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-58 points
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Normally I’d say fuck Nintendo but palworld obviously stole the designs and artistic direction for many of their characters.

Most of the pals I saw at first were modified versions of an already existant pokemon with little to seperate it from fan art of that pokemon. This is particularly agregoous as they clashed against the rest of this games aesthetic. Nothing that was original fit with the design of the pokemon rip offs.

Many other games have a pokemon esque aesthetic without direct copying. It looking similar is not my issue. My issue is that while playing I could easily name most pals to a pokemon. Seriously, look up comparisons. It’s blatant.

They’ve moved away from thisbrecently but fuck man if it ain’t obvious. If they did the same to some small project I’d assume people would be much more up in arms, rightfully so.

Still though, I won’t cry if Nintendo loses. I hope they pay an insane amount in lawyers fees either way and never see a dime out of the case

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42 points

sharing aesthetic shouldn’t be enough to prosecute, especially in the case of patents.

My biggest defense against any claim like that is that they’re identifiably distinct. You put two of them side by side and not a single fan of either will be confused which is which.

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4 points

any fan could tell the difference, but i can see parents being confused, and they’re the ones footing the bill for the vast majority of pokemon fans. pair that with the guns and back in the day if my parents caught wind of it, Pokémon would be banned in my household no matter how hard i tried to explain Palworld was different

for the record i am very anti-copyright and think Pokémon should be in the public domain by now, and generally hate Nintendo’s over-ligitous practices. i also don’t understand the patent angle of this action. but i ln this one specific case i can see where they’re coming from, as opposed to if they were going after good-faith tributes like Coromon or Cassette Beasts or a ROM hack

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5 points

This is very fair, but then again, my parents would get confused over the difference between an Xbox and a PlayStation, so take that for what you will.

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9 points

Except they didn’t steal designs and I’m pretty sure art direction can’t be protected. Even if it could, it would be morally questionable at best. The whole lawsuit also isn’t about that but about some really fringe patents on Nintendo’s part. Patents that Nintendo certainly didn’t come up with, shouldn’t have and last but not least threaten smaller studios in the game industry. Since Pocketpal teamed up with Sony, I don’t consider them indie anymore but it’s true that they have to win this lawsuit for indie devs regardless. If Nintendo gets away with this you can say farewell to smaller game studios in Japan.

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9 points

The fact that Nintendo are going for a patent claim rather than a copyright claim makes me think that they don’t think a copyright claim would be successful.

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-11 points

For real, its fun to see people shitting on Nintendo on this one, i dislike them as the most, but its absurd here. Pocket Pair just releases copies of other games, they also released a Hollow Knight copy just before Palworld, and on Palworld they almost copied the design 1 to 1 in some creatures. There is a reason you dont see Nintendo suing the other million pokemon clones, which is because they dont went of and almost even used the same geometry for some models. They straight up copied Pokemon like Lucario, Luxray, Cinderace, Cobalion and a bunch of others to the point where people showed their triangles and it was pretty certain they used ripped assets as the base for them.

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10 points
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Copied characters is not what the lawsuit is about. It’s like nobody ‘defending’ the lawsuit has read anything about it.

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-1 points
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you say that like you know what the lawsuit is about, which as far as I’ve read isn’t yet known. copied characters seems most likely since people were talking about it as an issue since the game’s launch

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-2 points

Im not defending the lawsuit, im talking about what most people is talking about here without knowing shit about the case, the companies or the games. PocketPair whole schtick has been copying other games, from visual aesthethics to mechanics, you can look at their steam. Also, btw. that article doesnt even talk about what Nintendo is suing for or not, https://www.eurogamer.net/nintendo-sues-palworld-developer-for-infringement-of-multiple-patents that article is on the response of PocketPair to this link, and all nintendo has said pretty much is: “Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself,” the company’s statement today concludes, “to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.” Pretty much they broadly have talked about intelectual property and multiple patent infringements.

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-2 points
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Were this to happen with games with an actual aesthetic that actually tried to do their own thing (like, say, Casette Beasts), I’d be upset.

PocketPair though? If they die, they die. They clearly have a pattern of profitting off of other people’s work, just look at their totally not Hollow Knight game

People are treating them like the underdog fighting for the little guy against the scumbag corporations. They’re both scumbag corporations.

PS: Play Casette Beasts. And Monster Sanctuary.

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1 point

PS: Play Casette Beasts. And Monster Sanctuary.

Yeah, fuck Pocket Pair they can kick rocks. Play Caseette Beasts which made a better pokemon with unique designs and are truly independent, not just some AI grift company locking for a quick buck.

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1 point

Upvoted for Monster Sanctuary. Outstanding game that deserves so much more recognition!

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-17 points
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I am typically anti-capitalist and usually root for the underdog. Palworld is a blatant ripoff of Pokemon and those denying it are delusional. Reverse the situation, where Nintendo releases Pokemon after Pocketpair releases Palworld and everyone would be calling it a ripoff.

Yeah, Nintendo’s legal department does some shitty stuff, but their likeness was stolen. Also, they are suing for patents, not copyright. The fact that the monsters are caught in a sphere is damning Pocketpair, while other Pokemon copies like Digimon avoid this.

It’s just my opinion. I’m often wrong.

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38 points
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Just going to share this for all the palworld blatantly ripped off pokemon people

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-4 points

Cant know if you are for real, most of those designs are barely the same despite being based on the same creatures, against how palworld straight up copied designs with a few changes? Seriously, fuck Nintendo and their shitty and buggy Pokemon games, but the Dragon Quest vs Pokemon designs are not even close to what Pocket Pair, masters of copying games did here.


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-15 points

So it was wrong for Nintendo to do that?

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20 points

It might be a ripoff, but my question to you is should that be illegal? The entirety of humanity is monkey see monkey do iteration on our previous ideas. It’s a dubious thing to litigate.

To add to that, no fan of either is going to confuse one for the other, so where’s the issue?

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-8 points

Again, this isn’t a copyright lawsuit. Making a game with monsters that look similar to theirs is not what the lawsuit is about. It’s about patents. Likely design patents like I mentioned before. If I made a country song with Eminem’s lyrics, of course you wouldn’t confuse it with Slim’s music, but I would need his permission first.

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8 points

Palworld is a rip off of Ark and BotW with Pokemon aesthetics. It opened early access the same year sword and shield came out. Before that Pokemon was not a big 3D open world type game. It also doesn’t include the survival/base building or FPS features in Pokemon. While palworld may be a derivative game, it is for sure different enough.

There is stuff like the palbox or the pokeball things that I could see them be dinged for though.

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-4 points

I wouldn’t argue that the game play is different.

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