The highly anticipated Palworld has just been released on Steam in early access format, and its launch is so successful that it has ended affecting the payment gateway and even the platform’s store tab. On X (formerly Twitter) and the game’s discussions section, some users share photos or screenshots with error messages when swiping the credit card.
“An unexpected error has occurred. Your purchase has not been completed. Please wait a few minutes and try again” reads the message, which appears occasionally when a game with enormous scope is released: it happened with Cyberpunk 2077, for example. Illustratively, Palworld occupied the Fifth place on Steam’s most wanted games list; and it was not possible to reserve it before this day. Its price, in fact, was a mystery until last week.
Although the pre-order issue has undoubtedly had a lot of influence on the “funnel” caused by Palworld, there is actually also another factor that should have just the opposite effect: the game is launched on Game Pass in parallel with its premiere on Steam. Considering that many already pay for the Xbox subscription service on a routine basis, it would be logical that it would move a very high percentage of potential buyers — and it probably has.
Palworld, a new success on Steam
Although at the time of writing these lines Palworld is only less than three hours old, SteamDB already has truly enviable activity figures: 235,564 simultaneous players, and counting. Those numbers are similar to those of triple-A productions in the style of Destiny 2 or Rust.
