The Pokémon Company Announces It Will ‘Investigate’ Palworld IP And Assets
The Pokémon Company, partially owned by Nintendo, announced it will investigate Palworld for potentially using its IP and assets.
It's been advertised forever. If there was a case, Nintendo lawsuit-happy lawyers would have taken them down by now. It was never a secret their design shared aesthetic with Pokemon.
Reading the article explains that it's not that their aesthetic is shared, it's that some of the models are extremely similar to S/V models, beyond the likelihood of coincidence, and Nintendo plans to investigate if it's coincidence or actual asset theft.
Yeah, if one of the most litigious gaming companies out there hasn't filed a suit against them, then I think they might be ok, unless they can somehow prove parts of assets were used.
The closest Nintendo has gotten to legal stuff was against a modder for Palworld who used Pokemon and put the mod behind a paywall and I'm pretty sure if they didn't charge they might have been left alone maybe.
Nintendo is incapable of leaving anything alone.
Now that the game is out the assets can be ripped and directly compared, and so far the comparison shown by some people on the Internet have shown that many base models are nearly identical which is probablistically near impossible
If Nintendo would invest the money they pump in DMCA takedowns and lawyers in their games instead,
then perhaps they would have a chance to make something equally good as Palworld.
Nintendo does, GameFreak and The Pokemon Company on the other hand..
I submit Nintendo's online service as evidence that, that is not true in the least bit. MK8, Smash, Splatoon 3, all of them have atrocious online. Pokemon Unite using Tencent's online services runs circles around anything Nintendo has offered with online being a major factor and that's on same hardware.
Nintendo has their IP and they take extremely good care of it. No argument there. But holy shit is Nintendo's online service absolute trash. I will always have something Nintendo because I must always have my Animal Crossing, but holy fuck, let's not kid ourselves about Nintendo's online stuff. Anything that's using Nintendo's servers for match making or their network stack for connectivity is just garbage.
I will always love a good Mario, Pikmin, or Animal Crossing but Nintendo clearly isn't investing a single cent into online anything. And that is just my 2¢.
its ridiculous the number of fucking nintendo stans that are crying for nintendo to do something about Palworld.
Nintendo is the most litigeous company in the world (They fucking DCMA'd themselves for fucks sake) , If Palworld violated anything and Nintendo had actual opportunity to sue for anything.. They'd have done so long ago.
They fucking DCMA'd themselves for fucks sake
Oh, I want to hear the story behind this.
they had a complete meltdown when some people got tears of the kingdom early via shipping mishaps, so went on a massive rampage of DMCA notices to take down everything mentioning it. Youtube Videos, News Articles (that contained nothing but nintendo released official screen shots/images), and their own twitter account advertising the fucking game...
People white-knighting for Nintendo against a company that gave them an enjoyably Pokemon game.
Fuck game freak. Like they cant even fix there own games and shit.
Well, Palworld developer now have $200 million more than a week ago so now they can afford lawyers as good as the Pokémon company.
It takes weeks until they see any of that Steam money from a game they just released in early access. Though a bank might likely give them a hefty loan now for a proper defense. But let‘s not pretend Japan copyright and trademark laws are lenient or reasonable and Nintendo is basically a national treasure. If Pocketpair was based in any other country it would be different but here we really do not know how it could go.
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The statement sounds like PR speak for, please stop telling us about palworld, we've heard already.
I'm sure they have been inundated by panicked investors contacting them after reading the words, "pokemon with guns" in the news. The statement should reassure them that the company takes defending their IP seriously.
The game's been out long enough for them to write a cease and desist if they wanted to get litigious.
Pretty much yeah. Mostly just "Yes, we know." If they had any real chance of killing it off, they'd have done so before the game even launched. They'll make a big show of looking into it, then grumpily admit there wasn't technically any wrongdoing and, while they don't support Palworld, they can't actually stop it.
