Palworld CEO's Open Letter Randomly Name-Drops Genshin Impact & BOTW, Claims Palworld's Novelty Rivals the Gap Between Them — Players Call It Copium Marketing

Palworld's CEO wrote an open letter that was supposed to be a heartwarming thank-you to players — but one bizarre comparison to Genshin Impact and Breath of the Wild blew the whole thing up across the Chinese gaming community.

The letter, published on Japan's note.com platform, chronicled Palworld's rocky development journey. The team struggled, but somehow kept finding diamond-in-the-rough talent. The CEO even joked it felt like he was catching real-life Pals to build his dev team.

The roster reads like a recruitment fantasy: a 20-year-old otaku with only a middle school education found on Twitter, who was an absolute beast at weapon design and sound effects — the CEO personally flew to Hokkaido to recruit him as the shooting systems lead. Then there was a UE5 wizard who didn't even know how to use Git, yet ended up carrying the entire programming team. And the wildest story: a fresh college grad who had been rejected by dozens of companies, only to turn out to be a hidden prodigy once hired — she drew 100+ Pals at 5x the speed of any other artist on the team.

But then things took a sharp turn. Out of nowhere, the CEO compared Palworld's novelty to 'the gap between BOTW and Genshin Impact' — a completely unprompted name-drop that left everyone scratching their head. Mentioning ARK: Survival Evolved would've made sense since the gameplay clearly borrows from it, but dragging Genshin into the conversation felt like a deliberate provocation.

To make things even more confusing, the CEO then contradicted himself with a bizarre disclaimer: 'To avoid any silly misunderstandings, "novelty" doesn't mean "extremely fun." It also doesn't mean the game will sell well. It just means that extremely fun games tend to be novel. Palworld meets this criteria well, but that's just hindsight.' So you're novel, but novelty doesn't equal fun? Pick a lane, chief.

NGA commenters had a field day. The top reply nailed it: 'Stitch BOTW into a gacha game and tell me that's novel.' Another user quipped: 'Is this copium marketing something you also learned from Genshin?' A third pointed out: 'This game's marketing strategy is identical to Genshin's launch playbook.'

The plagiarism debate flared up around the 'one artist, 100 Pals, 5x speed' claim. Skeptics argued: '5x the speed and 100 designs solo — no wonder so many Pals feel like you've seen them somewhere before.' Another added: 'So many creatures have obvious Pokémon vibes.' A more nuanced take from one commenter noted: 'The game mainly copies ARK, just the character design borrows from Pokémon. Dropping Genshin's name was basically saying — I copied, but I copied a different thing.'

Not everyone was hostile, though. One user praised Pocketpair for releasing an open server configuration document that lets anyone freely tweak game parameters, even for pirated copies: 'Gotta respect that.' Another spoke for the frustrated Pokémon veteran crowd: 'The people saying this are lifelong Pokémon fans. Because Game Freak has been coasting for too long — have you seen the graphics quality on their recent releases? This is supposed to be a modern game?'

The faction warfare in the comments was brutal. One user fired shots at both sides: 'At least admit you're a copycat and take the criticism. Don't be like MiHoYo — copying while building a shrine and having whiteknights defend you.' The rebuttal was swift: 'MiHoYo fans literally said they wished Nintendo gave Zelda to MiHoYo to develop — I've seen plenty of those takes.'

Perhaps the most level-headed take came from a player who said: 'This game hypes whatever gets the most traffic. It's actually fun though, a great Frankenstein of mechanics. I'm hooked despite the game-breaking bugs everywhere. But knowing Pocketpair's track record, this thing will probably still be in Early Access three years from now.'

In the end, the open letter was a solid PR move that backfired spectacularly thanks to an unnecessary Genshin/BOTW comparison that gave the community endless ammunition for memes and arguments. The 'one artist at 5x speed' efficiency miracle is now its own separate controversy — genius productivity or suspicious shortcuts? And the eternal debate of 'glorious mashup vs. shameless clone' rages on, with every player firmly in their own camp.