Nintendo vs PocketPair: Pokemon vs Palworld

If you've been living under a rock... or, well, simply not chronically online and into gaming like a healthy human being - then you may not have heard about the biggest battle in the gaming industry! That's seemingly how everyone is treating it, and honestly, it's actually - in my humble opinion - is a big deal.

So for context, when PocketPair first showcased Palworld everyone and their mother was calling it "Pokemon with Guns". Because of this, there was buzz around Nintendo stepping in to shut them down fast... but that never happened...

Cue the Early Access release of Palworld on the PC platform, Steam, and it was one of the biggest gaming debute in the history of Steam's records with, I believe, over 2 million players playing congruently at its peak. That's the second or third highest on steam of all time to date!

But still... no peep from Nintendo... strange... at this point a lot of the online rhetoric about Nintendo's silence was simply that: "Nintendo isn't worried! They've been the king of the pocket monster games for decades! Palworld isn't a big deal to them". And that sentiment went on for a long time until we started seeing fantical fans of Pokemon start leveraging alligations that Palworld stole actual model data from Pokemon games and modified them to be the models we see currently - thus stealing actual assets.

Now, this major alligation appeared on... yeah... 4chan... Which, I'll be honest, doesn't automtically means it's dismissable - but it does increase the likliehood of it being a hoax significantly because that place is Troll City (my age is showing). Anyways, yeah, the original poster of said claims later admitted to taking the models from Palworld and scaling them and modifying them to look closer to models of pokemon.

For most - the claims were already suspicious because... Pokemon runs on essentially mobile hardware, while Palworld runs on the Unreal Engine - so the more likely case is that PocketPair simply took inspiration and created models that were similar to that of certain pokemon... in the same way that original pokemon (manga, anime, and games) took heavy inspiration from Akira Toriyama's Dragon's Quest monsters...

Afterwards, something finally happened... Nintendo publicly acknowledged Palworld, claiming that they are aware of the project and would look into seeing if any infringement took place on the Pokemon intellectual property. This was taken well by most, as Nintendo would eventually have to make a statement due to the rise of discussions around the two games. A solid "we'll look into it" as an easy response to make without claiming anything extreme.

But alas - after about a year of waiting and fans of Palworld slowed down as they await the next update, and movement towards a full release, Nintendo finally made their move... and aforementioned fantical fans erupted with glee! Turning from their previous stance on Palworld not being big enough to be a blip on Nintendo's radar, to now finally putting the villain that is PocketPair in their place! How dare they steal the designs of beloved Pokemon! Wait... that's what Nintendo is sueing over, isn't it?

So... the funny thing is... Nintendo is targeting PocketPair over a patent infringment claim. That's right, not copyright over designs or intellectual property, but a patent... like an invention... There's speculations as to which patent it is they're targeting, but it's important to state that at this time Nintendo has not released for certain which patent. Everyone assumes is one that was approved a year after the announcement of Palword, a patent that covers capturing creatures in an open environment with a sphere-like object. But again, at this time, it is not confirmed that that is the specific patent, but I'll be honest, I also think this is the specific one.

I've joked a tad bit about the fanatical fans of Pokemon from the launch of Palworld to it's current iteration - but I'd also like to give some credit and proips to a lot of them here: Even majority of these fans are extremely confused over the idea of trying to sue of a gaming mechanic that Nintendo has patented. It's frankly obsurd, horrid, and straightup extortion.

If you think gamers are a fan of such types of moves, need I bring to mind when Warner Bros Games tried to patent the gaming mechanic, "Nemesis System", that was the core feature of the Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor title? No one was on board with patenting that mechanic and it easily soured the view that many gamers had for the publisher and studio. Granted, I'm not exactly sure who's decision it was to patent said mechanic, but guilty by association is not rare when it comes to decisions like these in businesses... especially bigger ones.

As I mentioned at the start of this article: In my humble opinion - this is a big deal. You may be asking, "why?" - if you didn't already have that question from reading the big header prior... Anyways, it's simple:

Nintendo is a living legend amongst the gaming industry with a lot of clout, weight, power, and influence. Similar to Apple in the tech industry, if Nintendo makes a move, they could easily set off a trend. The idea of such a heavy hitter stifling indie developers, smaller groups, and even fellow large creative forces is not a good one! In the same manner that we cannot see an awesome system like the Nemisis System appear in a game purely because of greed - especially when we've not even gotten a game with that system in years... opting in for a, shall I be nice and simply say, less than steller game like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, over something that utilizes the very mechanic that people loved! It's maddening.

In short: It's possible that this could lead to a lot of studios trademarking very basic systems that could then cause stagnation in the gaming industry. It's rather very simple.

I cannot say all fans do, but a large set - including myself - have been pretty fed up with the slop Nintendo and the Pokemon Company have been rolling out by way of Pokemon. Poorly optimized games, lack of full pokedex, no new feature that adds something new - even Sword/Shield's Dynamax system wasn't fully implemented, I don't care what anyone says, having a gym battle of a rockstar gym leader who doesn't use the very core mechanic of the title, and not even having good music during the battle, feels like the game wasn't finished...

Palworld isn't even really a Pokemon clone, so I don't know what has Nintendo in such a tizzy. At best Palworld is an Ark clone. The Pals do not (currently) evovle, there's no goal to be the very best and win gym badges, there's base building, and you can literally square up and punch pals! This is nothing like Pokemon.

Here's the thing - and I want to make this perfectly clear: If more evidence comes to light that truly puts PocketPair in the wrong, as in actual theft of assets or intellectual property, then absolutely take them to the ringers. However, if this nothing more than Nintendo being upset that people actively showcased interest in a new intellectual property that can potentially one day actually pose a threat to the Pokemon bottomline... then Nintendo, kick rocks guys! You've had plenty of time and plenty of opportunities to really bring something new and fresh but rather maximize profit by rehashing the same assets and remakes yearly.

That being said, there's... an actual decent chance Nintendo could win their legal battle. See, and I'm not trying to make any claim of deep rooted corruption here, but Nintendo has deep connections and a big impact on their home country's culture, history, and financial boon. They also sport a track-record of mostly successful legal cases they've pursued. As such, based purely on that record, PocketPair is definitely an underdog in this situation.

Wrapping up, I'd like to point out that I'm human (no AI generated writings here folks, poor grammar and all comes from these immaculate chocolate finger tips) and as such I have my biases. I grew up with Pokemon via Pokemon Blue for the OG GameBoy (I had a classic gray one). I grew tired of the trends for the pokemon games getting - in my opinion - less attention to details with each iteration after the Nintendo DS era. Once I bought a Switch and I grabbed Pokemon Sword (I'm not gonna pass on a doggo with sword in his mouth) I was disappointed with the overall game... And on top of that, when I saw Palworld, I wasn't impressed, especially seeing as I played PocketPair's Zelda clone, which while fun, was deeply deeply flawed.

However, when Palworld came out, I was honestly captivated by it. I sunk hours into it. The freedom, the options to do what I want, and treat the Pals the way I want, even being able to butcher my own captured pals was - I swear I'm not a psycho - completely hilarious. The game was simply fun.

So yes, I am in my bias rooting for PocketPair in this case, so long as they really have not stolen anything, which again, doesn't appear to be the case as this is a patent infringment case.

We'll see where all of this goes, and keep you updated here on the site.