At this point it would be better for nintendo to buy palworld from the delveloper and make pokemon multiversal with palworld existing in an alternate universe.
That way they could cash in on the massive success, separate it from their actual pokemon IP all whilst appeasing fans of palworld by keeping the game alive.
You seem to think they would put any value in appeasing fans of Palworld. They're not even interested in appeasing their own fans. If they could publicly behead Palworld for all it's fans to see they'd do it just to send a message.
Absorb the business or kill it. Either way, nintendo won't lose sales to palworld.
Its the best move. Fighting it in court is just going to make the pokemon company look bad and if the news goes viral it will lose them money eventually as people move on from pokemon. Its almost 30 years old now. Nothing lasts forever.
Assuming they bought it, they'd probably just shut it down.
Win win for pokemon though right?
Why would Nintendo buy something that plagiarized them? They only buy independent stuff like how they did with Super Mario Bros 2
Palworld didn't plagiarize them. This is what the kids call a nothingburger.
Obviously there are loads of similar designs, but in a way that indicates illegal asset stealing? That’s a different question, and so-called “lazy design” aping on other creations doesn’t qualify as actual theft unless it can be explicitly proven.
More grimly, it is a big corporation trying to squash an upstart competitor and suppress art. If they succeed then it is truly dystopian and a sign that we need more legal protections against overzealous copyright litigators.
Actually, pokemon is owned by nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. It's a joint ownership. Look it up.
Palworld didn't steal their IP. They very closely mimicked the IP and potentially with just enough legal distinction to claim its not infringement.
Your analogy would be much more relevant if it was i own a bike company and another company started selling bikes that were extremely similar to my design which disrupted my sales.
In which casez yes i absolutely would buy out the other bike company before i lost too much business and either close it down or absorb it into my own business. This is not a terrible idea its a fairly common business practice.
But ok...
Fuck the pokemon company
I wish that consumers would act as hostile to the IP of this company and its parent as it acts towards other companies.
We keep thinking about such IP lawsuits as "all or nothing" affairs because YouTube with their strike system and similar systems by other companies make it seem that way. Yet that's not the case.
In this instance, Game Freak and Nintendo probably cannot go after palworld as a whole but battle around and then have them change singular Pal designs. That's a super expensive thing to do and takes ages. So they'll only do that if they risk loosing the claim to some brand ownership or other.
Which would be fine, frankly. With all the money Palworld got, they can aford to redesign some creatures. The number of them that actually look like imitations in practice is much smaller than critics make it to be.
IDK how US law is in this case but in Germany, all of this would evolve around the question if the game could be mistaken for a pokemon game die to those designs. It doesn't matter how similar stuff looks as long as it's not really plagiarism and obviously copied. So as long as they do not make it look like a pokemon game or use the pokeball or similar aesthetics, they wouldn't risk being sued or could harm Game Freak in return. They could challenge the registered trademarks etc. which could horrendously backfire, so large corporations usually avoid going after other large corporations and try to hash stuff like this out in backrooms. Lego for example is infamous for going after small shops that import Chinese brick makers but very decidedly not going after Hasbro, Lidl and Amazon, because those companies have the means to fight Lego's claims one by one which could lead to design rights being deleted by courts.
[surprised pikachu face]
Your DMCA notice is in the mail, buddy!
By Freaky Friday rules you would just be giving them another identity to send in affirming reports.
eatpopcorn.gif
Do I need to play it now or never? I have a feeling this FOMO is driving some of their current engagement.
The pirate version plays fine and even has access to online, so it's unlikely that it'll become lost media anytime soon
I think its a good game that you play with friends. It has a lot of minecraft (get resources and build shit) mechanics, so it is better played with others. I dont think you must play it now. Even if a lot of playes stop playing long the line, you can still enjoy the game with friends.
Palworld looks like shit, but it's still better than any Pokemon game on the Switch
From what i’ve seen of the landscapes while playing, it looks beautiful. For example, was an area that reminded me of Yosemite National Park, very enchanting.
