Palia

Pay to win game, ♥♥♥♥ that ♥♥♥♥. $100 American dollars for storage. L Devs.

I played Palia when it first launched years ago both on their launcher and Nintendo Switch. The game was fun and most of the monetization was focused on cosmetics. I decided it was time to return and see what new stuff had been added and was immediately turned off by the aggressive monetization. What was once a market full of outfits is now the bulk of the game. Animals, outfits, skins... just about anything you'd want earn through play and progression is now hidden behind some form of a paywall. This isn't inherently a bad thing but the price of entry for a single outfit can often start at around $15. Honestly at that price I can buy a different farm sim style game and have all the fun I want. I even tried to get my friend to play with me and we both were like "this feels like a single player game that is online" so it's not even a good multiplayer game.

After many hours in this game I can no longer support it. Preying on players after promises of not monetizing anything outside of cosmetics. Incredibly disappointed with the direction the studio is taking the game. Anyone just getting into or coming back to the game will be riddled by the same unfixed bugs, and a storefront pushing basic quality of life improvements for real money.

Negative monitization practices that just get worse and worse with every update. Used to be a great game, but devs are more concerned about penny pinching their player base than expanding the game with real content. Ads are even placed on the loading screens and obstruct the screen.

I got this game and have many hours on it. I was hooked for a month straight. as of June 2nd update, I have been unable to play my game and don't think I will bother to try and fix it with their recent updat of putting storage behind a paywall, which they said they would never do such a thing or become that kind of game. Game was great until you got greedy.

Glitchy and every cool thing is locked behind a paywall. I get its a free game but like dang there are no ways to get a pet without spending money. I mean its alright for a free game but just my opinion

Not Recommended Before I’d even properly got into the game, Palia was already lecturing me with its “Village Values”. You get stuff like: “We, the players, will work to uphold a welcoming, tolerant, and inclusive community, and reject racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism…” And honestly, I’m just tired of this sort of thing. I’m here to play a game. I don’t need to be given a diversity and inclusion speech before I’ve even started. I don’t need to be told what values I’m expected to uphold, what kind of community I’m expected to help create, or how I’m supposed to behave beyond the obvious. Just have normal rules. Don’t harass people. Don’t cheat. Don’t grief. Don’t abuse people. Don’t be a ♥♥♥♥. That covers it. Instead, it’s written in this weirdly forceful, patronising way where it’s “we WILL do this”, “we WILL uphold that”, followed by all the usual modern buzzwords about tolerance, inclusivity and identity. Then it gets even more patronising: “We believe in second chances and giving people the opportunity to learn to be better.” Learn to be better? I’m a grown adult opening a video game, not a naughty child being sent to the headteacher’s office. Then there’s: “We believe in supporting our neighbors through their hard days as we know they will support us through ours. Above all, we choose kindness.” Again, why am I being told this? If someone wants to make friends, support other players and become part of the community, brilliant. If someone just wants to log in, gather resources, build a house and keep themselves to themselves, that should also be completely normal. A game doesn’t need to tell me what kind of person I should be. Then, before I’ve even properly played, there’s an entire Consequences section explaining that breaking these “Village Values” can result in losing communication features, being excluded from events, being suspended from the game, or even potentially losing access to future Singularity 6 services. Why does a brand-new player need to be hit with all of that? Have a Terms of Service. Have moderation rules. Enforce them when needed. Every online game does. I don’t need to arrive in a cosy MMO and immediately be handed what feels like a mixture of a corporate diversity seminar, a school behaviour policy and a disciplinary procedure. Call it woke, DEI, progressive, whatever label you want. I don’t really care what people call it anymore. I’m just tired of being preached to and patronised by entertainment that I’m using specifically to get away from this sort of thing. And before someone deliberately misses the point, no, I’m not saying racism, harassment or abuse should be allowed. I’m saying you can ban bad behaviour without lecturing every new player about how they need to “learn to be better”, “choose kindness” and uphold your prescribed set of community values. I wanted to play a cosy MMO, gather resources, build a house and switch my brain off for a bit. Instead, one of my first experiences was effectively being handed the gaming equivalent of an HR induction and employee conduct handbook. That completely put me off. Uninstalled and put straight into my Not Interested list.

i loved this game... but.... i can't recommend it. ever since they started putting out bundles, it's all they do. we get so few story updates. it's all bundles, plushies, farm animals, outfits. what's the point? just make a dress up game, yall. like, seriously, this has been getting worse and worse. there's more and more bugs, stability is always up and down, it plays like ♥♥♥♥ on the switch. i'm really disappointed. this is well and truly turning in to a sims 4 mess

It was just a year or so ago that I came across Palia and introduced all my friends to play it with me, initially thinking I'd spend several hours on the game and for awhile I did have plenty fun with it despite its bugs and glitches. Eventually, I fell out of the game and stopped thinking about it until semi-recent. I booted up the game and it was completely broken, the UI was messed up and I couldn't load into the world at. all. no matter what I did. So fast forward to even more recent, I try Palia again. Thankfully everything's working in terms of UI and the world not falling out of itself- and the updates to the UI were quite nice but I noticed the cosmetics were increasingly expensive to a degree that I genuinely couldn't ever justify? Granted sure, they're cosmetics they're not a requirement to play the game but it felt very unfriendly? I tried looking for anything cute or cool that was free or on the cheaper end but nothing caught my eye. Either way I tried to get into the game to play it again and just wasn't feeling it- while the world loaded in it was evident that the game was still extremely buggy. Fast forward yet again to today, I learn they're now monetizing storage which is arguably p2w and generally just not a good move tbh. This game feels so lifeless, it feels like all the focus goes into the expensive cosmetics with everything else just left alone because the gameplay itself isn't making the profit. I don't necessarily disagree with the concept of paid cosmetics but the way they're implemented here feels dirty amongst the piles of other issues like bugs & glitches and their reversal of promising to not paywall core elements of the game (such as storage) It's really quite unfortunate because the first time I experienced this game, there was a real sense of community and fun to it. I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy it as much as I think others have- and there are the positive reviews for those experiences but given the business practices I feel inclined to say something. especially if there's any chance of changing the course of this games development into something enjoyable for players but that's extremely hopeful thinking. Either way I really just can't recommend it as it is and I'm honestly irritated for the greater community because whether or not they pay for these things and are ok with that- its still just not right to them. whether they mind it or not that's just how I feel.