News: The Pokémon Company issues statement on Palworld

[bobandbill]

Why can't we all be pals-oh, maybe that's why.

 

[Zeostar]

It's normal for a company to protect it's property. Although sharing similarities does not equate to infringement. They haven't actually placed any Pokemon into the game. (outside of that fan mod).

I guess nothing to do but wait and see what happens.

 

[Venia Silente]

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

I find it quite unlikely that Palworld can be C&D on the grounds of "ripping Pokémon", considering Pokémon kinda sorta started a genre in that sense and there's been a lot of adaptation and remixing ever since. Some Pokémon designs are so generic that either they have entered the collective creative property, or can not be justifiably interpreted as an original copyrightable context. See eg.: Ponyta is literally just a horse with fire; Klefki is a keychain with a face; Pokémon like Solosis, Wattrel, the Regis or the Vanis are literally creatures copied from IRL biology or folklore.

I think this quote in the comments is quite saying:

Not like Pokemon owns the monster catching and taming genre. Just swallowed them up is all. Calling it [Palworld] a ripoff is demeaning as Pokemon has had no competition for ages and has grown stagnant. Look up Digimon world and Jade Cocoon sometime, example of lost games eaten by Pokemon

To be honest, the most charitable (towards TPCI / Nintendon't) way I can read the statement is that they intend to bury Palworld so that it doesn't detract attention from GF's failures, considering how can easy a good mon game can be made compared to how GF makes the games (the article already calls to attention to how Palworld runs better than S&V). Basically, instead of making a good product, they just have to make everyone else look worse.

 

[Drayton]

At first, they can't sue palworld for having similar art style as pokemon is, but they're vaguely familiar like one another in terms of the design quite mirror one another of course the sheep thing is basically a wooloo or electabuzz rip off a huge fuzzy yellow bear, they're quite alike they can't basically shut it down.

Then again there's a mod makes the player looks like Ash and his companion and as well all the pals replaced with the ones looks like of pokemon, surely it boils nitnedo's nerve very much and could be a disaster in the waking for both the game developer and the mod creator. What are they even thinking of modding pokemon stuff into it and just get legal trouble when they can't but after mod appears, they surely strike

Loveander is more like their version of Salazzle

 

[Lapis_Laz95]

My news feed is already flooded with this Palword drama for weeks

TPC want to be clear that they aren't connected with Palworld and TPC don't approve guns etc.

i did take a peek at the dev's Steam page. They have 3 early access games developed at the same time that look the same? Very fishy if you ask me...

i won't be surprised if the hype for Palword dies off next month.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

The game seems really exciting to me. (if that mod had gone public I absolutely would've grabbed it, they were just begging to get yeeted off the face of the internet with that one lol, but I like the idea none the less :p) I'm hoping to play Palworld for the first time soon, just need to finish up modding a different game first.

 

[Fact Checking Gardevoir]

"but it may have been made to really make it clear how different TPC tries to market their product compared to Palworld, with its survival-based gameplay featuring shooting Pals, catching them to put them to work, and so forth."

One could argue if it is much better to catch Pokémon to make them attack one another with claws, bites, fire, lightnings, poison, ... until knock out, for sports. :p

 

[Fleurdelis]

I've just turned off every piece of media and enjoyed the hell out of this game, for something out of Early Access it runs really smooth and is really fun to play. Although you can clearly tell its early access with bugs and missing features lmao.

I do not think this statement will go anywhere other than "we are looking into it". The whole drama surrounding the game is just silly to be fair.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Palworld is very much not the kind of game I'm interested in (I don't like survival crafting games), but I'm still going to be furious if Nintendo sues them. I wish we had freedom of speech so that these kinds of copyright disputes wouldn't be a threat to game devs and modders. This game has made millions of people happy and I'm pissed off at the people who want to destroy it, even if it's a game that I personally would not enjoy.

 

[Corveone]

Palworld developers can't be sued for their very similar designs, but they can't be sued if the theory that they actually extracted 3D models from Pokémon, and edited and combined parts of them to create many of the Pals is actually proven:

I've seen people using this image as an argument that "But Pokémon copied Dragon Quest", which honesly is just stupid.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEYrZuzXUAAjpkB?format=jpg&name=large

Because despite the similarities and being based on the same animals, Pokémon designs were drawn from scratch, and used a different art style, that's completely different from literally extracting 3D models from one game and editing them to put them in yours.

