Palworld! Where Ark meets pokemon.

Nintendo has been notoriously vigilant with their IP protection, If they were gonna go after pocket pair, they would have by now. Technically Nintendo doesn't own Pokemon, just a sizable chunk of the company that does. I'm not sure that the Pokemon company is quite as litigious.

Gamefreaks has nintendos stable of lawyers available, yeah. But they've been making videos using game footage for literally years now. They were releasing "paldeck" videos showcasing the pals literally weekly for almost two years.

The steam forums are replete with people who are just trolling over the possibility of litigation. If it hasn't happened yet, it probably won't.

I think Nintendo knows where to draw the line. No matter how air-tight of a case this may technically be, taking action against this game in particular is going to be an incredibly bad look. Everyone's going to say that they're trying to shut down the first game to actually be successful in the "Pokémon-like" space purely for being a successful Pokémon-like at a time when the reputation of the actual Pokémon games are at an all-time low, and that the case they're making is just the excuse. Because this is the internet; we believe we're better qualified to say what someone's motivation is than they are, especially if it's someone who's popular to hate.

pocketpair's whole thing is plagiarizing other successful game with unreal asset flips, throwing shit at the wall and seeing what shit is sticky enough to, uh, stick. unfortunately what actually stuck is the one where they flat-out stole from a franchise that's in a rough spot right now thanks to the devs being completely fucked over by the corporation who basically stole their creation from them, and has a fandom more irredeemably vile and entitled than the ******* star wars fandom. TPC could and probably should sue, but the "fans" would probably commit arson on game freak's office or bomb a pokemon center or something else horrible because youtube grifters have convinced half of the fandom that the devs are lazy/greedy and should literally be executed, and to ignore TPC's role in the franchises' struggles completely despite TPC literally admitting last year they're the reason the release schedule is so fucked.

Ungnome said:

Technically Nintendo doesn't own Pokemon, just a sizable chunk of the company that does.

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this is also why the actual devs at game freak/creatures are so royally fucked over. no matter how much nintendo wants to help them, no matter how much they want help and additional money from nintendo to be able to pay their employees, TPC can just say "no, **** you, get back to work or we'll cut even more of your funding" and nintendo, game freak and creatures can't do a goddamn thing to stop them.

the pokemon company was a ******* mistake, and given that nintendo can now successfully market multimedia franchises by themselves is quite honestly no longer necessary - it was created to manage merchandising rights, but kaz ishihara basically just backstabbed the devs and took the rights to pokemon from them behind their backs. the best thing that could happen to pokemon is either TPC getting downsized to only serve its original purpose of managing licensing for merch, or TPC being dismantled and Pokemon (and its devs at game freak/creatures) being treated by Nintendo the way Nintendo treats its other marquee franchises.

anyway, if you want to play an actual pokeclone that's A) actually good and B) isn't made by a company that's shady as ****, go play cassette beasts, nexomon, coromon or temtem. or you could just go out and play legends arceus, which is really ******* good despite the fandom gaslighting itself into thinking legends arceus and the 3DS games were never good because some gamergate-adjacent clickbait grifters on youtube told them so.

****, even sonic fans weren't as awful as pokemon fans when sonic went downhill.

Nah.


The meshes are completely different. The proportions look remarkably similar at a glance but the faces and verts don't match at all. We can't rule out a trace job (and I don't doubt it) but the Pals are not stolen models.

Yup, there's been... quite a bit of noise of all kinds

1.) it's all stolen from pokemon
2.) it's an asset flip
3.) it's animal cruelty
4.) there's no disabled or LGBTQ2S+ representation
5.) They used generative AI to make the game

If there was a genuine case against them (especially via nintendo.) it would have been pressed by now. But nintendo does not solely own the concept of catching monsters. video game NPC's currently do not have the right to life, and UE store assets are literally there to be used. Sure pocketpair's CEO talked up a lot of the use of AI (and crypto.) but all the evidence seems to support that NOT being the case in the games development, the designs were finished a while before the generative AI technology got to where it is.

Guys: it's literally just a game, and it's fun. There's a lot of noise because there's apparently a lot of butthurt people that someone other than gamefreaks got the formula right.

putting aside the various controversies, palworld and pokemon aren't even in the same genre, so saying pocketpair got the formula right is pretty asinine when it's not even the same formula. if you like palworld, that's fine, more power to ya, but it's kinda hilarious seeing people say it's what pokemon "should" be when the gameplay couldn't be any more different beyond the critter catching. it's like saying zelda should be like barbie horse adventures, because they both have horse riding as central mechanics.

if nothing else, pocketpair can definitely fall back on "our game is an entirely different genre from pokemon" to avoid getting sued, and that'd probably hold up in court.

