this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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8
The Pokemon Company releases a statement regarding Palworld: Inquiries Regarding Other Companies’ Games (corporate.pokemon.co.jp)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Here’s a archive link, https://archive.ph/oT1L6

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

What this is really saying is "you people are insane, please stop writing us about it, we're aware, and fine, we're "looking into it" even though we were aware of this for a few years now and already checked with legal that there's nothing we can do unless the creators really messed up in some way."

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokémon and its world

"Anyway, here's another broken, lackluster game and the new Pokemon are a pile of garbage and a ring of keys."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

IMO there isn't anything.

If there was, then over the three years of development of Palworld, Nintendo would have lawyered up at some point. It's a Japanese company, so it'd be a local lawsuit even. We already know Nintendo isn't afraid of lawyering up, the Palworld Pokemon mod existed for like... 8 hours before getting DMCA'd the other day.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

The statement says exactly that in my interpretation. "We have received a lot of emails telling us to look into this game. We know how to protect our brand. If there was any reason for us to intervene we would already have done it. Stop sending us reports."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I believe Pokémon and Pokemon-like games should coexist. They will naturally compete on one another, and each game will serve a separate audience.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Palworld isn't even that Pokemon-like, aside from some of the Pal's models, and type strengths/weaknesses. But that's basically where the similarities end. Palworld is an open world survival/crafting/base building game. Even the whole collecting monsters thing feeds directly into the base building aspect.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Maybe it's the Communist in me, but I don't get why some people are so eager for Nintendo to file a lawsuit. Nevermind whether it actually infringes anything, it isn't eating away at Pokemon's sales or anything. It plays very different, a little closer to Arceus than any traditional Pokemon game. I see it as a win. Maybe it will encourage Nintendo to take Pokemon in a more open world direction with more features.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Is nobody aware of Cassette Beasts? This isn't the first Pokémon clone that has been made. As long as you don't use Nintendo's IP, they can't go after you.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Cassete beasts is awesome.

Abd let's nit forget corromon, lunar island, yokai watch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

And Temtem... Anyone remember Temtem?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The idea of a Pokémon clone isn't protectable, but existing Pokémon are.

You can make a Pokémon clone with entirely novel monsters, but if a judge thinks they look too much like an existing Pokémon they're gonna have a problem.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's really the issue. The creatures in the game, as I've seen pointed out in various places, are much closer in design to actual pokemon designs than in other poke-clone games, with some looking so close they might as well just be a regional form. I don't even know any of the pals' names but I can somewhat clearly recall seeing one that's basically "Luxray at home". I know the maker of the game has said he doesn't really value originality, but there's a difference between being unoriginal and straight-up plagiarism.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They're similar because they're based on the same real-world animals. And they're no more similar to Pokemon than the examples of Pokemon ripping off designs from Dragon Quest

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago

It's very much not just "same animals" but parts of Pals looking like they were traced or at least copied visually from existing Pokemon, as well many Pals directly copying color schemes from similar Pokemon.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

This is not about the concept of pokemon but using actual assets from pokemon games. Edit: not sure why I am getting downvoted for saying the top comment had nothing to do with the statement.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Which hasn’t happened. There is no case to be made.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I dunno, man. Have you seen the videos? They've got the wireframes of pals overlaid with pokemon, and the size is exactly the same. Sure, the basic shape is slightly different and some accessories have been changed, but it's very close. The one that looks like Luxray has the same exact diameter of tail in the same exact spot - the only difference is that it's a bit shorter with a different tuft at the end. Really seems that for some of these pals they just modified existing assets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

The guy who made those has admitted to scaling/editing models.

I assure you they are not the same.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Are you sure about that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The only person who claimed the models were the same has admitted to scaling models for his comparisons.

The meshes are completely different. The actual designs are distinct enough.

So yes Im sure. Feel free to check back in a year or two when Nintendo have gone quiet and done nothing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Comparing both games I think a few creatures like Cremis are on shaky ground, but even that might turn out to be fine.

What definitely won't go anywhere is people making mad collages to explain how a pal combines features of such plus such pokémon. They don't seem to realize that Pokémon doesn't own every possible combination of features from those creatures,

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If the average person can't tell the difference between a Pal and Pokemon enough of a case could be made to require changes to the assets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Average person - my mom - can not even tell the difference between the official 500+ Pokémon.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Digimon? Digital monsters? Digimon are the chunkins?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Monster Rancher. Great little gem on the PS1

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX is also on Steam, Switch, and iOS!
It is a remastered per say. Not so much a new graphics engine or anything, but with bug fixes, item changes that function better, and GUI & other QoL improvements :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Too bad I don't have my CD collection anymore....

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

for the remaster, the CD reading system is replaced with a built in searchable Song List. This is how you can play it on Mobile, Switch, Steam etc. The Song List doesn't exactly equate to original CDs (the function is mechanically different) but there are a handful of entries that equate to their originals (this accounts for about 0.01% of entries within the 664,909 that create their original monsters.

The good news is, Everyone now has access to the entire game and can raise any monster they want to (once they're unlocked, of course), and the Song List is 100% solved and published. You can Random Button if you like the surprise, but if you want something specific, you can just view the published Song List, Pick your Monster Main/Sub, then pick the Title/Artist suggestion for the variant you want. :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Sweet! Good to know, I may pick that up then.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

Get fucked Nintendo. Get gapped actually.

