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[CuteFaceJay]

Former.....

 

[Northeastmonk]

Makes me want to buy Palworld even more.

 

[Holammer]

Large portion of the Internet, Twitter clout chasers and whatnot weeks/months from now, when a legal case from Game Freak/Nintendo fails to materialize.

 

[SF Kosmo]

It's obvious theft.

Won't be long before Nintendo forces Steam to take this down.

That it became so popular though should be a warning call to TPC/Nintendo: Make a better Pokemon game.

How do you all act so new? None of you were crying theft when Bloodstained or Cassette Beasts or Bomb Rush Cyberfunk came out. Doing a parody or a style homage is commonplace and has held up in court time and time again. These controversies go back to to Great Giana Sisters and Fighters History, and time and time again the courts have upheld them.

This is clearly parody. To violate Nintendo's IP they would need to use actual characters, names, assets, trademarks, or have a product so similar that Nintendo can argue consumers buying it are legitimately confusing it for a Pokemon product. Things like gameplay concepts or art styles are not protected under IP law.

There is no timeline in which Valve takes this game down without a court injunction from an actual lawsuit (which is not going to happen because the law is not on Nintendo's side).

 

[SF Kosmo]

BTW did anybody read the comment in context of the full sentence? "This looks like the usual ripoff nonsense that I would see a thousand times a year when I was Chief Legal Officer of Pokemon."

I 100% believe that if I had been chief legal officer for Pokemon and saw this I'd be like oh anotherone.gif

That statement is telling, though. Like a lot of people are taking this to mean "Oh we shut down rip offs like this all the time," but to my knowledge that never happened, the only games they shut down were fan games that used actual Nintendo IP.

There really isn't any legitimate precedent for Nintendo to take this game down, sorry.

 

[FoxMcChief]

 

[Filben]

God damn this game is creating a lot of tertiary butthurt. I don't really get it, what has this game done exactly to the Pokemon IP that's so much worse than what Gamefreak has been doing to it for years?

As Vanilla Ice said: resample how much you want, if you don't make a fortune no one cares, but as soon as you're making millions, they're coming after you.

Coromon, Monster Sanctuary, Monster Crown, etc. are so small, butthurt fans haven't even heard about them. But they heard about Palworld taking the momentum, so...

 

[GigaBowser]

It's obvious theft.

Won't be long before Nintendo forces Steam to take this down.

That it became so popular though should be a warning call to TPC/Nintendo: Make a better Pokemon game.

Warning to ALL games one day comparnies will use cheap AI instead of AAA spending hundreds of millionians.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Warning to ALL games one day comparnies will use cheap AI instead of AAA spending hundreds of millionians.

 

[GigaBowser]

war against the machines coming

its all true im sorry my friends

 

[mystech]

Maybe the Pokémon company should save their legal money and put that towards building Gamefreak a decent engine so we can actually get a GOOD looking Pokémon game for this supposedly pretty powerful Switch 2…

 

[Alebrije]

Palworld is free publicity for Pokemon

 

[GigaBowser]

Maybe the Pokémon company should save their legal money and put that towards building Gamefreak a decent engine so we can actually get a GOOD looking Pokémon game for this supposedly pretty powerful Switch 2…E

even if its goord they can still steal it with AI

 

[FoxMcChief]

war against the machines coming

its all true im sorry my friends

Can’t come soon enough. We had a good run. It’s time to see if the created can do better.

 

[BlackTron]

That statement is telling, though. Like a lot of people are taking this to mean "Oh we shut down rip offs like this all the time," but to my knowledge that never happened, the only games they shut down were fan games that used actual Nintendo IP.

There really isn't any legitimate precedent for Nintendo to take this game down, sorry.

Well, he did go on to say that he was surprised it made it this far. What's the reason? I think it's taken to be "I'm surprised they didn't take it down yet", but he could really just mean he's surprised it got so popular.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Palworld is free publicity for Pokemon

And vice versa, it would seem.

