With the latest content update, Palworld included a new base ornament that let you reskin one of your pals. It came with a free skin, with others promised to be on the way.
Everyone expected that this was going to be what a future cash shop would look like – new looks for your pals. Purely cosmetic. I don’t really have a problem with this… if people want to pay money to have a shinier virtual pet, more power to them. Final Fantasy XIV seems to be doing pretty well, and the last time I checked their online store, I didn’t see anything that would give anyone an advantage in a raid or anything like that. The FFXIV endgame is cosplay, always has been.
For a couple of months we’ve been able to give our pink kitty shades, and that’s it. Now, though, they have three new skins available; a golden Relaxasaurus, a Quivern with a sailor hat, and a Chillet with snorkel, mask and tube.
These are very cute, and also free. You just have to watch someone play Palworld on Twitch for an hour on three different weeks.
Fair enough. I loaded Twitch up, searched for a Palworld stream, and started watching. Someone was going through the first hour or so of the game, picking up sticks, making a fire, stuff like that. Then a couple commercials played. Then back to picking up some rocks for awhile. Some more commercials. Automated messages kept advertising the Twitch drop.
I got bored with watching someone stumble around in the dark between commercials, so I put the tab in the background and went on with my day. When I remembered it later, I went back and the streamer had left, but the channel was just playing continual commercials. I got the Relaxasaurus skin, though. I noticed that nobody had commented on the stream in all the time I had been there.
Nobody was actually watching. I’m not even sure the streamer got paid. It reminded me of those dark corners of the web where it’s just pages and pages filled with ads, with little bits of content sprinkled between them. (I kid; it’s not dark corners of the web; I see those pages all the time, every day).
It’s not hard to see who’s the winner in this particular case. I got a new look for one of my Pals, and I did nothing for it. The streamer had to waste some portion of their life making useless content nobody wanted. Palworld had to pay Twitch for this promotion and make the skins. Twitch probably sent some money to the streamer. Just seems like… so much waste.
Every day, millions of hours of content are made for Twitch. Even I do it.1 Blockchain and AI are called wasteful because they use up oodles of power for little reward. Twitch drops seem like that same sort of thing and it’s hard to see who really benefits.