The Pokemon Company 'Intends to Investigate' Palworld Over Possible IP Infringement - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 24 January 2024 / 5,288 Views
The Pokemon Company has issued a statement regarding Palworld and the potential intellectual property infringement with the game.
"We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024," said The Pokemon Company in a statement. "We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon.
"We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future."
The Pokemon Company doesn't mention Palworld by name, however, a game released in January 2024 that might have infringed on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon indicates they are talking about Palworld.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Translation: "Please stop spamming our inbox. If you think we haven't been looking at this game since it was announced you're insane, we don't need fans telling us about it. If there's actually a case there we'll do something and don't need your pestering."
How about stop being lazy and not take the Pokemon IP for granted and actually try to make a proper Pokemon experience like Palworld?
They own the Pokemon IP, they can do whatever they want with it. It's the fandom they should not be taking for granted. Sorry to be splitting hairs but this detail is important.
They own the IP, they don't have a right to sales if the customers don't want to.
Water tester is correct. Gamers needs to stop buying them. Scarlett was a technical mess and broken and yet over 20 million bought it. Can you plane Pokemon company to keep doing it
People's resentment towards Game Freak have definitely worked out in Palworlds favor. At best they've shamelessly copied at much at they can while staying within the legal boundary both mechanics and designs (look at Temtem and it's obvious they cared enough to create their own style while Palworld didn't) and at worst they really have used AI and a Pokémon dataset in designing their "Pals" which could be difficult to prove but the mere fact that people suspect it shows how derivative they are. As for whether the game is any good I can't comment as I don't want to support it. I want Game Freak to pull their shit together and put real effort into a title as much as the next guy but Palworld is not that and nor do I think it will lead to it.
Palworld has shown how lazy game freak has been who has a significantly bigger budget, bigger team and experience. Palworld team had to learn how to use unreal engine to make the game. Game is more ark and forest then any Pokemon game..it's fun and how more.people keep supporting it
Damn right! If the Pokémon company doesn’t make games that I approve of, then they should lose their rights to their IP!
RON PAUL 2012!!!!!
Nice strawman, bro.
By all means, I have no concerns about Palworld and I do not think it actually infringes any copyrights or trademarks. However, to call it a 'proper' Pokemon experience is ludicrous. It is a very average survival game that plays very little like Pokemon, other than borrowing the concept, aesthetics and art design. It's also very generic world design and game design.
I highly doubt there is any copyright infringement. Pretty much all of the designs I have seen are different enough to be safe under law, just like earlier Pokemon-like games such as TemTem and Nexomon.
How about instead of harassing your competition, you take a look at what your competition is doing right? Take an analytical look at Palworld and try and learn why people like it so much, so that you can improve future Pokemon games. Because let's face it, right now, looking at user reviews, Palworld with it's 93% positive feedback on Steam has been better received by gamers than any Pokemon game since Pokemon Platinum, and Palworld user reviews are lightyears above the last 2 main series generations in particular, Sword/Shield and Scarlet/Violet, with only Legends Arceus user scores coming close to Palworld out of the Nintendo Switch Pokemon games.
I wouldn't sue them for the Pokemon ripoffs, but id be questioning the Zelda mechanics and Temperature gauge stolen directly from BOTW?
I mean if Nintendo wants to try and sue over that they can, but I doubt they have those mechanics trademarked, as far as I know they don't trademark gameplay mechanics, like say Warner Bros did with their Nemesis system.
But this is Pokemon Company releasing this statement, not Nintendo, they are separate entities with Nintendo only owning a partial share of Pokemon Company afaik.
Pretty sure Nintendo did patent some kind of gameplay mechanic from TotK just last year. So it is entirely possible, but I don't think it's probable.
Sorry but a temperature gauge that is cold on the left and hot on the right is not infringement. lmao. Genshin Impact is far closer to BOTW mechanics than this.
The Gauge looks exactly the same, they literally copy and pasted it. No shame of atleast redesigning it.
The images in question: https://i.imgur.com/qkFcvHM.png
Using a temperature gauge (like your car) and using blue to represent cold and orange to represent hot is not such an incredibly original idea that it warrants legal action when someone else does it.
You disagreeing that the gauge design was taken straight from Zelda?
Car Temperature gauges all look different from other car brands.
Issue isn't the red and blue representing hot and cold, the issue is they copied and pasted Zeldas UI features and didnt even try to make them look different.
They used AI for their designs and there is a lot of evidence that AI directly stole aspects of many designs.
Correct, it has not been proven. All we have had is armchair AI experts on X claiming they see elements of multiple Pokemon that AI has rearranged and combined into Pals. Problem is, similar designs can easily be arrived at without AI usage. The Palworld devs claim all of their Pal designs were human created and thay they used AI generative tech alot less in Palworld than in their previous games. They claim the Pal designs were all created by a fresh out of college hire starting in 2021, and that the artist was actually inspired by Dragon Quest monster designs more than Pokemon (ironic because Pokemon gen 1 designs were themselves heavily inspired by Dragon Quest monster designs). They also said that they had legal experts review Palworld before releasing it and that the lawyers had determined the designs weren't similar enough to any existing designs to violate copyright laws.
The AI evidence seems to have been fake:
https://twitter.com/byofrog/status/1750178974360068102
Crazy idea: TPC could make a deal with PocketPair about a paid DLC with real Pokemon and in the process make money.
That will never happen because over 20 million people bought the broken mess called Scarlett
. As long as gamers keep paying them they have no reason to improve
The Pokemon Company didnt seem to care until the game sold really well.
They're just telling people
"we're aware of Palworld, stop emailing us please :')"
If they go to court for this, they'd have to explain why the myriad of other Catch'em All - Pokémon clones were left alone (and in some cases allowed on Nintendo platforms).
Yep, makes it look like they are only targeting this one because it made alot more money than the others like TemTem and Nexomon.
Because they didn't steal art using AI and not like Pokemon invented the formula. Shin Megami Tensei existed before it.
Ninty and the pokemon company should just learn from this and give what the people want
Game looks nothing like pokemon.the pal designs look basic. It's a failed case.
Hope so, game is stupid.
You rather support the broken mess that's Scarlett?. It's a fun game if you haven't tried.
If Pokemon was satisfying product then Palworld would not have had such a blowup.
Legally, they kind of have to. You are obliged to defend your IPs or it becomes harder to defend them later on. Based on my very very basic knowledge of copyright law, I think there is a reasonable case,
Maybe dragon quest Dev should investigate gamefreak for their likenes sad the Pokemons are similar to dragon quest monster's lol
Hope there isn't any IP infringement but yeah some pals do look very similar.
Not surprised that nintendo wants to defend it's copyright.
