Anybody who’s played palworld knows the game is nothing like pokemon. What’s next, are they going to claim they are the only company who can make games with 4 legged animals?
They said patent violations, not copyright, so it is about some sort of mechanic or system and not the pals or any specific designs. I’m guessing the thrown ball capture system, since it seems no other developers have published anything using that specifically.
They shouldnt be able to sue for that cause a patent only lasts for 20 years in Japan. I saw some guesses that there might be a patent for one of their legends games that they are suing for.
I don’t understand. Everyone, literally EVERYONE was calling this game pokemon with guns when it released, so why are people mad that the makers of pokemon are suing? We all saw it from the start
I think it’s understandable why they sue them (I doubt it holds up in court though), it’s just horrible business practice because Nintendo is too lazy to actually innovate and do something creative for a change, instead of sitting on franchises like that and do fuck all with it, only releasing repetitive piss-poor games based on the exact same concept they invented like 30+ years ago.
The problem is people will still buy Pokemon, even if they’re absolute garbage games. So Nintendo won’t change it either.
I think it’s an issue with Japanese game companies in general. I’ve been complaining about Capcom forever. Megaman 11 was a side scroller. I’m a massive mega man fan and I like the side scroll. But it’s 2024. Can we try something new? I would love a ratchet and Clank style, open world 3d mega man where you go to the different areas of the city and take down the bosses. Also games like monster hunter, are so janky and look 10 years out of date, and most Capcom games look outdated
Palworld is an open world survival crafting factory/base building game, that happens to borrow the catching mechanic from Pokemon (who borrowed it from Shin Megami Tensei).
Copying would imply a one to one duplication. The catching system in Palworld differs in multiple ways from the Pokemon system. I think that’s enough to call it borrowing and not copying.
K first of all, the mechanic you’re referencing was already an established mechanic before Pokemon Red/Blue came out. The Pokemon Company didn’t invent the “creature catcher” genre of video games.
Second of all, as I’ve said already, the catching mechanic in Palworld is absolutely distinct enough to be considered as drawing inspiration from Pokemon, and not copying. If you wanna get into the nitty gritty, I’ll meet you down there, but if you’re just gonna continue to spout meaningless contrarianisms I’ve got better things to do
Third of all, “cell shaded anime art style” describes hundreds if not thousands of video games, not just Pokemon games. You can’t realistically claim that Palworld copied Pokemon’s art style* just because it uses a cell-shaded anime style, especially because Pokemon has only used that art direction for the last two generations of games, and the style has been in use long before sword and shield came out.
but not capturing by weakening the creature and throwing a ball at them.
If you think “throwing a ball” is a patentable (or even copyrightable) mechanic, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Palworld explicitly copies the style of creature design from Pokemon
Some pals are similar to Pokemon, sure, but a lot are quite distinct. If you have a problem with that though, take it up with The Pokemon Company, because they did it first.
The developers knew exactly what they were doing, so to claim it wasn’t intentional is disingenuous at best.
Of course it was intentional to make a game in the same genre as Pokemon, with similar mechanics. That’s how video games in the same genre work. You make them similar to things you know people like, so that there’s a greater chance they’ll like your game too, but you also introduce new, unique things so that you’re not copying. Yes, Palworld did that intentionally.
None of that is illegal though, or shouldn’t be anyways, unless they’re straight up stealing assets/code from a Pokemon game and using it in Palworld.
the mechanic is capturing a creature by weakening them and throwing a ball at them. Not just throwing a ball.
And like I’ve said before, Shin Megami Tensei did this before Pokemon. This concept was not original to Pokemon, and exists in several other creature catcher games.
None of the creatures I’ve seen are entirely new designs, but rather hybrids of existing, well known Pokemon.
Then you haven’t seen a large portion of Pals. Plenty of pals are unique. Some of them look similar to Pokemon, sure, because they’re based on the same real world animal.
outright lying to defend them and ignoring obvious facts does
🙄🙄🙄
It’s fine to admit that a thing you like has flaws, and admit that those flaws need addressing.
K, Palworld has flaws. Never claimed otherwise.