I'm personally not interested in Palworld from what I've seen. It feels like its success is mostly due to the whole "Pokémon with guns and slavery" memes and controversy, but the gameplay loop itself doesn't look great to me, it's like throwing Pokémon in a game that has a gameplay with actually little in common with a Pokémon game, trading elements I look forward to in a Pokémon game for crafting, third person shooting, and other mechanics I don't care about.

 

[generater]

i won't be surprised if the hype for Palword dies off next month.

I would be surprised. The game is great and has tons of content for an early access.

 

[Quto]

I don't think the statement is to be taken seriously.

I've played Palworld and while it's a combination of different games put into one; it's been a blast so far. Ya don't get the GUNS right off the bat, but ya get Bows, Arrows and Spears and slowly upgrade to it and the Grappling gun to ZIPLINE to any surface has been tons of fun like the game Freedom Wars.

---

The controversies from [They Stole from Pokemon / Models Ripped from the Pokemon Game / These are litterally Pokemon/ Use of AI to generate content] have been debunked time and time again, if anyone has checked my Game Obscurea Post on old Games in hiding, there are one or two that are basically pokemon Rip-Offs like 'Dragon Quest Monster' (Which I'm Surprised noone has made that reference between them and the 1st Pokemon Generation), Digimon, Monster Rancher, Azure Dreams, Jade Cocoon 1 and 2, Robopon and even then, there are modern day clones such as Temtem the Pokemon clone that's an MMORPG, Coromon which is a Blatant Rip-off of pokemon in combat but still different, The Outbound Ghost, Casette Beasts, Disc Monster's, Pocket Morty's, I can truly go on about other game's that have copied the Pokemon Formula and given it so many different spins from the most enjoyable to the one's that would question the person's sanity.

Out of ALL of them, Nintendo hasn't chased down a single one of them and lord knows they have tried to sue and take down Digimon which I think was a thing, though this is me trying to remember the 90's. Digimon made it's money as much as Pokemon did and noone batted an eye then.

The only people crying fowl and pointing at PalWorld are the same fan's who are the Pokemon Fan's, the Nintendo Fans, the one's who buy every Pokemon game and refuse to call out the problems with each one which I can call out several to this day; such as Scarlett and Violet's frayed network code which has spotty reception to whom connects to whom's game where even LAN game's are qurestionale and the one's that fail the most (got the game with friends, sat in my living room like a traditional good-old-fashion night of video games with the pizza; whole 90's weekend; I hosted the game from my switch in it's dock, we tried connecting via LAN; we kept dropping out of the game, CONSTANTLY adn they coulnd't reconnect. Only way we could get a solid connection was using the ONLINE feature and even that had hiccups of disconnect's and this was with EVERYTHING from Raid Battle's to just trying to trade and one of us sacrificing 2 hours going through the tutorial opening to get each of us all 3 starter's via Egg's and swapping them over to us.) or the removal of Mega Evoloutions to replace them with the Terratralyze (can't remember what it was called, sorry) or the Dynamax feature to make pokemon as massive as GIANT'S... The last feature I thought was fun were the Mega Evoloutions as they acted like Digimon in a sense, but it felt Oragnic and that was between both Pokemon X and Y and the last time it showed up were the Ruby and Sapphire Remake's. The last GAME I had fun with was the Heart Gold and Soul Silver as I thought the Jhoto region was king in the sense of the different Pokemon and having your favorite pokemon outside of their ball to follow you around like in Pokemon Yellow was kind of awesome in to itself.

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Bottom line of this whole rant; PalWorld is another game which did what the other clones have done. The only Difference is this one became such a success that it made nearly 3/4 of the money Scarlet and Violet Made in a few day's ($8 Million, though it could be larger now as of this rant) than what took Pokemon nearly 3 month's to reach $14 million though my numbers could be off.

Skipping aside who ripped off who or who did what; Palworld released their first trailer 3 years ago and I took notice and added it to my watchlist on Steam. Nintendo did nothing about it, the people did nothing about it and it came out and now everyone and their parent's are coming at to play and have fun or tear it down with every legal law in the book from the USA to Japan; noone knew of the type of success the game would have.

And while I heard of the statement too; Nintendo should back away from the idea of suing Palworld like Meg from Family Guy or kicking a beehive for two reasons.

