Automaton has an English translation of comments found on Japanese website ASCII.jp where Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe discusses the business model for Palword, the hit creature collection game. This includes discussion of whether Palworld would remain a premium offering, or go a free-to-play or Games as a Service model. A post on Steam follows-up, noting the interview is from months ago, and that even at that time, it was already decided this would be neither F2P nor a GaaS product. Word is that DLC or premium skins may come in the future, but the games' business model is set:

In fact, this interview was conducted several months ago. At that time, we were still considering the best way forward for Palworld to create a long-lasting game that continues to grow. We are still discussing this internally, as it is quite challenging to find the ideal path, but we have already decided that the F2P/GaaS approach is not suitable for us.

Palworld was never designed with that model in mind, and it would require too much work to adapt the game at this point. Additionally, we are very aware that this just isn't what our players want, and we always put our players first.

We are still considering skins and DLC for Palworld in future as a means to support development, but we will discuss this with you all again as we get closer to that point. For now, our priority remains making Palworld the best game possible.