I’m sorry but uh, for what? The concept of collectible battle monsters?
Nintendo about to start suing plumbing companies for stealing the concept of Mario
To be fair I saw one "Pal" that just straight up used Zoruas model.
Nintendo never cared about stuff like Digimon or Cassette Beasts, so I'm guessing the problem is actual models made by Nintendo were used. Buuuuut this is Nintendo and they sent people cease and desists over Pokemon fan games FFS, so who the hell knows.
I mean, Palwords developers are skeezy, but on the other hand so is Nintendo, also fuck copyright.
Since it's a patent lawsuit they're going after game mechanics rather than character designs, but we don't know which mechanics yet
Digimon
i get that they're commonly seen as rivals outside of japan (because saban localised the anime w/ the very intention of challenging pokemon, instead of leveraging the obvious differences), but like, if nintendo had gone after digimon, they'd be going after literally anything featuring monsters. the original 1997 iteration of digital monster was "tamagotchi for boys," which is where battling & evolution comes in
obv the similar names might seem awfully sus, but as i understand, the abbreviating of names like that is fairly common in japan. like, if we knew the franchises as pocket monster & digital monster, there would still be a similarity there, but it would seem less egregious ig.
thank u for suffering my autism
We should make this a Digimon fan site. Sick of the PokePosuers on here.
They would have had a hell of a time bringing down these juggernauts
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Honestly Nintendo has had some big wins lately getting people to fold rather than fight in court even when the fight should be winnable. Maybe they're just hoping that happens here too. Get these guys all tied up in court even if Nintendo knows they won't win just to keep the Palworld devs occupied with the court fight rather than making their game
They didn't specify which patents were being infringed upon. It'll be interesting to see how this goes. It's in Japan so I assume Nintendo's got this in the bag
According to a Mastodon post, the speculation is it’s over “patents such as one for throwing and using Poké Balls in a 3D space (JP,2023-092953,A); and one for automatically switching between ride Pokémon as a player transitions between different terrain, such as between air and the ground (JP,2023-092954,A)."
IANAL, certainly not in Japanese patent law, but the first one sounds stronger to me, but still not bulletproof.
God patents for game mechanics are so fucking stupid and should be thrown out entirely
the idea of patents were sold to us with this romantic tale of the lone inventor being able to live off his genius.
none of that is real. patents are absurd and should be abolished, just like copyright (sold to us with a similar fairytale).
The fundamental flaw with patents is being transferrable and the property model of them. Within the context of the current political economy, it would make more sense if someone used another’s patent commercially, the patent holder just gets a tax credit equal to some small percentage of the sales. And sweet Jesus the entire concept of being able to buy and sell patent rights is fucked up.🔝
AFAIK game mechanics in the US can't be patented, especially board games. It's one of the few things American copyright law isn't fucking stupid about.
Which would work out in Pocketpair’s favor; establishing that it was an existing, common mechanic before the patent was filed will typically get it nullified.
Yeah World of Warcraft’s been doing that since 2004?
That does not sound like a real patent. Or at least something that should not be a real patent
I have pretty ambivalent feelings now, on one side my most hated videogame corpo ever, on the other chuds that openly advertise their game as slavery and exploitation simulator.
Agreed honestly. I just think this is a really fuckin stupid move on TPC's part because this TOTALLY is going to have a Streisand backlash regardless of the outcome of the suit. Which means we have to hear even more chud bullshit about it.
Eh, I kinda doubt it. Pokemon fans are like Harry Potter fans or Blizzard fans: they'll keep buying that slop no matter what, and then get pissed when you tell them about how shitty the people behind their slop are.
Oh I'm not thinking about pokemon fans, I'm thinking about the chuds inevitably recharged by TPC trying to pull this shit with their bazinga-bro slave game.
Is it just the advertising that you disagree with? Kinda seems like pokemon is also a slavery and exploitation simulator but all the slaves have happy faces instead of sad ones
Seeing the rock on the street and trying to capture him in a ball
Yes, i also don't like Pokemon very much, but Pokemon isn't openly being advertised to chuds as slavery simulator. I don't have opinion on a game, as you can notice reading the previous posts, but whomever wrote the advert needs long rest in gulag.
This is a theme that's been explored several times in Pokemon anime and video games already and even more so in the manga very explicitly.
This game obviously takes it to the extreme, but is not fundamentally different to Pokemon.
I think people are just nostalgia pilled
It's insane to me how often I see takes like this, where it's clear that not only did they not play the game, they didn't even watch a second of gameplay.
If the game didn't HEAVILY penalize you for actually trying to exploit your pals, I'd agree, but mechanically a sweatshop will actually produce nothing at all in a short period of time. Bad working conditions lead to pals stopping work altogether until you let them rest, feed them, etc. to the point it's obvious their marketing and actual game design aren't in lockstep. You're REQUIRED to treat pals well to make substantial progress.
If you advertise your game as a slaveowner simulator, people are going to conclude it's a slaveowner simulator. That's how marketing works.
The development team and the marketing team are not the same people. Extremely naïve to come to a complete conclusion with 0 exposure to gameplay. I don't respect the opinion because it isn't informed.
why would I play a game that was marketed in a way that makes me not like it at all? I don't need to be "informed" by being exposed to gameplay. it's not naive to reject something based on how it was sold to me lmao. it's not my fault that the marketing people are casting the game in such a bad light
I don't respect you being
It's not an "ill-informed" take you obtuse nerd! A good part of the advertising & marketing of the game, the material that is proliferated and shown to potential buyers, emphasizes casual cruelty and slavery.