Wth it looks fantastic and runs good even on lower systems, unreal engine doing some work there.
Unreal engine is the ugliest of game engines right behind unity. The best looking game to exist is Elden Ring, I will not elaborate further, if you know you know
Meh, played scarlet on switch. It was enjoyable, not one of my top games but I can see the appeal to the fans. I just played through the main story line and then called it. Although hundreds of hours can be spent if someone wants to do everything. All in all, I don't think it's a terrible game.
Also I take the switch for what it is, a seven year old handheld. It's not going to compete with a PC, Xbox or PS. As I've grown older I don't care much for graphics but rather game play. And damn straight do I want sit on my couch in front of the TV with some sport in the background. I get it, it's not for everyone but it's what I like at this point in my life.
Go look at Ark survival then. It got beautiful graphics and neat identical but more fleshed out gameplay
Ark is probably the ugliest game I've ever seen
Per copyright law in the United States, the designs must be 15% different to create one's own artistic copyright. They're several that are close, but 15% isn't that much. Obviously Nintendo isn't a US company, but it'll be interesting to set how this goes
How the fuck do you even define a percentage point of difference for a creature's design ?
They do that mario party game where you trace the outline
Both Nintendo and Pocketpair are Japanese companies and their copyright laws are MUCH more harsh. In fact Japan even lacks concepts of "Fair use"
Add to that the fact that public opinion also matters intensely in Japanese courts (think juries) and that Pokémon is considered a national treasure and well... Things are stacked against Pocketpair
Oh man time to bring out the popcorn.
The Palworld fanboys are already trying to mental gymnastics their way out of this "It's just PR! Gamefreak is bluffing!!!!1"
Who in Palworld even allowed release of the game with certain assets that look so much like Pokémon? I mean, it doesn’t even need that.
The author of the article doubts Nintendo will do anything, but they certainly will.
Someone with knowledge actually analysed a few models and ended up making this statement too. With Japans stricter copyright laws this might become a problem for Pocketpair
Regardless, considering the Companies history with Craftopia and a few other games, we shouldn't get our hopes up anyways. This company has a habit of plagiarising relatively popular games (BOTW, Hollow Knight) then never delivering a fully fleshed out product.
Did they say how they analyzed the models? Because looking at the silhouette and other similarities isn't enough to prove plagiarism when it comes to 3d models.
What you have to do is open up both the original and the suspected copy models and select a couple of similar vertices (the points that give the model geometry) and compare the position down to the decimal place. If they are even a little off, then it isn't a copy.
I mean. The guy who "broke" the story of IP "theft" in pal world admitted he made it up. Basically scaled models etc to make them look similar on purpose.
GameFreak sucks big time, one of the worst first party devs Nintendo has in their roster, but Palworld is such a bland, uninspired and generic attempt at copying Pokemon that I still can’t fathom how it became so popular.
Because people have been asking and craving for an actually good and fun new Pokémon game for yeaaars now, and Palworld delivered just that. It gives the people what they want.
People think it cool to hate on things that are popular, but this one makes perfect sense. It's popular because it does what Gamefreak has been refusing to do for decades now.
Dude, seriously. The contrarians are out on full display with this game. You see the same poorly thought out points regurgitated in every thread.
The monsters look like Pokemon and you capture them in balls. That's the extent of the similarities.
But what you can do after that is fun and unique. I've always wanted to play a game where I could live with Pokemon. Having a Vulpix help me cook my food and a Piplup help me water my crops is awesome.
You can't really argue that it is a pokemon game tho. The gameloop is a complete different one. The only thing they have in common are uninspired monster designs. And maybe the that you catch them with a ball.
Persona games have more in common with pokemon games than palworld does.
The game isn't on switch so I bet a lot of the people saying it's a ripoff haven't even played it.
Fathom not phantom
I have no clue how that happened… Thanks.