3mo ago

Palworld maker vows to fight Nintendo lawsuit on behalf of fans and indie developers

www.eurogamer.net /palworld-developer-vows-to-fight-nintendo-lawsuit-on-behalf-of-fans-and-indie-developers

359 comments

It's still identifiably distinct, I really hope Nintendo lose because allowing copyright of a concecpt is dystopian especially in the context of our lengthy time frames for copyright.
It reminds me of when Apple wanted to patent the idea of rounded corners.
- It's not even copyright, they're suing for using things they patented, but their patents are extremely general. I kid you not, they have a patent for MOUNTING CREATURES, something hundreds of games have done.
  Abstract: In an example of a game program, a ground boarding target object or an air boarding target objects is selected by a selection operation, and a player character is caused to board the selected boarding target object. If the player character aboard the air boarding target object moves toward the ground player character automatically changed to the state where the player character is aboard the ground boarding target object, and brought into the state where the player character can move on the ground.
  I'm no lawyer so I can't tell you how well this would hold up in court but it's ridiculous. See more: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/the-pokemon-company
  
  I am positive prior art could be claimed for most if not all of those. Square Enix could cry afoul of the "mounting creatures" one as well as I'm sure many, many other earlier games on a plethora of platforms.
  You could mount and ride Chocobos in Final Fantasy 2, i.e. the real "2," the JDM only one on Famicom, which was released in 1988. The aforementioned patent was only filed on Nintendo's part in 2024.
  They can, to use a technical legal term, get fucked.
  
  It's a little more specific, I think the patent is about:
  mounting either an air or ground mount
  when riding the air mount, going close to the ground transforms it into the ground mount and you keep riding it
  But that's still something multiple games have done in some way I think.
  
  IANAL - but I've worked for Big Company and have gone through the patent process a few times. A patent isn't what's written in the supporting text and abstract. It's only the exact thing written out in the claims.
  First claim from the patent the abstract is from:
  A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein a game program causing a computer of an information processing apparatus to provide execution comprising: controlling a player character in a virtual space based on a first operation input; in association with selecting, based on a selection operation, a boarding object that the player character can board and providing a boarding instruction, causing the player character to board the boarding object and bringing the player character into a state where the player character can move, wherein the boarding object is selected among a plurality of types of objects that the player character owns; in association with providing a second operation input when the player character is in the air, causing the player character to board an air boarding object and bringing the player character into a state where the player character can move in the air; and while the player character is aboard the air boarding object, moving the player character, aboard the air boarding object, in the air based on a third operation input.
  Exactly everything described above must be done in that exact same way for there to be an infringement.
- They are being sued for patent infringement not copyright violations, which is extra weird.
  
  What's weird about it? AFAICT, Palworld doesn't violate Nintendo copyright in any meaningful sense, though it might violate Nintendo's patent claims.
  That said, this lawsuit seems really late, and I wonder if that'll factor into the decision at all (i.e. if it was close, the judge/jury might take the lack of action by Nintendo as evidence of them just looking for money).
- It's not a copyright suit, it's a patent suit. So it's indeed just like the Apple suit, though what patents were infringed upon is still unknown as of now.
  
  Ah, I just assumed, thanks for the correction.
- I mean they successfully defended the motion of swiping up or down as distinctly different than left or right for the purpose of activating a device. Which seems insane to me.
  
  That’s a patent, not a copywrite.
  Software patents are also terrible, though.
  
  And now you have to swipe up to activate the iPhone as well 🤭

I've never been interested in Palworld, and I certainly don't intend to play it, but I'll probably buy it today.
Because fuck Nintendo.
- It's clunky and the novelty wears off quickly, but it was worth a play.
  
  It's clunky and the novelty wears off quickly
  Referring to all Nintendo games.
  
  Yeah, waiting for them to put out a few more updates and maybe I’ll try again: they’ve fixed a good chunk of some stuff recently. It’s still not there as a completed game for what it wants to be, but it’s okay as a cooperative PvE survival/monster collector.
  Haven’t played since they added the island as more levels, so this may be an old opinion: Theres just no real end game past get a cool base. Dungeons are pretty moot at that point, the raid boss just blows up the whole base for some rewards which isn’t worth it unless you have an empty base to summon shit, and the tower bosses and lvl 50 bosses weren’t a bad challenge but that was about it. After you’ve killed those once there’s not much to do. I guess farm them for very specific drops… to be stronger so you can… idk do nothing else….
  But again, I haven’t played since they added the island and higher levels so maybe it’s a bit better in that regard now?
  
  It's just like every other 'sandbox' game out there.
  About the only substance is in the early game. Then there isnt much to do but grind out a checklist to collect everything.
  It gets repetitive too fast.
  