It's not ill-informed to not want to play because of that! It's still an option in the game, no? You can work your cute little anime animals to death, you can butcher and eat them. The shock value was capitalized on by scumlord streamers for views much the same way as it was by the marketing - one has to wonder why these systems were included if not explicitly for the shock marketing value.
I don't respect the opinion because it isn't informed.
That's fine, I don't respect yours because you're a tool
Devs themselves advertise their game like that. Reviews are full of chuds too. It's not even changed after all those months leading me to conclusion it's intended.
I was interested in the concept at first but it's the exact shit you mention that killed any enthusiasm I had.
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"It's not optimal to be cruel" and "you can fight the poachers" c'mon now, they clearly know what they're implying and to assert otherwise is dishonest.
Maybe I'm "too sensitive" but them leaning into the vibe of cruelty and exploitation of deliberately cute, innocent sentient beings just made the whole thing feel gross to me. Personally I'd rather it not be an option at all but I'm clearly not the target demo, a not insignificant portion of which is irony poisoned chuds
Check the trailers. I was put off at first but tried it after checking the trailer and read the reviews which most of them state that the exploit/slavery is not the focus. There is free
demo btw.I am aware it's not the focus - I just find it gross that 1) it's an option in the first place and 2) that it was marketed on this and emphasized by certain streamers and LPers. I don't have interest in the game, I know what it contains and I don't want to play it even though slavery "isn't the focus". Just very much not my thing
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Nerd got banned and took it to dms lmao. If you're reading this, you can eat my ass, punk
He also send message to me about good devs and evil marketing. Real g*mer moment. And the second dude is being ever funnier blaming it on... language barrier because it's 1830 and obviously Japanese devs don't know English.
The game had a 6 Million+ USD equivalent budget, they hired marketing. Banning people randomly looks stupid.
With the context of discussion, it's clearly just devs good and innocent, marketing bad. As if that main game page on the biggest game store in history wasn't unchanged for months despite controversies. So the devs either are: a) hostages of their hired marketing people b) completely disinterested how their work is being advertised c) perfectly ok with it
I was just stating the norms of Japanese devs being bad at English. Not blaming it as the marketing direction is totally on the devs. One could argue the controversial marking worked and the game got more popular because of it.
For me, as far as marketing goes, trailers > reviews > steam description.
The most important part is try it. I tried Paradox games a couple of time, a couple tries later and I could see why people are into it.
If you report this that nerd will likely get sitebanned for dm haressment
Ah yes, the storefront page. Definitely direct dev communication and not marketing.
Game is selfpublished and they are not a huge disconnected bureocratic corpo, stop grasping at straws to defend this.
Slavery playstyle is more of a meme. You're more pushed into the playstyle of improving the Pals's condition, upgrade path from better bed, better hotspring, better food, ... so they can work and rest better. It's a sandbox survival game, you can choose how to play it.
You can improve the pal's life ingame, but you as the pal in real life is
I didn't played it, my opinion is based on a description/advertisement put by devs on the game steam page, and its one of the worst things i ever read there, at best it can be described as "ironic chuddery" which is usually just a flimsy cover for real chuddery, and even gathering all the benefit of a doubt existing in galaxy for the devs, such description is sure bound to gather real chuds to the game. And it did, considering the reviews.
I watched the trailers first and the vibe from the trailers are very adventuring with your pals. Reading the description without context can give bad impressions if you assume the worst. It has solo mode and dedicated servers (rare feature in gaming now) so chuds or not, you won't see them anyway.
The trailers in release order:
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Link 3:
Seems like it’s supposed to be ironic. Basically holding a mirror up to Pokemon. I dont know why people stress out about it lol
Joke lawsuit. The only valid response is a
to any lawyer or judge who decides to waste time arbitrating whether or not a soulless husk can own a concept."We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram." is the correct response from palworld here
lol nice.
Fuck Nintendo, but this is funny to me because it’s just another cash grab early access game by a pop up game studio. they are about to spend all their profits on litigation and then abandon the game just like the rest of their projects.
100% agree. The game looked like dog ass from the get-go. My disdain for it only grew as all the rubes who spent $30 bucks on it tried to defend it and tell me it’s good. I knew it wasn’t and I know the hype would fade within a week.
There was a meme where people would kidnap the police and force them to work in the mines. That was pretty good though
I think that's probably Nintendo's main goal with this lawsuit tbh. They know that they don't actually have a leg to stand on with game mechanics (unless they want to argue that cute cartoon creatures or throwing things are proprietary game mechanics) But a smaller studio spending millions to defend themselves in a massive lawsuit that will probably drag on for years? It means they can't spend all their money developing other games and will probably end up bankrupt (and no longer a threat to Nintendo).
When Palworld came out, I was surprised that the ever-litigious Nintendo didn't take some sort of legal action. So to all the people on here who thought that was a bad take and called me out, all I have to say now is: you're lovely and I appreciate you
Having played palworld it is a significantly diffrent product. I don't see specifics in thr article but it is unclear to me what the actual claim could be
It was one more Steam early access survival crafting game, though it made quite a big splash due to the novelty of having pokey men in it
If Pocketpair were American, I honestly think they might have a chance. But from what I've heard, Tokyo District Courts aren't likely to rule against Nintendo.
