Palworld Guide

Is Pocketpair an Indie Studio? Funding and What Devs Said

Is Pocketpair still an indie studio after Palworld's success? What the Palworld developer said about self-funding and creative freedom, why its size makes people doubt the label, and how big the game it built actually is.

Updated 2026-10-295 min read3 data tables

Pocketpair still calls itself an indie studio, even after Palworld reached a reported 40 million players this year. This guide covers how the studio defines the label, why some players push back on it, what Pocketpair does besides Palworld, and how much game a self-funded team actually shipped in 1.0.

Is Pocketpair Indie? Quick Answer

Question	Where it stands (October 29, 2026)
Does Pocketpair call itself indie?	Yes, and both its CEO and its communications lead have said so publicly
Who funds Palworld?	Pocketpair itself. The studio says it has no outside investors and is fully self-owned
Why the label is debated	The team has grown fast and Palworld has reached a reported 40 million players
How the CEO describes its size	Takuro Mizobe has said the studio could be seen as close to double-A scale
Pocketpair's own definition	Indie means creative freedom, not a headcount or a revenue figure
Does it publish other games?	Yes, through its own publishing arm, including Windrose, Truckful and Clicky Islands
Will the label change anything in-game?	No. It is about how the studio sees itself, not about updates or content

The two rows to focus on are funding and definition. Pocketpair's argument is not that it is small, because it plainly isn't any more. Its argument is that nobody else owns a piece of it or gets a say in what it makes. If you think indie means a tiny team scraping by, Pocketpair doesn't fit. If you think it means answering to no one, it fits better than many award-winning "indie" games that have a large company behind them.

What Pocketpair Said About Being Indie

The studio's head of publishing and communications, John Buckley, laid out the position in a post on X. His point was simple: Palworld and Pocketpair pay for themselves, there is no outside backer, and the team decides what games it makes. He also admitted that the game's success changes how people see the studio, and that plenty of players will point at its size or Palworld's earnings and disagree.

The more interesting part is where he draws the line. Buckley doesn't think a fixed number of employees works as a cut-off, and he doesn't think taking money from a publisher or investor automatically makes a studio less indie either. What matters to him is whether someone else is applying creative pressure or making the calls. By that test, a studio with a publisher can still be independent, and a huge self-owned team like Pocketpair counts too. He finished on a relaxed note: if you'd rather call Pocketpair triple-i or double-A, that's fine, because what matters is that it keeps making fun games.

Common test for "indie"	Does Pocketpair pass?	Why
No outside money	Yes	Fully self-funded and self-owned, by the studio's own account
Full creative control	Yes	No investor or publisher signs off on its decisions
Small team	No	The team grew quickly after Palworld took off
Small budget or revenue	No	Palworld has reached a reported 40 million players
Doesn't publish other studios	No	It now runs its own publishing label

So it depends on which test you use. On ownership and control, Pocketpair passes cleanly. On size and money, it doesn't, and the studio openly accepts that. That split is exactly why the argument keeps coming up online.

Why People Question the Label

Indie has become a fuzzy word. Some studios with the label are owned by much bigger companies, and some have publishers paying the bills, so there is no single rule everyone agrees on. Pocketpair lands in the middle of that debate from the opposite direction: nobody owns it, but it is no longer a scrappy little team. CEO Takuro Mizobe has called it a true indie company that wants to keep making games the indie way, while also conceding its scale is getting close to double-A territory.

There is also the publishing side. Pocketpair now helps other small developers release their games, with Windrose, Truckful and Clicky Islands among the titles it supports. A studio that publishes other indies is a long way from the usual picture of one, which adds fuel to the "you're not indie any more" camp even though it doesn't change who owns Pocketpair.

TipNone of this affects the game you play. Pocketpair's status has no effect on Palworld's updates, servers or pricing. What the self-funded setup does mean is that update priorities are set by the studio itself, which is worth keeping in mind when you read the Palworld roadmap after 1.0.

How Big Is the Game Pocketpair Built?

Part of why the indie label raises eyebrows is the sheer size of Palworld 1.0, which left early access on July 10, 2026. The numbers below are counts from the current game, and they explain why people compare Pocketpair to bigger studios. The Pal roster and the breeding web are the headline figures: 288 Pals and 41,616 breeding combinations is a lot of content for any team to balance, let alone one with no backer.

What's in Palworld 1.0	Count	Where to dig in
Pals	288	Palworld Paldeck: every Pal
Elements	9	Dark is the biggest group with 70 Pals
Breeding combinations	41,616	Palworld breeding calculator
Technologies	588	Palworld technology tree
Buildable structures	485	All Palworld structures
Weapons	145	All Palworld weapons
Armor pieces	128	All Palworld armor
Alpha Pals	90	Alpha Pal locations
Tower bosses	10	Palworld tower bosses
Raid bosses	5	Palworld raid bosses
Map pins	40,924	Interactive Palpagos map

The map row is the one that shows the scale best. More than 40,900 pinned points, from ore nodes to chests to Alpha spawns, all sit on one island chain. If you're new and that looks overwhelming, start small: the how to catch Pals guide gets your first team together, and the Palworld 1.0 update guide covers what changed from early access. These are the Pals most people picture when they think of Palworld:

Where You Can Play Palworld

Because Pocketpair is self-published, it handles every platform release itself. Palworld is out on Palworld on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PC Game Pass, PlayStation 5 and Mac, all sharing crossplay. There is still no Nintendo version, and the reasons are covered in Is Palworld on Switch 2. If you're jumping in with friends, the Palworld multiplayer guide explains co-op, crossplay and dedicated servers.

The Short Answer

Yes, Pocketpair considers itself indie, because it is fully self-funded, has no outside investors and keeps total creative control over Palworld. It is not small any more, and it now publishes other studios' games, so plenty of players disagree. Pocketpair's own take is that it is just a label, and you're free to call it double-A if you like.

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