingale and Enshrouded, which we playfully engaged with. Competition in games is often manufactured for marketing purposes. We're more in competition with timing than anything else. Interestingly, a significant portion of Palworld players also bought Helldivers 2 on release, which surprised us.

Would you ever release on the Switch?

Buckley: If we could make the game work on the Switch, we would, but Palworld's a beefy game.

The Switch 2?

Buckley: We haven't seen the specs yet, so we're waiting like everyone else. If the Switch 2 is powerful enough, it's definitely worth considering. We did a lot of optimization for Steam Deck, and we'd like to get it on more handhelds if possible.

My big takeaway from your talk is that outside of the existing Palworld community of people who have played and enjoyed the game, you feel that Palworld is extremely misunderstood.

Buckley: Yeah, 100%.

What is your singular takeaway message for people who have not played it and you think misunderstand it?

Buckley: I think a lot of people who only know of Palworld from the news and the drama misunderstand what the game is. I'd say play it. We should consider releasing a demo or a free trial at some point. People who've never played it and only know it from the drama would be surprised after playing it for an hour. It's not what they think it is. We're not as seedy and scummy as some believe. We hid from the public to protect our developers, which might have made us seem inaccessible, but we had to protect our team.

That’s also just the way the internet works. Whatever other things there are to do in Palworld, what’s funny is a meme video of what is effectively distilled down to Pokemon with guns. So that's what everyone's sharing.

Buckley: We're a nice little company that's done well with every game we've made, and we hope to continue doing well. Last year was a crazy year for games, with many successful titles like Black Myth: Wukong, Helldivers 2, and Palworld hitting unprecedented numbers. Emotions were high, and people got swept away in the excitement.