 

[graywolf323]

so far Nintendo/Pokémon have gone after the mods that actually use official Pokémon characters but they’ve left Palworld itself alone, I think that’s telling

 

[Saber]

Well, he did go on to say that he was surprised it made it this far. What's the reason? I think it's taken to be "I'm surprised they didn't take it down yet", but he could really just mean he's surprised it got so popular.

I think he probably meant in the context that most people have alot of preconception with other monster catching/training games other than pokemon. No wonder most of them have difficulty to localize because they know they would be lazily called a ripoff. A remember a few people saying that when Digimon Cyber Sleuth was launched plus ported and damn this game was pretty recent and Digimon is already a stabilished franchise.

 

[A.Romero]

From what I've seen of Palworld I can't really draw many parallels but I don't play Pokemon so I might be missing something.

What I wonder is how a game like Palworld could get into trouble in a world where fucking Digimon exists.

 

[BlackTron]

From what I've seen of Palworld I can't really draw many parallels but I don't play Pokemon so I might be missing something.

What I wonder is how a game like Palworld could get into trouble in a world where fucking Digimon exists.

The main parallel is coming up with the designs of all the creatures by tossing existing Pokemon in a blender.

 

[chromatic9]

Made for $6-7m

Ripoff nonsense are games costing 10x-30x that. The thirst is real, people are wanting muthaphucking games on a decent schedule. People will make their own at a fraction of the cost if you don't stop messing with crazy budgets, acting like savants and watching years going by.

 

[crackajack]

Never played a Pokemon game or any ripoff, it certainly looks like they want to be very similar and succeeded for some reason more than seemingly other already existing ripoffs. But all the games adapting the Fortnite design philosophy and color palette, also exists. I certainly have no idea of what is considered an actual ripoff in legal terms, which would need to be proven and was always quite hard to really do.

I am not even sure what the result was in the (imho stupid af) Apple vs Samsung round corners battle. Pretty much all phones and tablets look the same today, so I guess Samsung won. Or actually everyone pays Apple for a trivial inevitable design? But the shape of a display can not really alter that much, unlike all sorts of monsters where too many similarities should hint at being inspired too much. But I guess flowers, animals, whatever can be brought up, can be stated as the real source. With AI on the horizon not regulating it to an insane detail today will open the door for AI's iterative copy-paste process even further. But even if we try to narrow it down, at least AIs can easily add arms, mix colors, morph the shape a gajillion times and then one massive game could claim all shapes colors and forms, and then we kinda never can copyright and protect anything anymore unless all inovation would need to stop or pay the first AI overlord I guess.

 

[SHA]

A retired Pokémon lawyer should play games, he has no excuse.

 

[daclynk]

So Palworld is a better Pokemon game than the original Pokemon huh.

 

[calistan]

So the IP owners of King Kong, Superman and Peter Pan are going to sue Nintendo, too?

Regarding King Kong, Universal Studios tried that 40 years ago, and Nintendo's lawyers fucked them up so badly that it was proved in court that they didn't actually own King Kong at all.

Nintendo thanked their legal rep by buying him a boat called the Donkey Kong.

Not sure what you're getting at with Superman and Peter Pan, though.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

It's actually kind of sick in the head how many people have enough of a hate boner for Palworld to actually ask the option of "Pokemon Company's Former Top Lawyer."

What a bunch of cunts.

 

[Fabieter]

If they indeed ripped assets than altering them further wont be enough. They will pay nintendo big time and that will probably end the studio.

 

[Investor9872]

Nintendo's head attorney is probably advising them to give the game another month to sell millions more copy, and then take every penny from them then.

 

[ozz ex machina]

That it became so popular though should be a warning call to TPC/Nintendo: Make a better Pokemon game.

Completely agree with this part. Surely they must be thinking "Why the fuck didn't we make this". It's been painfully obvious for a long time and something fans have asked for.

I'm not a big pokemon fan but even I always was baffled by their insistence on not trying cool things with the IP.

 

[A.Romero]

The main parallel is coming up with the designs of all the creatures by tossing existing Pokemon in a blender.

I see, in that case Nintendo probably won't let it slide.

It's a shame because from what I've heard Palworld is a really good game. If they just had the precaution of being more original they would be fine.

 

[BlackTron]

I see, in that case Nintendo probably won't let it slide.

