Palworld developer Pocketpair kicked off 2025 by launching a publishing division, and was immediately swamped with interest: It received more than 150 pitches for publishing deals in its first week alone. Pocketpair Publishing boss John Buckley said at the time that the new division "will respect the autonomy and vision of developers and work together to make great games for people all over the world," but it turns out that there is one kind of vision the company isn't interested in: The kind that relies on generative AI.
"People are going to say I'm lying, but these are just the hard facts," Buckley said in a new interview with Game Developer. "We don't believe in it. We're very upfront about it. If you're big on AI stuff or your game is Web3 or uses NFTs, there are lots of publishers out there [who'll talk to you], but we're not the right partner for that."
