You're getting downvoted, but I think there's something to this, even if it's not the whole story. The game had a robust presence unnaturally quickly on Tiktok and among streamers. This studio isn't big enough to have engineered a big campaign, but it's quite possible they did some small, targeted marketing and it really paid off.

[–] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Yeah but also I think the nature of viral content is just spinning out into chaos with the amount of AI generated content and bots. I am sure palworld deserves its popularity to an extent but it’s the velocity and utter completeness of palworld’s popularity that feels weird. At some level I think algorithms are heavily distorting cultural phenomena like this to be much more “winner takes all” in terms of popularity. It is not only how humans tend to act but it is also the most profitable way to monetize culture.

[–] wolfshadowheart@slrpnk.net 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I've been seeing people mention "the game has been in development for 2 years" and all these trailers and stuff but... I didn't hear a thing until the game released, it exploded and now it's all I'm seeing.

[–] Sheeple@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Exactly. Cassette Beasts and various other indie games have made bigger rounds before.

The only reason Palworld got popular was because of clickbait youtubers