This article was originally published on February 13, 2026 - read the full issue

By Marie Dealessandri

It's been one year since Palworld's developer announced Pocketpair Publishing. John 'Bucky' Buckley joined the Japanese studio in 2022 as global community manager, when it consisted of 15 people in a shared office. Four years and one Palworld later, the studio is expanding in all directions, bolsters 110 staff, and Buckley is its head of publishing and communications.

Publishing was always the next logical step for the studio, keen to give back to fellow devs. Buckley tells us it's going "very well," though he acknowledges the modest scale of the two games launched so far, Dead Take and Cassette Boy.

"Something we learned pretty quickly was that publishing is just a completely different ball game compared to development," he says. "Obviously, we've been developers for ten years now, and we know that side very well, but it was basically learning a whole new industry."

Palworld's tremendous success (32 million players across platforms, including 15 million copies sold via Steam Early Access) has run alongside controversies (and one legal battle with Nintendo), but the firm is focused on its community and games first and foremost. We ask Buckley if being the developer of one the most successful games of recent years gives Pocketpair an edge when it comes to publishing.

"Depending on who you ask, it's either a good thing or a bad thing," he smiles. "The immediate positive is we obviously have a much deeper understanding of what it takes to make a game. But on the other side of that, if you want to be a lot more business orientated, maybe we're too understanding. There's an argument to be made that the publishing side of gaming is more business than anything else, and maybe you need to be a bit more pragmatic about these things, whereas maybe we're a bit too much of a soft touch? Obviously, we're trying to put ourselves in the middle of that, though I admit we're still a bit developer-first."

Pocketpair released Cassette Boy to Steam a month ago. The perspective-shifting puzzle game was produced by solo developer Kiyoshi Honda, a well-known indie dev in Japan. And turning the spotlight to under-served indies of the region is very much part of the plan.

"I'm always keeping my eyes out on games from this region in general – not just Japan, but Korea, China," Buckley says. "Asia is having this really beautiful gaming renaissance right now that I think a lot of people in the west aren't realising. There's the very top end – things like [Black Myth] Wukong – but not only that, there's this incredible indie resurgence happening, especially in Japan. For a long time, in Japan, you were either making triple-A games at one of the legacy companies, or you were making a doujin game. Doujin is just a hobbyist [title] – not quite indie, it's [something] you do on the side. Recently, there have been a lot of events, things like BitSummit, Tokyo Game Dungeon, Tokyo Indies. There's just been a really beautiful resurgence. And, sadly, they're running into the same problems [as] everyone all over the world: lack of funding, lack of support. If we can help out even a little, then it's a win for everyone."

A publisher providing funding feels increasingly rare nowadays. Out of the many indie labels that have emerged in the past few years, most provide everything but financing, and mainly focus on marketing.

"We came into this with the opposite point of view," Buckley says. "Before we even started PPP, we were just doing funding. We wanted to be an Outersloth, but in Asia. But one thing about Pocketpair is we love alliterations and 'Pocketpair Investments' just didn't sound great," he laughs.

When the opportunity to fund FMV horror game Dead Take came around, Pocketpair lent a hand with QA and localisation, and just "naturally" became a publisher, Buckley recalls.

"We refuse to be a full-service publisher, but as far as funding goes… Look, there's no easy way to say this that doesn't make me sound very arrogant, but we have money. We're certainly doing very well for ourselves. And it doesn't put us in jeopardy to hand that out to people in what we consider very favourable terms."

Buckley's candid tone is refreshing and not entirely what we anticipated from Pocketpair. But his previous defence of the company has been vocal – whether it's about retaining independence, taking its time over Palworld's Early Access period, or avoiding loot boxes.

"I get very wound up very easily about the topic of indie, and I get told off in the company all the time when I bite back online," Buckley admits.

"It's just a fact that we're 100 per cent indie. No one has any equity in our company... I get very worked up, because the term 'indie' has lost its meaning a lot over the years. We're very proud that we're indie, and we want to help developers stay as indie as possible. We never take equity in the companies we work with. No one can shut them down. No one can tell them what to do. And we are really proud of that."

We steer the discussion to the meaning of 'indie', reminiscing about games nominated in the Best Indie category at the Game Awards over the years, and whether they deserved the label.

"Look, I think with the nature of what game development is today, it's very hard for the vast majority of developers to do it completely on their own. I'm sure someone will bark back and say, 'Concerned Ape made Stardew Valley by himself'... Obviously there are people out there who can one-man-army these things, but for most people, they need a certain level of help. I'm not going to start calling people 'not indie' just because there's someone else behind them. My definition, personally, is if the developer has 100 per cent creative control, then happy days. To me, that's an indie. Where the money came from doesn't really concern me if they're making the game they want to make."

As our conversation concludes, we turn to what lies ahead for Pocketpair: Palworld 1.0, its spinoff Palfarm, a physical card game with Bushiroad – plus, on the publishing side, the releases of Truckful, Normal Fishing, Vision Quench. And then "a few big surprises" on the horizon. It would be easy to feel smug in the face of such success but at Pocketpair that's definitely not the vibe.

"It's all pretty exciting," Buckley says. "But we're just minding our own business."

This article was originally published on February 13, 2026 - read the full issue