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Palworld maker vows to fight Nintendo lawsuit on behalf of fans and indie developers
(www.eurogamer.net)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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Normally I'd say fuck Nintendo but palworld obviously stole the designs and artistic direction for many of their characters.
Most of the pals I saw at first were modified versions of an already existant pokemon with little to seperate it from fan art of that pokemon. This is particularly agregoous as they clashed against the rest of this games aesthetic. Nothing that was original fit with the design of the pokemon rip offs.
Many other games have a pokemon esque aesthetic without direct copying. It looking similar is not my issue. My issue is that while playing I could easily name most pals to a pokemon. Seriously, look up comparisons. It's blatant.
They've moved away from thisbrecently but fuck man if it ain't obvious. If they did the same to some small project I'd assume people would be much more up in arms, rightfully so.
Still though, I won't cry if Nintendo loses. I hope they pay an insane amount in lawyers fees either way and never see a dime out of the case
sharing aesthetic shouldn't be enough to prosecute, especially in the case of patents.
My biggest defense against any claim like that is that they're identifiably distinct. You put two of them side by side and not a single fan of either will be confused which is which.
any fan could tell the difference, but i can see parents being confused, and they're the ones footing the bill for the vast majority of pokemon fans. pair that with the guns and back in the day if my parents caught wind of it, Pokémon would be banned in my household no matter how hard i tried to explain Palworld was different
for the record i am very anti-copyright and think Pokémon should be in the public domain by now, and generally hate Nintendo's over-ligitous practices. i also don't understand the patent angle of this action. but i ln this one specific case i can see where they're coming from, as opposed to if they were going after good-faith tributes like Coromon or Cassette Beasts or a ROM hack
This is very fair, but then again, my parents would get confused over the difference between an Xbox and a PlayStation, so take that for what you will.
Except they didn't steal designs and I'm pretty sure art direction can't be protected. Even if it could, it would be morally questionable at best. The whole lawsuit also isn't about that but about some really fringe patents on Nintendo's part. Patents that Nintendo certainly didn't come up with, shouldn't have and last but not least threaten smaller studios in the game industry. Since Pocketpal teamed up with Sony, I don't consider them indie anymore but it's true that they have to win this lawsuit for indie devs regardless. If Nintendo gets away with this you can say farewell to smaller game studios in Japan.
The fact that Nintendo are going for a patent claim rather than a copyright claim makes me think that they don't think a copyright claim would be successful.
Nor should it be. The standard for copyright violation is pretty high, things don't have to just look similar, they need to actually match, so there's no copyright over the idea of cute, Japanese-themed monsters, especially with other Japanese-themed monster games/shows like Digimon. Even if they matched the art style, you can't copyright art style, you can only copyright the art itself.
Right. I just feel like they'll find it even harder to successfully sue over patents, especially if the patents are fairly generic. The defendants just need to find prior art that predates Nintendo's patents. It's weird that Nintendo aren't saying which patents are being violated.
Were this to happen with games with an actual aesthetic that actually tried to do their own thing (like, say, Casette Beasts), I'd be upset.
PocketPair though? If they die, they die. They clearly have a pattern of profitting off of other people's work, just look at their totally not Hollow Knight game
People are treating them like the underdog fighting for the little guy against the scumbag corporations. They're both scumbag corporations.
PS: Play Casette Beasts. And Monster Sanctuary.
Yeah, fuck Pocket Pair they can kick rocks. Play Caseette Beasts which made a better pokemon with unique designs and are truly independent, not just some AI grift company locking for a quick buck.
Upvoted for Monster Sanctuary. Outstanding game that deserves so much more recognition!
For real, its fun to see people shitting on Nintendo on this one, i dislike them as the most, but its absurd here. Pocket Pair just releases copies of other games, they also released a Hollow Knight copy just before Palworld, and on Palworld they almost copied the design 1 to 1 in some creatures. There is a reason you dont see Nintendo suing the other million pokemon clones, which is because they dont went of and almost even used the same geometry for some models. They straight up copied Pokemon like Lucario, Luxray, Cinderace, Cobalion and a bunch of others to the point where people showed their triangles and it was pretty certain they used ripped assets as the base for them.
Copied characters is not what the lawsuit is about. It's like nobody 'defending' the lawsuit has read anything about it.
First paragraph of the article, dude. Patent infringement is not IP.
girl, I'm not a lawyer, i don't know the intricacies of IP vs patent law and whether you can patent a character model/design.
Then why are you trying to say what's going on?