  The core game loop is better than any of the pokemon games though.
  I am curious as to why they took so long though. Were they waiting until the hype died down so it didn't look malicious?
- Same wasn't even thinking about this game. But now I got to have it. Fuck Nintendo. Never buying a new game from them every again. They should be sued into bankruptcy.
- Same. Does any Steamdecker know how well it works?
  
  Works well, but you'll have to tinker with the graphics settings.
  
  Low-medium settings with 45fps/90hz cap works well enough for me on the oled. Smooth except for in crowded bases
- Same.

Patents and video games huh? We can't ignore what John Carmack had to say about this:
The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.
--John Carmack
- More like he wouldn't be able to sell his solution to others, but yeah I think Patents on simple processes and mechanisms are dumb, especially certain software and firmware.
  
  Imagine if you had a hammer and decided to use it to hit a nail and then someone came along and said "I see you're using my method to build a house! Pay up!"
  Well, you can't patent something like that!
  Imagine you open up a game engine, any engine, and decide you need to point to an objective so you decide to use an arrow. A game company says "You're using our method to identify objectives! Pay up!" and that one is a unique mechanic?
  How long has humanity been using arrows to point to things? How can you patent it just because it's a digital arrow?
  
  Is this lawsuit deadass about the game mechanics???
  I need to out my fucking reading glasses on.
- > The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.
  Thats essentially what both an AI does and what ChatGBT does. Are you gonna defend that to?? Just dont take credit for shit someone else made, who cares if its Nintendo. I don't want my game sprites altered and then sold as though whoever altered them made them by hand
  I was mislead about what the lawsuit was about and Im retracting all my statements thank you :' )
  
  My cock is not inspired after reading this bad take.
  John Carmack is human intelligence and therefore more valuable than artificially generated drivel.
  -edit- I mistook inspecting for inspiring for your name. I'm leaving it.
  
  I respect your taking action on your comments admitting you were mistaken.

Eat shit, Nintendo. I hope you lose and experience the Streisand effect.

Welp, I had no plans of buying Palworld. I've been playing Enshrouded instead. But I'll be picking it up now. Screw you Nintendo and your anticompetitive ways.
- If I didn't have friends who need so much financial help, I'd buy it too.
- Palworld is a lot of fun you won't regret it
- Thank you for reminding me about Enshrouded. I started playing that a few months ago, but a week into it my gamer friends wanted to start a new Valheim playthrough, and that was that. I should revisit it though
- Palworld has to be the most addicted I've ever been to a game in years, and that was back at launch in January. I'm not going to spoil anything, but they've added a ton of new things since!

Please hurt them.
Nintendo is straight up evil.

Fuck Nintendo. I think Palworld is a stupid game that I wouldn't ever bother to play but Nintendo is pure evil and they NEED to lose. They do not deserve a monopoly on whatever type of genre that is.
- While I think it is a great spin on the genre of collecting monsters to enslave them so they craft bullets for you, I agree with you on Nintendo.
  
  Oh that sounds cool actually

"Multiple patents"
Specifies none
Off to a great start, I see. I know that actual game mechanics cannot be patented or copyrighted (the same principle applies to non digital games), so I'm really curious to what these patents are.
- Someone linked a list of all the patents Pokemon Company specifically holds and the very first one was "creature breeding based on good sleep habits."
  How does that even get a patent?
  What the fuck iteration of Pokemon requires you to have good sleep habits to breed your pokemon? 🤨
  Does it actually help you sleep? 🤔 I might need to start breeding pokemon...
  
  Pokemon Sleep, sleep tracking app
  
  Breed me, daddy.
  
  I know for sure that palworld does not promote good sleeping habits in any shape or form, at least not to my addicted ass
- Game mechanics can be patented. It's stupid, but things such as "loading screen mini games" and "overhead arrows pointing to your objective" have been patented. The second I believe even got enforced once.
  I think these kind of things have been getting approved less and less, but I wouldn't be surprised if "balls that contain monsters" was patented back in the early days too.
  
  The game during loading screen isn't a "game mechanic" per se, which is why I think it was patented back then. Completely ass backwards that it could be patented, but there's that.
  As for the overhead arrow for navigation, I wasn't aware of that one. Was that from EA? I think it can be argued that's not a "game mechanic" either, because it's not "an essential component of the game"
- You’ve mixed copyright and patents together and confused yourself a bit. Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted, but they can be patented. Some game component designs can be copyrighted as well, and even trademarked.
  There are many, many, many game mechanics and features which have been patented, such as in-game chat, minigames on loading screens, arrow pointing to destination, and so on. Game studios have to license those features from the patent holders if they wish to use them.
  Some random company even owns a patent for the concept of sending and receiving email on a mobile device. The entire system is a fucking joke.
  