It's a shame because from what I've heard Palworld is a really good game. If they just had the precaution of being more original they would be fine.

A company that wasn't even really trying or intending to made a game that got massive attention with remixed "inspired" dollar store designs, a sign that Nintendo could stand to do better with the IP

 

[LRKD]

From a gameplay stance, it is a rip of of ark survival evolved, basically nothing to do with Pokémon.

Some of the monster models feel heavily inspired. However, that is nothing new, Pokémon has 'been inspired' by others in the past, and it's a perfectly normal thing to happen in all media. Being "ripoff nonssense" isn't' illegal, if it was, we wouldn't have a thousand fps that all play, and look the same, or a thousand open world bore fest that all play the same, or a thousand Sony over the shoulder cinematic walkie talkies that all play and look the same.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Well, he did go on to say that he was surprised it made it this far. What's the reason? I think it's taken to be "I'm surprised they didn't take it down yet", but he could really just mean he's surprised it got so popular.

Yeah and look, he may mean it that way, but if he does he's blowing hot air. Name me one game they took down that didn't explicitly use characters from their game. I'll wait.

This guy is a lawyer, he hasn't played Palworld or likely even looked that closely, he just knows what to say to get a quote in the media.

 

[SF Kosmo]

If they indeed ripped assets than altering them further wont be enough. They will pay nintendo big time and that will probably end the studio.

It doesn't seem like they ripped any assets. It does look like they probably used a lot of Pokemon as reference material for various design elements, but none of them are exact.

 

[MirageMew2]

There’s isn’t a single stream or video I’ve seen on this game where they aren’t referring to Pals or Spheres as “Pokémon” or “Poke Balls”

Is that a (legal) issue?

 

[BlackTron]

Yeah and look, he may mean it that way, but if he does he's blowing hot air. Name me one game they took down that didn't explicitly use characters from their game. I'll wait.

He could also be seeming assertive while actually being ninja intentionally ambiguous. Since he used to be their top lawyer this is actually a real variable lol

 

[Fabieter]

It doesn't seem like they ripped any assets. It does look like they probably used a lot of Pokemon as reference material for various design elements, but none of them are exact.

Well that why I said if anything else would be using ai for asset creation. Most AIs are trained on copyrighted data. There "could" be a case but it remains to be seen if nintendo will bother.

 

[gtabro]

It's no secret that for the past 6-7 years if not more the Pokemon games have been an utter embarrassment, they have straight up regressed and finally started coming out buggy as hell on top of being uninspired and bland. It was high time somebody kicked this parody of a series in the balls.

And I'm saying that as someone who played at least one game up to Gen 5 (incl.), I'm just that disappointed.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Well that why I said if anything else would be using ai for asset creation. Most AIs are trained on copyrighted data. There "could" be a case but it remains to be seen if nintendo will bother.

I don't think Palworld actually used any AI assets though, wasn't that just a thing hysterical era posters made up on pure speculation?

 

[crackajack]

It doesn't seem like they ripped any assets. It does look like they probably used a lot of Pokemon as reference material for various design elements, but none of them are exact.

Don't know why but in my youtube recommendations some dude appeared recently doing all sorts of sculpting in a few hours. Pretty detailed and for my eyes pretty close to whatever source he used. Which were often pictures or sometimes 3d models. Did not result in a 100% to scale result but generally nailing the design. A talented sculptor can judging by that probably do several pokemon like figures each day, since those are imho far less detailed than what that dude does just for fun in his streams. It hardly will end with the most creative results, but just changing a little bit, but generally knowing what you want to do is a lot faster than trying to find your design from cratch. The actual tedious work has still to be done but while a judge might not understand it, the real creative work was to find the design, which certainly is the part which can be copied without actually copying anything. Although I think everything Pokemon looks terrifyingly bad, just having it as the underlying blueprint even if not actually used, is helping a tremendous amount and easily shortening your work hours many times over.
No idea where the legal borders here are though and what creative part should really be able to be protected, but it does not feel right when a game looks so similar. Foamstars eg certainly also did heavily borrow from Splatoon, and the figure design looks like any shooter that is not, Grars, Halo, CoD or BF, but generally it looks not like a kinda lazy copy paste job. At least to my eyes.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

nintendo's plan:

step 1. get lawsuit ready, rub hands together
step 2. let them release it, and see if it makes money
step 3. ooo it's making money... now we wait
step 4. made enough money? now we sue for everything

 

[Ribi]

There's many reasons why TPC hasn't gone after any of the others, namely that they don't really have to care, since they're on top no matter how many ripoffs get made.