Im not defending the lawsuit, im talking about what most people is talking about here without knowing shit about the case, the companies or the games. PocketPair whole schtick has been copying other games, from visual aesthethics to mechanics, you can look at their steam. Also, btw. that article doesnt even talk about what Nintendo is suing for or not, https://www.eurogamer.net/nintendo-sues-palworld-developer-for-infringement-of-multiple-patents that article is on the response of PocketPair to this link, and all nintendo has said pretty much is: "Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself," the company's statement today concludes, "to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years." Pretty much they broadly have talked about intelectual property and multiple patent infringements.
I am typically anti-capitalist and usually root for the underdog. Palworld is a blatant ripoff of Pokemon and those denying it are delusional. Reverse the situation, where Nintendo releases Pokemon after Pocketpair releases Palworld and everyone would be calling it a ripoff.
Yeah, Nintendo's legal department does some shitty stuff, but their likeness was stolen. Also, they are suing for patents, not copyright. The fact that the monsters are caught in a sphere is damning Pocketpair, while other Pokemon copies like Digimon avoid this.
It's just my opinion. I'm often wrong.
Just going to share this for all the palworld blatantly ripped off pokemon people![]()
Cant know if you are for real, most of those designs are barely the same despite being based on the same creatures, against how palworld straight up copied designs with a few changes? Seriously, fuck Nintendo and their shitty and buggy Pokemon games, but the Dragon Quest vs Pokemon designs are not even close to what Pocket Pair, masters of copying games did here.
Most of those are just based on the same real-world animal.
How DARE you also put a wolf in your game!
So it was wrong for Nintendo to do that?
It was wrong for Nintendo to copy someone, but it's not wrong for Pocketpair to copy someone. That's what you are saying?
More like "it's not wrong to take inspiration from something else".
I don't disagree with that, but the line that is drawn between inspiration and imitation is blurred and the courts will probably rule in favor of those with the most money, unfortunately.
Nope, because Nintendo arent suing over copyright (like how the pals look) they are suing over patents, so either gameplay mechanics or under the hood processes. They are complete bullshit and involve things like a patent filed in 2024 for riding a mount in a game.
As others have pointed out patents in Japan expire after 20 years so it cant be anything that was in the original pokemon as that has already termed out.
What about the dynamic of capturing wild monsters from all different biomes in a ball? Isn't that relatively close Pokemon? Game play is different, but the dynamics are similar.
Read my edit, anything patented for the original pokemon is past the point of expiry in Japan (where the suit is filed).
Ah, that makes sense. I wasn't aware of the 20 year limit.
I think Nintendo's lawyers must have determined it's inspiration in this case though. Like you said, they're suing for patent infringement and not copyright, so they must think a legal challenge on their creature designs is a lost cause.
That's a good point. They want to hurt them however they can.
It's not wrong for either to draw inspiration from the other. It's the hypocrisy that's wrong.
You're so close and yet: Whoosh
You can either explain your position, or you can be a pretentious ass. Like I said before, I'm often wrong. I'm willing to hear your point, but you refuse to make it and act pompous.
Well they can actually be/do both.
Just sayin.
It might be a ripoff, but my question to you is should that be illegal? The entirety of humanity is monkey see monkey do iteration on our previous ideas. It's a dubious thing to litigate.
To add to that, no fan of either is going to confuse one for the other, so where's the issue?
Again, this isn't a copyright lawsuit. Making a game with monsters that look similar to theirs is not what the lawsuit is about. It's about patents. Likely design patents like I mentioned before. If I made a country song with Eminem's lyrics, of course you wouldn't confuse it with Slim's music, but I would need his permission first.
Marshall has copyright on his lyrics, you just said yourself patents and copyright are different things.
Sufficiently different rip-offs that don't confuse consumers as being the original should be legal. They already are as far as copyright is concerned.
Many design patents should never have been registered, and should lose when defended in court. Design trademarks are a third similar issue.
Palworld is a rip off of Ark and BotW with Pokemon aesthetics. It opened early access the same year sword and shield came out. Before that Pokemon was not a big 3D open world type game. It also doesn’t include the survival/base building or FPS features in Pokemon. While palworld may be a derivative game, it is for sure different enough.
There is stuff like the palbox or the pokeball things that I could see them be dinged for though.
I wouldn't argue that the game play is different.
… have you played either game? Cuz… how would you not argue that? One is a turn based RPG the other is an FPS.
I just said that I would not argue that. That means that I think the game play is different.
Ah, misunderstood thanks.