  There is an era of patents from the late 90s through the early-mid-00s that were insanely vague and rarely stand up to scrutiny, but most are expiring at this point, if they haven't already. Generally, though, patents are not granted on "concepts" but on implementations. That's a sometimes ambiguous line, but that's a fundamental principle of modern patents.
- "Method for releasing 927 iterations of the same stale game across multiple platform generations."
  It can't possibly be for "Method of splitting one complete game into two mutually exclusive cartridges with separate rosters to entice whales to buy two copies," because if it were they'd have already sued Capcom 15 years ago.

Copyright only exists for the wealthy to own even more.
- This is a patent lawsuit, not copyright
  
  even worse. software patents are just more idiotic copyrights.
- No, Copyright exists to protect creators. It's just been perverted and abused by the wealthy so that they can indefinitely retain IP. Disney holding on to an IP for 70 years after an author dies is messed up, but Disney taking your art and selling it to a mass audience without giving you a dime is worse.
  
  Copyright cannot protect 99% of creators because enforcing it takes enormous amounts of time and money. This isn't really a big deal though because 99% of people who create don't need these supposed protections.
  That's right, the amount of writing, art, and music that is created for non-commercial purposes dwarfs what is created for profit.
  Your last tidbit is highly accurate. Big business almost exclusively uses copyright to control others work to the detriment of society.
  
  What creator has been protected by copyright?
- This isn't about copyright. Is there anybody here that has actually read the article? It's absolutely insane how everyone just opens their mouths without understanding anything.
  
  Consider it a catch all term for "copying intellectual property". Patents, copyrights, trademarks, its different words for the same idea.
- Idk about that, maybe indefinite copyrights would be but limited term is entirely fair. Like imagine you spend 5 years and $50M to develop something (random numbers here), then the next day someone just copies it and sells it cheaper since they had no overhead in copying your product. There's no incentive to create if all it does is put you in debt, so we do need copyrights if we want things. However Pokemon came out in 96, that's 28 years. There's been very little innovation in their games since. And seeing as Digimon wasn't sued it's not about the monsters, it's about the balls. But those balls haven't changed in almost three decades so I don't think the really have a case to complain
  
  The problem is that IP laws eventually are lobbied by the big copyright holders into being excessively long. How long did Steamboat Willie really have to be copyrighted for, and has their release into the public domain really affected Disney?
  Eventually after you get back the money you invested, it's just free money, and people like free money so much they pay lawyers and lobbyists that free money so that they can keep it coming.
  
  Pokemon: The innovative RPG where you couldn't even walk diagonally until generation 6...
  
  I can see the opposite argument made for copyright that if someone can coast off the success of their first work that in and of itself can de-incentivize them from making anything new, this is why movie companies just remake the same movies and stories every few years, it's to coast on the success of the old one, and this is even a problem with shorter term copyrights. Their limiting factor is with the technology of the time making the old ones look dated, not so much the copyright expiring. If it didn't look dated, they would just re-release the same ones over and over and over again.
  Copyright was made for Joe, or a small business, but applying that to a big business doesn't work, and is in fact a bad-faith argument, trying to tug at our heart-strings to make us feel bad for someone that we shouldn't feel bad for. If Disney couldn't sue people for copyright infringement they'd still find a way to go after them, they have more than enough money to hire a PI to ruin the person's life, or you know just hire a hitman. It doesn't do anyone any favors to Compare Disney, Paramount, Amazon, Facebook, or Google to a small business who needs our help to not be screwed over.
  Ironically in this day and age it doesn't do as much for those small businesses anymore because they don't have the money needed to fight those claims, you know who does though, the big ones, the ones who don't need protection at all. They're free to predate on these smaller people if they choose, and those smaller people will be otherwise powerless to fight back, and even if by some stroke of luck they do, it'll likely bankrupt them because of it.
  
  The people spending 5 years to develop something arent the ones that own the rights to the end product. Like I said, copyright exists so rich people can own more. The people that own the rights to pokemon are not game developers, artists, writers, anyone that put actual work into creating the games and other media. Its people that had a lot of money, shareholders and executives. And then they receive the biggest share of the profits off others work and the feedback loop continues.
  