If you go after Palworld, then you will have to go after a ton of other Poke-likes which could have a chilling effect on the genre.

It's Nintendo... They go after fucking everyone and their mothers

 

[Moneal]

Regarding King Kong, Universal Studios tried that 40 years ago, and Nintendo's lawyers fucked them up so badly that it was proved in court that they didn't actually own King Kong at all.

Nintendo thanked their legal rep by buying him a boat called the Donkey Kong.

Not sure what you're getting at with Superman and Peter Pan, though.

Superman is probably referring to super mario world and after with the whole cape.

 

[SmokedMeat]

This looks like the usual ripoff nonsense that I would see a thousand times a year when I was Chief Legal Officer of Pokemon. I’m just surprised it got this far.

Except it’s selling like hotcakes.

 

[jshackles]

I don't think Palworld actually used any AI assets though, wasn't that just a thing hysterical era posters made up on pure speculation?

Pocket Pair has another game called AI: Art Imposter - it's like a Jackbox games / party drawing game that uses AI art generation as it's central theme.

When Palworld started blowing up, people just assumed these guys must be using AI art in all their games.

 

[hyperbertha]

From a gameplay stance, it is a rip of of ark survival evolved, basically nothing to do with Pokémon.

Some of the monster models feel heavily inspired. However, that is nothing new, Pokémon has 'been inspired' by others in the past, and it's a perfectly normal thing to happen in all media. Being "ripoff nonssense" isn't' illegal, if it was, we wouldn't have a thousand fps that all play, and look the same, or a thousand open world bore fest that all play the same, or a thousand Sony over the shoulder cinematic walkie talkies that all play and look the same.

But that's just the thing. They don't look inspired. They look plagiarized. Digimon = inspired. Big difference.

 

[PixelatedBeast]

the actual copyrighted slogan is "Gotta catch 'em all" which is entirely different to "Go catch 'em all", nothing to see here.

 

[Moneal]

But that's just the thing. They don't look inspired. They look plagiarized. Digimon = inspired. Big difference

No the difference is when something is plagiarized. Looking plagiarized and being plagiarized are very different. If I think a painting has a great sky and I emulate it. It will look and possibly be quite similar. That is not plagiarism. Taking the exact sky and changing a few things is plagiarism. We have people stating as a fact that they are plagiarizing with no actual evidence. We do not have evidence of them taking the models and tweaking them? The most we have are people claiming that the models are similar. If the models were ripped and altered Nintendo will find out and a suit will be forthcoming. If not nothing will happen.

This is what Nintendo does when they know they have a case.


I would assume they are looking into this and have been since the company posted their first trailer.

 

[justiceiro]

Maybe TPC is scared that this business may have actual lawyers to defend it. Not the family corner store they usually like to target.

 

[hyperbertha]

No the difference is when something is plagiarized. Looking plagiarized and being plagiarized are very different. If I think a painting has a great sky and I emulate it. It will look and possibly be quite similar. That is not plagiarism. Taking the exact sky and changing a few things is plagiarism. We have people stating as a fact that they are plagiarizing with no actual evidence. We do not have evidence of them taking the models and tweaking them? The most we have are people claiming that the models are similar. If the models were ripped and altered Nintendo will find out and a suit will be forthcoming. If not nothing will happen.

This is what Nintendo does when they know they have a case.


I would assume they are looking into this and have been since the company posted their first trailer.

If the end result looks the same, doesn't matter what process was used. If they had ripped the models and changed the designs significantly, it wouldn't be plagiarism. Their current models are creatively bankrupt and obviously low effort cashing in on Pokemon popularity, no matter what the process.