We’ve run far field of the point though. Palworld is being sued for patent infringement. If there was ever a patent on the “weaken creature then capture” mechanic, it’s long expired, so they’re not being sued over that. They’re not being sued over art or Pal designs, because that would be copyright infringement, not a patent violation.
Given those facts, what do you think Palworld is being sued for?
Lots of games are also called Roguelike. Based off a game called Rogue. The makers of Rogue do not get to sue the makers of Hades.
Pets that fight for you, including being able to store them for portable carry has been done by many other games, including Ark. In fact, playing Palworld made me compare it more to Ark than Pokemon: base building, automation, catching dinos/animals/monsters of different varieties for different uses. Some can fly, some run, some can be used as parachutes. Some help automate actions at base. There is a tech tree unlocked by leveling, starting with primitive weapons and moving on to guns and higher caliber guns. Blueprints are common in ark for higher quality crafts to build at, you guessed it, crafting benches.
Collecting wood, stone, metals, etc. Also the animal assistants can help there too, but only certain ones. Also, Ark has cryopods for storing your animals/dinosaurs. You even throw em to release.
If they had exactly Pikachu or something it’s one thing, but similar games are just part of the business.
But we’re not talking about a game type here. You can agree that this is a dumb lawsuit, but you have to be honest. Palworld was marketed online as pokemon with guns. It’s not just a similar style but almost identically copies the characters in Pokemon. You can make a stealth action political thriller video game, but if the main character looks just like solid Snake and is called “Viper”, you gonna get sued.
Really? Why does Deathstroke and Deadpool both exist? One is DC, one is Marvel, and Deadpool pretty much started as an expy. Slade Wilson and Wade Wilson. You’re arguing from a place of what feels like it should be wrong, yet your fake example has been done in the real world and they got away with it.
This happens so many times in industries they can often just argue parody. In fact, changing a name slightly is classic parody to avoid being sued. Japan in particular often just bleeps out a syllable or forgets a character in the name.
I played it and I felt like it borrowed a lot of elements from Pokemon. It wasn’t Pokemon, but you can’t deny it took like 90% of their inspiration from Pokemon and then added guns to it.
That’s like any FPS game ripping off any other FPS game.
Fight, capture, tame, train, breed animals.
Base building, research tree, enemy raids.
Exploration, resource gathering, survival.
I don’t think Nintendo has a monopoly on enslaving animals.
I know what you mean, tho. It’s always described as “Pokémon with guns and 3xE gameplay”.
But does Nintendo actually have a case that will hold up in courts?
Pocketpair seems confident they can defend against it. So either they have done their research and are up for a fight. Or they (think they) are calling Nintendo’s bluff.
But Nintendo has a whole pack of lawyers.
Unfortunately there are no details on what the patents being infringemed upon are, just that they relate to “Pocket Monster”.
But it’s the combination of it all, aside from guns and concentration camp levels of slavery, that make it look like they straight up copied ideas from Pokemon.
It’s true Nintendo doesn’t hold the specific style or gameplay mechanics, and that’s where I think they’ll fail to win a case, but just saying it’s just so blatantly obvious where the inspiration comes from.
I have a feeling that this is going to be the case. Palworld is not copying anything so it’s not copyright and doesn’t even need a “fair use” argument for it. The patents of gameplay mechanics don’t really hold up in court.
Nintento’s legal battle chest is stuff of nightmares for smaller companies and they should be countersued for anti competitive behavior.
That said, lawyers can send a C&D letter for anything. Doesn’t mean it will hold up in court, but they’re betting the target won’t want to pay that kind of money to fight it.
Dragon Ball was using capsules to store things long before Pokemon did. And Dragon Ball Z, which ended in Japan in '96 had already done storing 'creatures in capsules. Saibamen for one. And after the Saiyan saga Bulma puts her dead friends in coffin capsules.
Yeah, they should absolutely argue that storing things, alive or not, in capsules has been used in numerous movies and shows and that the patent is invalid. Big corporations make tons of patents all the time just in case and then see if they hold up in court later, such as Nintendo with their pokeballs in this case. They still don’t know whether Palworld is an infringement or not
I don’t know if that’s true, but most of those patents are incredibly iffy, they seem to describe basic functions of how videogames have worked since WoW.