  However Pokemon came out in 96, that’s 28 years. There’s been very little innovation in their games since.
  First, not really, there’s been a LOT of innovation in Pokémon, as much as people want to deny it.
  And second, 28 years is really not that much. We’re not in the Disney realm of copyright-hogging, I think 50 years is a fair amount of time. The issue is that it’s often way too broad: it should protect only extremely blatant copies (i.e. the guy who literally rereleased Pokémon Yellow as a mobile game), not concepts or general mechanics. Palworld has a completely different gameplay from any Pokémon game so far, and (most of) the creatures are distinct enough. That should suffice to make it rightfully exist (maybe removing the 4/5 Pals that are absolute ripoffs, sure).
  
  How about no. Let people create if your only incentive is money fuck you. If someone spent $50 million to develop something the labor has been paid. You will be first to the market and you can make money if your invention isn't that unique oh well.
- Even when it doesn't, it becomes its eventual outcome.

Pocketpair is a Japanese company too right? That doesn't bode well, Japan has some shit laws for defending these sorts of lawsuits. I really like palworld, and don't want it to go away. Fuck Nintendo.

You know Nintendo is just weird.
They file a patent lawsuit against an indie game, just because someone finally got popular. But why don't thay sue digimon or blue dragon, and while their at it, howtotrain a dragon while their at it.
This whole thing is just weird.
- The really odd but is being unaware of which patents they're allegedly infringing on
  That should be part of the filing shouldn't it?
  Also are they going to sue Square Enix for Dragon Quest Monsters while they're at it?
  
  "I'm suing you!"
  "What for?"
  "It's a surprise 🎉🥳🎊"
  
  Maybe.
  
  Those are too old, I guess. The lots of Pokemon patents started about 2020.
- Well, they waited for Pocketpair to become big enough to give them money, and not too big to risk losing against them.

Seeing a lot of comments on here and it just reminds me of what I have been telling my friends since day one.
PalWorld is a threat to Pokemon. It has potential to crown Pokemon in a different way and really compete. Nintendo will 100% find a way. I told them and told them. I said the same thing on Reddit. Sure enough, downvoted.
I love Pokemon, I love Zelda, and Mario but I absolutely love competition. There is no way a billion dollar franchise, multi level marketing, insanept popular game series is going to let something come along and compete against it. If you haven't watched The Boys on Amazon you are missing out. One of the most redeeming characters, IMO, says it best in two sentences in the boys in one whole episode and it is the premise of everything. "You don't get it do you? You don't mess with the money.
I love seeing games come along and bring something new to the table because it should drive Nintendo to do better for GameFreak to do better. I liked PalWorld and welcomed it as someone who loves Pokemon. While PalWorld didn't maintain my interest its because Pokemon just does something for me PalWorld doesn't. However, that being said I have found my self turned away from Pokemon since Gen 7 and 8 semi redeemed 7 and 9 is just sad (performance wise). I have found my self playing the hell out of tjr classic Pokémon games. Point being I welcomed PalWorld in hopes that it would light a fire under Nintendo's ass to develop a really good next gen Pokemon game. It was wishful thinking though. Nintendo is a "don't mess with the money" company and that is all it is. Fuck Nintendo. PalWorld was good for the game industry. What Nintendo is going to try to set precedence on is that you can own an idea a simple concept.
I have been telling my friends for literal fucking years and for some reason they just swing the bat for Nintendo. Nintendo makes some great games but holy fuck they are a shit company. They just are. I told them over and over this was coming Nintendo would find something and now here we are.
I sent this too them and they all got silent. They genuinely believed Nintendo couldn't and wouldn't.
- Well arguably they can't legally but... Bludgeoning people with lawyers regardless of legality is pretty standard big business behaviour

I'd support anything to see NIntendo get kicked in the nuts for shutting down yuzu, which could have easily continued legally by removing like 2 paragraphs and probably a few lines of code.
Also Citra which was 100% legal.
EDIT:
I also wanna mention that current Pokemon gameplay sucks, and would also kill to see GameFreak's billion dollar franchising burn. Maybe 15 20 years ago when hardware was "limited", a low asset turn based RPG focused around pocket monsters was a fun game. Ain't no way a PS1 graphics looking game with practically zero changes to the formula can be considered AAA title in 2024. And even then they've somehow made it into an A button press simulator by nuking the difficulty.
Being completely honest, the DS hardware was not that limited (had 2 generations on it with significant upgrades despite being the same console). BW2 was probably the golden era with very well done animated sprites, overworld, features, etc. The moment it hit the 3DS, it started showing its cracks with GF continuing to develop the game without expanding the team to meet development demand.
Palworld isn't even the first challenger. TemTem gained some popularity purely for showing how much of an upgrade it was from Pokemon only a few years ago.
- 3D was the bane of good gameplay IMO. Tech over fun. "It's so realustic!" If I want realistic I'd go outside.
  The DS (lite) screen was also so good compared to its ancestors.
  Maybe it's time to fire up some DS and GBA games again :-)
- I agree bw/bw2 were the best games
- No, they could’t just remove a few lines of code and text - if they could, they would have done exactly that. Yuzu was fucked because they sold early access to day one compat with new games. That’s clearly illegal and scummy, even if it’s big bad corporation on the losing end of it. If they hadn’t complied they likely would have lost any litigation and might also get into other legal troubles because of likely pre-release access to games. No judge would have taken any of it lightly.