1. The Pokemon Company have literal competition now. They can no longer SLACK off with the same Pokemon game. Like with the creatures and 1,000 Pokemon in their roster, the game needs to evolve in order to compete. Meaning they need to make the next BEST pokemon game with the best feature's, the best network code and the best mechanic's whether they go FULL action combat or keep fighting turn based, but give it a Paper Mario Esque touch to dodging and defending.
2. If they successfully or even attempt the idea of sueing PalWorld; then the Pokemon Company and Nintendo by extension will appear weak and UNABLE to produce a proper Pokemon game everyone want's to play. A lot of people might see it as Nintendo claiming what was theirs as copyright, but with the success PalWorld has had and the game those 300k-ish people so far have played (8 Million when selling the game at $30USD, and that's not factoring in the discount along with friends letting them borrow or try out their copy via Steam's Shared Library Rules and Feature and don't get me started on people who pirate game's as they are probably preparing to buy it like what happened with Stardew Valley).
   
   People are going to question; with the EXCEPTION OF THE GUNS, why Pokemon hasn't attempted the other system's PalWorld has such as mounting your Pokemon to move Faster, help you harvest the essentials like Berries and Apricot's, have players Participate in Live Action Combat to ensure each other's Survival and having the live action battle's even be a thing, Create Guilds, Share Resources, PVP in having a player attack another Player, Participate in Boss Battle's and raid other bases setup by the game's antagonist's or PVE, Giving the player MORE TO DO TOGETHER ONLINE THAN TO JUST TRADE, BATTLE EACH OTHER AND DO RAID MATCHES TOGETHER!! Maybe do shared EXP amongst a group battle between more than one player against a TOUGH POKEMON ON THE MAP!!!... With this type of thinking and what Pokemon COULD or SHOULD BE, if they take it down and deliver ANOTHER RPG with the old feature's; then that tells everyone they don't know how to make a Pokemon Game anymore.

I'm sorry for the long rant, these are my thoughts and I won't be updating my Obsucrea list with the exception now of EVERY MONSTER BREEDING GAME FROM THE OBSCURE AREAS ON THE MARKET WITH THE EXCEPTION OF DIGIMON AND POKEMON and REPOSTING 2 OTHER ENTRIES as Palworld has stirred this up now.

Thanks a lot ladies and germs, I'm posting to my list... AGAIN.

 

[Corveone]

there are modern day clones such as Temtem the Pokemon clone that's an MMORPG, Coromon which is a Blatant Rip-off of pokemon in combat but still different, The Outbound Ghost, Casette Beasts, Disc Monster's, Pocket Morty's, I can truly go on about other game's that have copied the Pokemon Formula and given it so many different spins from the most enjoyable to the one's that would question the person's sanity.

That's not the issue behind the legality controversy. Games like Nexomon, Cassette Beasts, Coromon, Temtem, and others, have monster catching mechanics but the monsters themselves have their own art and visual style, distinct enough to avoid raising flags. "Copying a formula" is not the problem, Pokémon can't patent a gameplay formula/concept such as "Monster catching" because that would be like other game companies trying to patent Survival Horror or Dungeon Crawler so that nobody else can use it.

Formulas can be copied or mimicked, in fact every video game copies ideas and formulas from other games, and if we're talking about gameplay Palworld is actually more like a Fortnite+Ark hybrid than a Pokémon clone. The issue is not the gameplay formula but the Pal themselves, wich look like literally fan-made regional forms or fusion Pokémon, that you could put in an official Pokémon game and aesthetically would fit because the art style is identical. And the striking similarity in some of their models that leads to the suspicion that they may have resorted to using stolen assets, which is illegal. Maybe they're innocent and it's all fine, but we can't deny that these guys really wanted to play with fire... which so far worked amazingly well for them, but it's not like this will be something to be happy about if more companies want to follow the example.

 

[Quto]

My only response if it's the Pals looking like carbon copies of Pokemon; that needs to be thrown out as there are relations between Dragon Quest Monster and the first generation of Pokemon and if we are to argue for this current generation, we still can't.

Nintendo had 3 years, 3 long solid years to call on this or give warning and I've kept track of it. Playing with fire or not, it's out and I'm betting a hefty sum of change they have been combing through the game like Sherlock Holme's, Monk, Gumbo and Conan with miles of lawyers to boot. If they haven't sued them then or now, then it's made its pass and there have been reports where the Pokemon company has been stealing from fakemon artists, though I can only claim this as rumor.

 

[Venia Silente]

If there's any issue really it's with the modders, and even then I feel it's not really a thing. "Wanting to play Pokémon in other games because TPCI doesn't deliver" has been around forever, reminder that before Pokken was a thing there was a lot of want for a Pokémon fighting game, and in the meantime you could do things like modding Final Fantasy to get to fight with a Pokémon in it.