25 fucking years to have done anything with your fucking series. 25 years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

"We know, stop writing us."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Nintendo fans are so weirdly protective of nintendo. Like... there have been death threats from pokemon fans over palworld and it just baffles me that someone would waste their life defending the honor of a multibillion dollar gaming company like that. Nintendo fans I say this with the utmost respect: Go the fuck outside.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm not a Nintendo fan, but:

  1. Palworld fans are toxic as fuck. Not nearly as bad as sending death threats, instead more like in a way they can't express their love for the game by also not shitting on something else, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
  2. Most of the criticisms are also in really bad faith, with often the "multibillion dollar company" being used to deflect how bad faith those criticisms are.
[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

How is it bad faith to point out the comparative scale of the companies involved? I don't think imitating Disney and imitating small independent artists ought to be treated the same way. One might argue this is "principles" but to me that's lacking perspective.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Agree. I know it's way too similar in several aspects (saw a Vtuber ask repeatedly "what game am I playing?"), but if an Early access is doing better than your megamillions company, start asking yourselves some questions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I legitimately know someone who speaks about Nintendo religiously. Like, he says "Miyamoto almighty" and I reeeeaaaaally wanna believe he's doing it ironically, but I don't know if even he recognizes it as ironic now. He is defensive of every of nintendo's actions, all of them, justifying everything they've done while condemning other companies for doing the same. It looks like nationalism applied to a specific corporation

Like, I'm a big nintendo fan, but I cannot fathom the zealotry that I have personally witnessed coming from this person

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Had a friend unironically trying to convince me that Palworld is evil because it brainwashes people into liking human enslavement and shooting at civilians.

His favourite game is Pokémon, a game where you bond with your fire lizard by pitting it against other animals in a government-sanctioned tournament.

Of course he's also one of those people who spends hours lamenting the state of current Pokémon games, while also buying both versions of each game at day 1.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

it brainwashes people into liking human enslavement and shooting at civilians.

Neither of those things are actually encouraged by the game. Attacking civilians causes guards to come after you, and nothing in the UI indicates you can capture humans (you don't get a catch % when holding a ball and targeting them like you do with monsters). It's only when you do throw a ball at them that you find out it is possible, but the catch rate sucks and they're not worth using.

Meanwhile it's made abundantly clear that Pokemon are sentient, so the brainwashing and dogfighting rings aren't any more ethical if you want to argue that way.

Alternately, it's a game. I'm against war but I play plenty of war games.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Palworld is evil because it brainwashes people into liking human enslavement and shooting at civilians.

Those are the headlining features that make the game unique.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I really like palworld and never cared about pokemon at all. After playing palworld for some times, i looked up what pokemon is even up to, after over 20 years of experience. And apparently they released the absolutely most laughable pokemon game on the swith last year.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've also been playing palworld and have never played or been interested in any Pokémon games. For me, the "catching pals" aspect detracts from the survival crafting aspects. Base automation is also in a weird place where stuff is mostly automated, but you can't really automate everything like you can in a game like Factorio.

Despite all this I've put about ten hours into the game and loved every minute of it. I'm just a little off the mark of the game's target audience, which makes the early access lack of polish a little harder to put up with. I would still absolutely recommend the game, though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I think that version 1.0 will have pals taking things out of furnaces and such and putting them in chests. With endgame you will just order stuff up on a terminal and you will see the pals scramble around to get everything together and alert you to lacking resources that you will have to sort out.

With the current version 0.1x, it feels like 75% of the game is missing. I think they have released what they released because they didn't have the rest of the game planned out. They are saying "This is what we have, what do you think we should do with it?" The community will speak up and actually add meat to the bones of the game with their suggestions/comments/wishes/etc.

I think back to Minecraft alpha and how much the community and modders influenced the end product and can't help but see a similar thing developing with Palworld.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Pokemon is famous for being the first game to employ child psychologists in its development Team, to analyse what young boys like the most, and to feed that to them.

Your friend, is playing, due to corporate manipulation, when they were young, which triggered all the things in them, they wanted to trigger.

Dark, but true. I'll try and find a source on this later, when I have some time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Ah, yes, when a man takes inspiration from insect-collecting in his childhood, he becomes the world's first child psychologist in directing and developing video games

/s

Edit to clarify: you kept making downvoted assumptions in this thread about an existing source on Pokemon creators having targeted the young boys audience. It's only natural to think you could be misremembering all the articles that came out about Satoshi Tajiri's inspiration for the OG games coming from bug collecting as a young boy.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

You linked to the director, not the psychologists they onboarded for the project.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

If only they put the same effort into the most recent Pokemon games that they do into making sure nobody else makes a better version.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

They have nothing to stand on outside of the art if that is true, Else they would have shut down things that are very much closer in scope to pokemon (i.e. digimon, which they tried, and it was dropped, they cant own a art style or game play cycle.), this one doesnt even ape the idea wholesale there is no evolution but the breeding mixes types. And Arc and Zelda would have a few words but again, you cant own a gameplay loop, I mean ask PUBG how that went for them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I don't see Nintendo/Game Freak doing something about Palword. Due to Palworld's first trailer release two years ago. So if Nintendo/Game Freak was going to do something about Palworld. They had two years to do it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

In another hand, now that Palworld is successful, they sit on quite a lot of cash. And success make some unscrupulous people quite envious, and prone to sue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Inquiries Regarding Other Companies’ Games

We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024. We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon. We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future.

The Pokémon Company