Good. Kick Nintendo in the dick.

They're gonna fight it, but not for the fans. They're doing it for themselves. They're a company too.
- All the same, I'm glad someone is standing up to those litigious fuckwagons.

Patenting vague game mechanics is egregious. This would be like Insomniac patenting "character runs around with a big gun" and subsequently filing a lawsuit against Nintendo for Splatoon, because both Ratchet and the Inklings run around with big guns.

I don't play this game, but would love to donate to help the fight. Nintendo is out of control with their bullshit.
- Buy the game.

Half of Pokémon are heavily inspired by artist's (who are not affiliated with Nintendo) illustrations of popular Yokai (Japanese mythological creatures). The rest are simply animals with very generic additions. "It's a cow but bipedal" "It's a kangaroo but with horns" "It's a pigeon but... actually yeah it's just a pigeon. No difference."
How can you copyright/patent that? It's hardly original.
I say this as someone who grew up loving Pokémon.
- It's a patent case. It has nothing to do with the creative design of the games.
  But yes. Every pokemon is copyrighted. Every pal is copyrighted. (In the US) All creative work is automatically copyrighted to the creator.
  You can't copyright "a standing lizard with a small flame on its tail" but you can copyright Charmander. If you copy enough elements that a lay person can't distinguish the original and the copy then it opens it up for a copyright claim.
  None of that is relevant in this case.
  A patent is to protect a specific invention from being copied. In this case, there is an innovative game mechanic that Nintendo patented has that Palworld copied. The speculation is with throwing an item that captures a character that fights other characters in a 3d space.
  The patent is dumb. Personally I don't think it is innovative or special enough to be patented. Patenting software or game mechanic are dumb anyway.
  
  And hopefully something that they'll be able to find reams of prior art that precede the patent
  
  How long do patents last for anyway? Pokemon being caught in balls must be many, many decades old by this point.
- It's not for copyright infringement, it's for patent infringement. Apparently when they made Legends Arceus, Nintendo patented the idea of pointing the camera at a monster and throwing stuff at it.
  
  That'd be pretty funny if that was the case, because Craftopia (Pocketpair's first game, released before Legends Arceus was announced) also did the monster collection mechanic in the exact same way as Palworld.
  
  Wasn't there a N64 Pokemon game (Pokemon Safari?) Where you take photos of pokemon?
  I guess Nintendo quashed its own patent.
- Oh yeah yokai I seen that in touhou

I stand by the indie studios. We have proof again and again that indies just want to reach their public.

Kick his ass Pocketpair

Oh shit here we go again with your rectangle looks too much like my rectangle.
- Oh no, they actually made a good rectangle, our rectangle is cheap and boring. Instead of making an effort, we sue their rectangle

Poor Nintendo really need the win :( /s

Nintendo filled some vague ass patents after the game launched, they are a disgusting company that already did the same to white cat project because of some virtual analogue because they were releasing their own Dragalia Lost.

Is Pocketpair Indie? Didn't they just make a new company with Sony Music and Aniplex?

For everyone's edification, Geigner's take on Techdirt. I suspect this won't be the last TD article on this trainwreck-in-the-making.
- Oh wow, this suit is shaping up to be silly. I didn't realize it was filed in Japan, too. That makes the patent aspect even shakier. Japan has no discovery process like in the US, which is generally very necessary for many software-related patents as, assuming they have a strong likelihood of surviving challenge, they are typically drawn to processes that are completely obfuscated from the user and outside observes.

Patenting things like this that are obviously unpatentable ideas rather than actual inventions is unfortunately a necessity for defensive purposes in a world where companies will do anything in order to kill competition except risk competing with them since that isn't guaranteed by throwing money at it. Enforcing a bunch of patents against a company with fewer liquid assets is a guaranteed way to beat a competitor with money alone since winning the suit isn't the goal, only draining the assets of the competitor. Sucks that this is considered a valid business practice now.

