They plagiarized a bunch of Pokemon and used the publicity generated to bring attention to their game.
Actually they’re suing because of these alleged infringement of these weirdly general patents:
Nintendo alleges that they plagiarized their assets.
The thing is, there was a solid argument to be made that some of the meshes for certain Pals were too similar to that of some Pokémon models to be a coincidence, but Nintendo didn’t bring any of that up in the lawsuit. They opted to go for the much more flimsy “riding a character” and “summoning a character by throwing a ball/sphere”.
And, somehow, fucking won. They forced Palworld to remove the ball throwing mechanic.
It’s fucking stupid.
I thought GameFreak owned Pokemon.
They own a third of it, along with Nintendo and Creatures
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
If memory serves, the plagiarism allegations were doctored. Nintendo tried to find whatever they could sue them for, and it wasn’t plagiarizing monster designs; it was for things like “riding a captured creature” and “catching creatures by throwing a ball at them”. Some aspect of Japanese law allowed for them to make new patents after Palworld came out and then sue them for it retroactively.
Aielman15@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I’m not talking about what went into court. Most pals are “legally distinct” monsters, but that’s what brought the game to public awareness, what started the comparisons with Pokémon, and why Nintendo hated their guts. Monster collectors have existed outside of Pokémon for decades and still do, Nintendo only sued Palworld because they copy-pasted their monsters with a different color palette.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
What brought the game to court compared to the other monster collectors is that this one made a shit-ton of money, and the other ones didn’t, so Nintendo and The Pokemon Company were, for the first time, threatened.
Aielman15@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
They wouldn’t feel threatened by Palworld if it wasn’t for the legally distinct™ designs because, at its core, Palworld is a completely different game that only vaguely resembles Pokémon on a very superficial level (the monster themselves).
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 1 hour ago
If it’s legally not considered copy-pasting their monsters, why do you feel like you can assert that it is plagiarism? I suppose that’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it, but I also think people have a right to call you out on it for saying it as if it’s a fact when it is not actually a recognized fact. Plenty of people would dispute that, including myself, and certainly Pocketpair would, and evidence suggests the courts probably would’ve agreed with them hence it wasn’t even worth pursuing legally.
Aielman15@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
You can dispute that Palworld didn’t copy-paste Pokémon body parts and palette swap their designs to create their legally distinct clones, but I’d call that bullshit. People only side with PocketPair because they plagiarized Nintendo, which people (rightfully) hates. If it was done to anyone else, nobody would defend them. I can hate Nintendo and still posit that what PocketPair did was shitty and an insult to all the devs who actually take pride in their work and put effort in creating something original.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 1 hour ago
If you dont like that you should see the titan bars I got from Aldi.