As the Great Gabe said: it's a service problem.

 

[gimmepie]

I think you'd have to be blind to not acknowledge that Palworld is blatantly ripping off the visual style of Pokemon with its creatures, but I'm not really sure I buy that they're using stolen assets. I'd be more inclined to believe the outcry that the Pals were designed using AI, which is just as bad, but I'm not going to make any decisions until anything is actually proven.

But the game itself, mechanically, is nothing like Pokemon from what I can see, so if they can't prove stolen assets (in any form), then there isn't a case. Honestly, the Palworld devs probably welcome the controversy since it's free advertising and tPCi is probably just responding to outcry to discourage other people from trying the same stunt with their creature designs.

Either way, the extent of the drama between regular fans of one or both games has been ridiculous.

 

[Samtendo09]

Let me take my two cents on this matter.

I won't lie that the concept of Palworld is neat, and making a mix-and-match of several open world games does give it an identity of it's own, even if it could use a more focused concept for future installments.

I do believe the reason why TPCi is investigating something like Palworld is because of the art style being far too similar to Pokémon, to the point some Pals can come across as legitimate Pokémon or regional variants at first glance.

An unlikely scenario would be Palworld devs being forced to redesign their Pals to gain a different art style, in a way that is still cute and simple, but also distinguishable from Pokémon. Worst case scenario though, harsh lawsuits ensues Palworld will be forcedly removed from Steam.

If the worst case scenario occurs, then Pokémon ended up looking themselves even worse than before, since now it might imply that they would also shut down competitors that tried to achieve closer to their success in term of games' sales.

And if TPCi and Game Freak doubled down on the more recent mainline games' flaws, it will sting worse than before.

 

[The Mega Champion]

Let's be brutally honest here...

If TPCI, GameFreak and Nintendo can find actual proof that models were ripped from Pokemon games and only 'altered slightly' by them... they will absolutely go after them. End of story. Now I'm not saying they wouldn't weigh the MASSIVELY BAD PR blow back they will inevitably get if they were to do so. Because it will absolutely be the WORST PR move made by them potentially in the entire history of the company/companies involved. It could be a legitimate reason for them to do nothing. But I seriously doubt they would really care that much at the end of the day. This is the worst threat to the #1 media franchise in it's history due to it's popularity and success. End of story. Nothing else has come close. Not TemTem, not Yo Kai Watch, not Monster Sanctuary (sorry the truth) and most certainly not Digimon. Do I like admitting that last one? Of course I don't. But it's the god damn truth. Every Pokemon-like or monster catcher-like or whatever you want to call them that's come along has not gotten anywhere near Pokemon. So, again, they could just ignore it due to that. But due to it's success and how close they are getting... yeah. They are noticing and they likely don't like it. At all. It'll be interesting to see what happens that's for sure. Get your Ace Attorney music ready. Just in case.

Also... I love how this has only further proven the contradictory hypocrisy of the Pokemon fanbase. For example (god damn so many to choose from which one should I choose lol) there is literally no evidence that people are going to stop buying Pokemon because of this. Let's even assume for a moment that's the case for a minute. What's the all-time steam concurrent player count now? 2 million-ish? Okay. What was the sales of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet? 23.23 million? Okay. So let's assume that the 2 million 'stop playing Pokemon and play Palworld' instead. How much of a difference is that? Let's see... basic math oh god...

Around 21 million. OH MY GOD. WHAT A GOD DAMN DIFFERENCE THAT IS.

The Pokemon fanbase is a god damn embarrassment most of the time... and this coming from a Pokemon fan.

 

[Fleurdelis]

Concurrent playercount =/= sales to be fair.

SV sold 23.23 million copies, but do they have 23.23 concurrent players? Also keep in mind the 2 million is only from Steam, there is Xbox to take into consideration aswell, along with the Microsoft Store, neither of which are logged by Steam.
As far as I can see, Palworld as of right now seems to have reached 19 million sales across both Xbox and Steam, so that difference diminishes by a lot :P

I'm very much of the opinion that the only reason this statement was released, is because the giant stupid outrage it has created. If there was any reason to shut Palworld down, it would have been done years ago already given the CnD track record Nintendo has.

 

[Corveone]

There should be no reason to shut the whole game down. But were they be forced to replace/redesign some of the Pals, I would say it's well deserved, and it would be a fine warning to future developers. If you're going to copy, at least don't be so awfully cheap about it.