Hope Nintendo lose. I don't understand why they are always the bad guy
- The answer is money and eliminating competition for money

They would prob do smth like this to tux kart

undefined

>Open Thread >People shitting on Nintendo, because fuck Nintendo >Nobody actually looked at the 1:1 model comparisons >Nobody actually looked into PocketPair as a company Jeez. I thought we were better then Reddit.
That being said, I don't like Nintendo & their Ninjas, but PocketPair is not innocent here.
This is not their only ripoff. For their next project, they choose to ripoff Hollow Knight. (At least they are consistent I guess?).
They also abandoned an unfinished early access game (This game is 4 years into Early Access).
Their CEO is also a crypto bro and said himself that he does not necessarily care about originality, if it means, that he can reach more people (and by extension earn more money).
Just to name a few.
- Didn't the guy who originally posted the "1:1 model comparisons" later admit that he stretched and scaled the models to fit better?
  It's derivative, but not a ripoff.
  
  Scaling? Yes. Streching? No.
  The models had to be scaled, so that they are the same size, because models in different engines are differently scaled and a propper comparison could not be made otherwise.
- My opinion for what it's worth is generally no one is going to not play hollow knight because they are playing the ripoff. You can't own a style or game genre if someone has a similar look and feel there's not much you can do about it than have a better game.

~~It shocks me just the amount of people rallying behind Palworld SOLEY just to "stick it to the big corp"~~
~~At worse its blind rage and ignorance~~
~~edit: watch me get pelted with downvotes.~~
I was wrong and I will take my L for it✌
- The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
  IDGAF about Palworld as a game, personally. I've never played it and I don't plan to. But that doesn't make Nintendo's behavior not bullshit, and I still hope the Palworld developers win this battle.
- im a stinky dumb dumb who didnt read the lawsuit. Forgive me im impulsive (u-u)✌
  
  Good, then. Fuck IP laws.
  
  How much is Nintendo paying you to be their mouth piece?
  Have you seen the kind of patents Nintendo are trying to get?
  Here is an example :
  Publication number: 20240286040 Abstract: In an example of a game program, a ground boarding target object or an air boarding target object is selected by a selection operation, and a player character is caused to board the selected boarding target object. If the player character aboard the air boarding target object moves toward the ground, the player character is automatically changed to the state where the player character is aboard the ground boarding target object, and brought into the state where the player character can move on the ground.
  You can check them out for yourself
  patents assigned to the pokemon company
  So calm the fuck down with your chatGPT which is a whole different situation.
  
  Your wall of text doesn't make sense, contradicts itself and mixes up cases. PocketPair was sued for patent infringement, not intelectual property. If they did commit intelectual property / copyright infringement, you bet they'd be sued before even releasing the game.
  That being said, this angry wall of text implies that you might need help with mental health. I'm sure there is a beautiful human being underneath all that, so please, consider talking to therapist.

As much as I don't like Nintendo's business practises to be fair in this case many of the pals are straight up copies of Pokémon with one thing changed
Definitely a good case for Nintendo here, not sure this is a winnable battle even without the overwhelming force of Nintendo's ninjas
- This is
  PATENT INFRINGEMENT
  Not COPYRIGHT
  This is patent trolling because Nintendo knows they don't have a case elsewhere
  
  Ah, had thought the obvious thing for them to go for was copyright because of the obvious similarities
  No reasonable person looks at palworld pals and doesn't see the heavy similarities with pokemon

I can read the room here. I know this will be an unpopular opinion, and I want to preface this with a big "fuck Nintendo" and particularly their legal team.
That said, fuck Palworld, too. They are absolutely just straight up copying Nintendo/The Pokemon Company's designs. It's blatant. It's AI bros making money by copying Pokemon designs, plain and simple. Palworld would not have caused the stir it did if not for the blatant "It's Pokemon with guns!" angle.
So, while Nintendo can normally go suck the biggest of dicks when they swing around their lawsuit arms, this time I think they fully have every right to go after these guys, I don't care how much they say they're gonna fight the big bad mega company "for the fans and for indie devs everywhere" lol man, great statement. Guaranteed to get the base riled up.
Thank you for reading, you may downvote.
- I love how you wrote all this, and are completely missing the mark. Nintendo is filing a lawsuit claiming that the palworld devs violated their patents, not their copyrights.
  Anything palworld 'copied' from pokémon is either japanese lore, or from older games. This is not a copyright suit. If a copyright suit were possible, Nintendo would have brought it waaaay earlier. I'm wondering which patents Nintendo has that were supposedly violated.
  I love how there's this entire discussion here about copyright etc... while that's not even what this is about.
  
  I bet Nintendo has a lot of patent violations to choose from. They have a patent on such bangers as, rephrased from legal speech to human speech: "An air mount automatically turning into a ground mount upon landing" Source
  According to Nintendo, if I understand this correctly, they have the sole legal right to make a bird mount that can also sprint on the ground if needed, because that sure was a special idea.
  
