https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/01/24/the-pokemon-company-announces-it-will-investigate-palworld-ip-and-assets/amp/
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.
That was disproven several times - the guy who claimed it even admitted he'd altered Palworld's assets to show that supposed 'similarity'
Do you have a source for that? This is the first I'm seeing that the claims were fraudulent.
The guy apparently rescaled the models to make them similar in size, which, idk if I'd call that altering
I still think it's kind of a BS claim though
Screenrant Article here from a day ago. It does still state that Nintendo intends to investigate, but most of the stolen/copied asset claims have been refuted or rescinded. With the main "they stole assets" person admitting they fabricated the proof because they hate how Palworld glorifies animal abuse (which is extremely ironic to me because no one had a problem when Pokémon was cockfighting for children)
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.
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
I believe my own eyes https://twitter.com/covingtown/status/1749462735291859423. Remove the extra decoration and the underlying models are identical
If you go to the account that this account uses for proof, you'll see that the user (byofrog) admitted that they fudged the specs to make them look identical. This is not a one to one comparison
Doesn't matter how similar it looks though.
The only way to tell is to open up both models and look at individual points of the 3d mesh. If their positions in 3d space match up to, say the hundred-thousandth of a decimal, then it is a copy.
But if the model was scaled or rotated or whatever, there would be no way to prove a case because there wouldn't be a match.
The same thing was done to prove games was lying about copying models from previous games when they claimed that it was too difficult to add all previous monsters into different games because their converter tool was giving them issues.
Hardly. The one they keep showing is the cat. But Pokemon didn't invent the Cheshire cat face.
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.
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¢.
I agree with you on that but it's a bit inaccurate to say them not pumping money into their games is not true in the least bit. It's just their online services which are a disaster. Most of their games are still pretty damn great and it shows.
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 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...
Incidentally, I've only really found a YT video and this KYM page talking about how Nintendo DMCA'd themselves. That should've been the headline of any gaming outlet - https://knowyourmeme.com/news/nintendo-accidentally-copyright-strikes-itself-in-its-effort-to-combat-tears-of-the-kingdom-leaks
People white-knighting for Nintendo against a company that gave them an enjoyably Pokemon game.
I wouldn't go that far.
I can see why people who were into Ark, Valheim, Fortnite, Minecraft; however, it's just like any other survival builder game. It just has Pokemon in it. I don't see the hype.
I knew nothing about Palworld besides the tag line 'It's Pokémon with guns' and saw it was included with gamepass. I installed it and to my absolute horror in the first 5 minutes of the game it had me craft a stone pickaxe. Palworld is Ark with cuter dinosaurs, I don't get the Pokémon comparison beyond you use balls to hold the monsters.
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.
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.
In your legal opinion, what in Palword specifically infringes on Pokemon's trade marks or copyrights?
Yeah Nintendo tends to move pretty quick on these things. From what I've seen there's not an obvious objection that wouldn't also include things like Digimon.
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.
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.
I didnt k ow about this. Just read about it now. Wow. Really interesting. I want to try the Japanese super mario bros 2 now haha.
From what ive read, doki doki panic was a seperate game and was reskinned to become what the western world got as super mario bros 2. Japan had a different super mario bros 2 game that was built using the original game engine.
One key difference was that in the western version mario picked up and threw enemies but in the japan game mario jumped on enemiea like in the original.
Oh no way, I didn't know that. When you said you wanted to try the Japanese Super Mario 2, I thought you were just referring to Doki Doki Panic.
Now I really want to play the Japanese Super Mario 2 as well.
The Japanese Mario 2 was released outside of Japan on the Super Nintendo in the Super Mario All-Stars game. It's known as "Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels" on that cartridge.
It's also tbh very much just "Super Mario Bros but more" in terms of well... Everything. If you like SMB1 and want new levels, play SMB2 Lost Levels.
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...
Not even that. They took the broad genre and used it to make what fans have been asking for for literal decades
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.
I think people compare a lot because it's extremely easy to think of the "originals", even when it's more of an inspiration than a copy-paste, like Wixen-Braixen, Lamball-Wooloo or Lovander-Salamence.
Yeah, I agree. But being evocative of an idea is not illegal, unless the design is near indistinguishable or if they used files from Pokémon in the production of the Pals. Say, how many Superman copies are there? There are multiple stories out there whose main idea is "What if Superman was bad."
Meanwhile I see people going "Anubis is just Lucario" and I wonder why they think the Pokémon Company owns the idea of every single upright canid. It doesn't even have spikes or anything.
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.
In this case it would probably be fought in Japan because both The Pokémon Company and Palworld's developer Pocketpair are from Japan.
Of course, but this is what makes me wonder, if there was anything truly objectionable happening, wouldn't they have been taken down already? It's not like this was a surprise release.
Which would be the good ending tbh. No more plagiarism problem and we have a good game on its own
Absolutely. It's not like they are incapable of decent original design. Daedream is cute and Depresso is funny as hell.
Daedream and Depresso are a tad generic to me tbh. It blends in with the countless similar designs of "blobby goblin fairy" we have seen not only from Pokémon but in fact many other franchises. Reminds me of Sleepmon from digimon. I think you might like Sleepmon
I can see the appeal but usually such designs are salvaged by having them change into more unique forms later.
Imagine being one of those people who contacts Nintendo to report copyright infringement. If I woke up in one of their bodies I would kill myself.
By Freaky Friday rules you would just be giving them another identity to send in affirming reports.
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
Do I need to play it now or never? I have a feeling this FOMO is driving some of their current engagement.
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.
The pirate version plays fine and even has access to online, so it's unlikely that it'll become lost media anytime soon
Chillet is basically one giant weiner you can ride around the world while blasting your pals from afar.
I think you may not be playing the game correctly.
Well seeing as their other game, Craftopia, is still in early access, I wouldn't hold my breath.
And considering the treck record of the company (BOTW and Hollow Knight ripped off) I half expect the Palworld devs to either sell off the project or to run off with the money. Did I mention the company lead also runs a scam business (cryptocurrency)?
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 ?
Your teaching professor likely misinterpreted the fair use doctrine's wording. Apparently this is a common mistake. I made sure to look this up.
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
The Palworld fanboys are already trying to mental gymnastics their way out of this "It's just PR! Gamefreak is bluffing!!!!1"
In other words, this is just them saying “shut up, we already knew and we’re not doing anything about it” to all the people that don’t know anything about copyrights that keep spamming them.
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.