And really, it's probably a good thing in general that they're not just trying to make a Pokémon game in all but name, because one of the things people have complained the hardest about with the actual Pokémon games is how formulaic they are. I have no idea what people actually want out of a Pokémon or Pokémon-inspired game if not to just play the same one game they've been playing since 1996, but that's why I'm not developing one. If this game managed to blow up, it's clearly doing something right, no matter how much the CEO has been doing (morally) wrong.

honestly i feel like pokemon fans would find reasons to bitch even if game freak was given enough time and money by TPC to add all the pokemon back and create an open world game with graphics on par with TOTK, with over 150 new pokemon, new and old mega evolutions, full voice acting, and the ability to visit every past region in the series. the fandom's been so conditioned by youtube grifters at this point to have a kneejerk hatred of everything made after 2012 even if it's actually good (like legends arceus or the 3DS games, or hell, even LGPE). it's so ******* pathetic, like gamergate but dumber.

it's also kinda pathetic that the pals that aren't just ripoffs of existing pokemon are, in all honesty, genuinely good critter designs. pocketpair could have easily filled the game with cool, original designs like kattress, menasting or cawgnito, but they didn't.

Pocket said:

And really, it's probably a good thing in general that they're not just trying to make a Pokémon game in all but name, because one of the things people have complained the hardest about with the actual Pokémon games is how formulaic they are. I have no idea what people actually want out of a Pokémon or Pokémon-inspired game if not to just play the same one game they've been playing since 1996, but that's why I'm not developing one. If this game managed to blow up, it's clearly doing something right, no matter how much the CEO has been doing (morally) wrong.

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People apparently wanted pokemon... with guns. Cause, 2 million concurrent users on palworld on steam.

I don't know why we seemed to be conditioned to find something wrong with things, but seriously guys: it's just a game. If you don't want to play it, don't pay attention to it.

TPC made a vague statement that they're looking into palworld for possible infringement. I'm half-expecting TPC and/or game freak's offices and/or a pokemon center and/or pockerpair's offices will get threatened with bombs/arson/a mass shooting by some sociopathic idiot "fans" for this.

this is gonna suck.

Or literally nothing will happen.

it only takes one asshole to pull another kyoani fire.

My understanding is that some Pocketpair employees have already had death threats because idiots on the internet take these things WAY too seriously.

Oof. Yeah, overzelous "fans" get too worked up over the dumbest things. I don't like what the company is doing, but I'm not gonna advocate violence on real people even as a joke.

Why can't people just have fun?

CoffeeHorse said:

Why can't people just have fun?

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The exact same reason why we can't enjoy food, or music, or movies and tv-shows. We're doing it wrong.

See; the people for whom actual death threats are viable means of expressing themselves think that opinions are absolute and not relative. We're not allowed to enjoy different things and have different tastes, because they don't like them so, of course, no one should like it.

Spin-Out said:

honestly i feel like pokemon fans would find reasons to bitch even if game freak was given enough time and money by TPC to add all the pokemon back and create an open world game with graphics on par with TOTK, with over 150 new pokemon, new and old mega evolutions, full voice acting, and the ability to visit every past region in the series.

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Probably because it would all just be an expensive coat of paint on the same game they've been playing since the mid-'90s and have gotten thoroughly tired of, even if they can't bring themselves to admit it. Something I realized recently is that the only reason "retro revival" games do so well is because they are revivals. We wouldn't be so into boomer shooters if the industry had been pumping out an endless stream of them ever since 1993. We'd get tired of Metroid instead of eagerly looking forward to the next one if it were an annual franchise like Call of Duty.

If I could defend it on any grounds, I'd suggest that it's not actually meant to be played by the same people installment after installment, but instead meant to be bought for your kids to play and then grow out of, then get the next one for the next kid who's two years younger when they're the ideal age for it. Like a cartoon that stays in reruns forever because there's a new batch of eight-year-olds every year.

Doesn't stop people from (re)playing Skyrim or Morrowind, though both have mods, and I don't see any way Pokemon could allow mods without basically siloing said game so it can't trade with any other game or killing the trading portion off entirely - and frankly the trading portion is I think just as core to the game as the "10yo runs around and beats up mafia with monsters" plotline. I do think though if they really wanted to push the limits, a moddable pokemon game that's essentially "design your own pokemon" via mods would sell like hotcakes.

But on the other hand, Palworld's got nothing to do with that. With the model thing debunked, none of the rest seems that credible or really matters... it's not like it's a Harry Potter game or anything. If people want to dunk on it and dislike it for legit reasons, cool. If people want to have fun playing it, cool. If the creator goes and turns it into one of those NFT games, well, look at FERAL and what happened there. It'll take care of itself. All I can say for myself is the only "survival" game that clicked with me is No Man's Sky, and that's not because of the survival aspects. I don't get the genre, but y'all do you.

Definitely not a genre for everyone. I'm a bit of a sucker for open world survival style games as long as the mechanics aren't too punishing. Palworld hits near the sweet spot for me. Will help bide the time until Light no Fire comes out.