They seem to have tried patenting having a player character that can walk, drive, and fly in a videogame on May 2, 2024.
It has to do with how the statute is written (I used to do comparative international IP policy research and analysis). Japanese works are given fairly wide latitude in creative sectors based on artistic intent. For example, you’ll see knockoff brands all the time in anime or manga, but the intent is clearly world building (or parody), not appropriation for promotional use. That artistic intent standard is used in the courts. This is why all the side-by-side comparisons people here probably saw on Twitter when Palworld came out was more of an ethnocentric American approach. Plus, copyright infringement is frequently incidental and not the result of large investment (unlike patents), so, in a country that prefers to handle domestic disputes informally, these incidents are less likely to go to court.
As a country that more recently entered the world stage based on manufacturing, patent protection is simply going to be taken more seriously as part of the culture. And yes–while I don’t have numbers–patent litigation does seem to get thrown out often when it comes to video games, at least the high-profile stuff, anyway. Here’s an example between Koei Tecmo and Capcom since I was already on Variety.
They had to wait for PalWorld to sell a lot and make a lot of money so they can financially ruin these people instead of just telling them “don’t do that.”
They had to wait for PalWorld to sell a lot and make a lot of money so they can financially ruin these people instead of just telling them “don’t do that." make themselves a lot of money by doing nothing but make a lawsuit to steal their earnings."
Well, it makes me think that AI training was probably biased towards legal drivel like this, since it’s public facing, professional and likely even translated in multiple languages.
The student got so good that people think the teacher is imitating it.
Is that the wrong link? This seems totally unrelated to Pokemon in boxes, and is more about multi console character storage systems. This patent just sounds like someone described steam cloud saves in way too many big words.
In the “other references” they link to the bulbapedia article for Pokemon box so I figured thats what the whole thing was about, but yeah it does read like accessing data on a server
How can they let companies file such broad, vague patents for mechanics that have existed since forever? For example, 20240286040, is just what flying mounts have done in WoW since 2007 or even the flying cap in Mario 64 ffs. There are probably other earlier examples, but it goes to show that it’s just noise to monopolize innovation and scare other devs.
Long story short, the claims get much longer and restrictive through the application process. The example you asked about is currently undergoing a non-final rejection, and the claims will get much more restrictive in further iterations (assuming that the application has actual merit somewhere in the original dependent claims)
You can check the application history here: Global Dossier
Since this was filed in Japan, it would have to be patents Nintendo own in Japan that are infringed and those don’t necessarily perfectly match those in the US
I’m sorry who in their right mind signed off on this patent
NON-TRANSITORY COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM HAVING STORED THEREIN GAME PROGRAM, GAME SYSTEM, INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, AND INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD
It will certainly be interesting to see how this film turns out given the oft-cited point that Link does not traditionally speak during the games (though I think he did in the CD-i games).
It’s also worth noting that video game based movies rarely do well. I’m not sure what the general consensus was on the Illumination Mario movie, so maybe people are more optimistic for this movie if they liked that one. Personally, I didn’t love the Mario movie, so I’m still a little uncertain of the potential quality of this movie.
I certainly hope this movie does well, though. Then we can finally get the Chibi-Robo movie we’ve all been waiting for.
Link speaks in both the CDi games and the cartoon that was attached to the Mario Bros super show.
The general consensus on the Mario movie probably doesn’t matter much as it made over a billion dollars worldwide. Personally I thought it was fine but lacks a lot of the heart that made the deeply flawed 1993 movie so charming.
Link seriously talks WAY more than people realize. The thing is that it only ever is represented by him doing little hand waves and head bobs. Like literally anytime someone says “what happened link, did lassie fall down the well?” He will actually be answering to fill that person in, I want to say WW is the first game to do it with an animation but people definitely ask link things and seem to get an answer even in OOT.
So in short I hope to god they don’t do silent protagonist.
I think the Mario movie did well because it is very different from most video game movies. They went for a family/humor approach instead of a serious epic/action movie. The Sonic movies are another example of this working well.
nintendo.co.jp
Gorące