  It's a gift.
- They are also making a copycat game "inspired" by hollow knight, obviously doing for the indie devs out there.
  
  Of course. For the culture! Lol
  
  If we allow this to continue, we will end up with more content for players to enjoy.
  
  That's called a metroidvania
- I'm not going to downvote you, but, I disagree. Nintendo might have had a leg to stand on if they tried to say Palworld infringed on their Pokemon intellectual property and/or copyright, especially after the mesh controversy, but they didn't attack them on that. They're going after Pocketpair for patent infringement on a so-far undisclosed patent. Probably a game mechanic of some sort. Pokemon did not invent the monster collecting and/or battling genre. Dragon Quest predates it by a good margin.
  I'd like to see the patent they claim to have. In what way might Palworld be infringing upon their patent that another similar game, like say TemTem for instance, is not? I hate the idea that a fun game mechanic can be patented and locked down by one company for up to 20 years.
  Palworld would not have caused the stir it did if not for the blatant “It’s Pokemon with guns!” angle.
  This was 100% a fan reaction to the trailer, and not an official stance by the developers at all. That's obviously what they were going for, but they stopped long before outright saying it out loud and let the consumer make their own inferences.
  They have every right to go after them, but I really hope they lose this one. Nintendo doesn't deserve to have a monopoly on fun creature collecting games.
  
  Absolutely. I'm looking at getting Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince soon. I doubt anyone calls it a Pokemon copycat, too.
  
  Man... Reading is great when I decide to actually do that.
  aight. Ima piss off, Apologies for my Prozax induced rantings.
  
  I still really hate Palworld.
  It reminds me of that PETA parody I played a long time ago called Pokemon Black and Blue. It was pokemon but they were abused or some shit.
  Thats what Palworld reminds me of, Its pokemon but I can abuse them if I want to and thats just kinda fucked up IMO... Not something id wanna play :/ It all reminds me of those fangames people would make where Mario has a gun or a car or some other wacky ass Item that'd only exist IRL. the fucking pink Meowth with an AK-47 makes me ponder why this even got as popular as it did. but whatever- this is all still my opinion.
  This game also reminds me of that one Steam game thats basically Animal crossing (But you can kill people with guns) I think its called Virst Winter??? I cant remember... It just looks mega silly to me- I dont like having to look at a fake-Lucario with human hands holdin a glock. Its goofy- I cant take it seriously 😭😭😭
- They didn't copy Pokemon, they created new content that is similar to Pokemon.
  Do you believe it is wrong to create new content that is very similar to existing content that people enjoy?
  Is it wrong for Pocket Pair (Palworld's creator) to create new content that is similar to existing Pokemon? Is it wrong for GameFreak to create new content that is similar to existing Pokemon? Morally speaking, why are the answers to those questions different?
  
  I really recommend this set of posts from byofrog from the hellsite:
  https://x.com/byofrog/status/1749198773295743156
  https://x.com/byofrog/status/1748943929184035098
  https://x.com/byofrog/status/1749188773127016772
  https://x.com/byofrog/status/1749193341932020097
  https://x.com/RoseBursyoji/status/1750585839913255386 (This one is not from byofrog, but rather his comment section)
  I think they make the copying obvious
  
  If you can't see how blatant it is, I don't know what to tell you. You can be all "it's just SIMILAR wink wink" all you want. Similar is a fucking understatement.
- I just don't believe in copyright, IP patents or having fences on human culture.
  So even if they straight up put Pikachu in their game I think they have the moral right to do so. If they can make a good game with Pikachu in it, who is Nintendo to private humanity from that piece of culture?
  My statement is about morality. What's legal or not is another matter.
  
  I mean...artists should be paid for their work right? Fuck Nintendo, but that same logic could be applied to anyone. I'd be pissed if someone just straight up lifted my designs and resold it.
  
  I'm not extremely against all of copyright because I believe artists should have some protections (though the law sucks at this), but I also believe that once something becomes a decades-old billion-dollar franchise, non-identical imitation should be fair game. Can you imagine what would happen if companies could simply say that they own whole genres?
- Palworld is just one of them Newgrounds games where its Mario but he's got a Bazooka or some crazy shit.
  Whenever I run into someone with a Palworld Oc and their telling me about it, I cant help but feel like their offering me some kinda fake/knockoff Balenciaga; for lack of a better comparison. Like it looks like Lugia, flaps like Lugia, but this "thing" aint Lugia. Its- I dunno its just weird as shit.
  Its an uncanniness for me, that's why I hate it and it feels wrong. My mind sees Jigglypuff with a pistol and I'm violently taken out of the scenario. Its just so- Fuckin weird man I cant describe it. It aint natural 😭😭
  The best way I describe it is that Palworld is the Alternate Universe version of Pokemom, only it exists in this universe and in this timeline and it weirds me out.

Rooting for Nintendo on this one. Palworld was dumb, you can’t just steal others’ IP without consequences. They could have made things just different enough… But they didn’t, they were dumb.
- it's not a copyright/dmca claim, they are claiming they are violating a patent of some kind, so it's not visuals or names, I'm curious if it will be a ball object that captures them, cause like if so that's so broad that it shouldn't be able to be patented
- It's weird to root for a multi billion dollar corporation, especially Nintendo, even if you think Palworld is in the wrong.
  I can agree that IP theft can be dumb in some cases, and Palworld is cutting it pretty close there. Nintendo sues everyone, though, even for the pettiest of reasons, and this kind of behavior shouldn't be encouraged.
  Palworld isn't actually putting a dent in Nintendo's bottom line. Nintendo is just litigious against everybody, including their own fans, so of course they are going to sue a competitor.
- What exactly did Palworld steal? Surely you have sources for your claims
- Sure except they aren't being sued for IP infringement. They're getting sued for Patent infrigement.

I mean, Nintendo isn't typically the bad guy though, right? And palworld is a pretty clear like 1:1 rip, so....
I mean, good to challenge the "big" guy generally, but wrong target here specifically and weak case, right?
- What parallel universe did you come from? Nintendo is like the company known to be a bad guy when it comes to IP lawsuits. They went after a Smash Bros tournament for emulating a game they literally don't sell anymore for a console they also no longer produce.
  
  Wasn't talking IP, meant more generally like how orgs like EA and Activision are the go to assholes in gaming, generally. Feel like I don't hear about Nintendo in the more meaningful (In my opinion) microtransactions, mass layoffs, ridiculous price increases, attempts to kill physical media optionality, etc conversations...
  As long as IP is the law we live under, I don't really mind them enforcing that part. I think it was a bit lazy for palworld to blatantly ripoff Pokemon when they could be creative and make their own character universe. If you're mad at IP law, go after your reps in government.
- I think this is sarcasm, right? They are literally the bad guy. Nintendo does not hesitate to destroy people's life if they can. Just one example: https://www.pcgamer.com/gary-bowser-charged-with-paying-nintendo-a-sum-hell-never-be-able-to-afford-talks-about-his-life-after-prison-the-sentence-was-like-a-message-to-other-people/

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
- 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.
- 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.
  
  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.
- 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
  
  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?
  
  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.

Decided to finally go watch gameplay of this game.
It's definitely a fan ripoff mashing up Breath of the Wild with the newer open world pokemon games.
I'm not saying nobody else is allowed to make these kinds of games. But this absolutely is just trying to rip those off. Looks as unimaginative, boring, and empty as all of Nintendo's adventure games.
They've stolen Nintendos IP of providing half-assed garbage and watching people eat it up.
- I mean, it also has very distinct gameplay from Pokemon? The newer open world games but like sword and shield released the same year pal world opened it’s early access (2019). Legends, which is the closest, was 3 years later.
  Also, definitely adds FPS gameplay, survival gameplay with base building, and etc.
  While it’s still not a great game, it’s definitely A: still early access and B: not just a Pokemon game.
  Definitely took more than BotW and Ark than it did from anything else.
- I wonder if people actually played Palworld here.
  It's an obvious mash-up of existing games, ripping straight from games like Breath of the World, Pokemon and Fortnite, even up to the music chimes.
  I don't think Nintendo should be suing, but people here defending how original the game is should really take a closer look at it.
  
  The original part is the specific formulation. Pretty much all games are mashups of other games anyway. Palworld found a formula among popular games that really struck a chord with people, and they executed on it pretty well.
  And yeah, I've seen extensive portions of Palworld since my SO is really into it. My SO doesn't care much at all about Pokemon, Breath of the Wild, or Fortnite, though they really like Palworld. That alone is a pretty good argument for Palworld being distinct.
  Nintendo is mad that Palworld did a great job with some of their ideas, and I think they want a piece of the action. I don't think they're concerned that anyone would mistake Palworld for any of their IPs, they just want some cash. I'm interested to know which patents they claim Palworld violated, because it's honestly really rare in video games for patents to actually be enforceable because there's so much prior art and a lot of variations in how mechanics can be used.
- More like a (much more polished) ripoff of a game that came out a couple years before Breath of the Wild.
  Ark with pokemon and fortnite graphics.
- They’ve stolen Nintendos IP
  U wot

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