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Palworld developers confirm they will fight against Nintendo lawsuit to ensure indie devs are not discouraged 'from pursuing their creative ideas'

Draugoth

Gold Member




Regarding the LawsuitYesterday, a lawsuit was filed against our company for patent infringement.​


We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement.At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details.Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo.​


Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of.It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit.​

However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.We apologize to our fans and supporters for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused.As always, thank you for your continued support of Palworld and Pocketpair.​
 

HogIsland

Member
manchester united GIF
 

gakidx

Neo Member
I only heard about the game during the 'heh NOW this is what Pokémon should be! I haven't played a game since Gold Silver btw' movement in social media.

Was an embarrassing thing to witness
 

laynelane

Member
Now that's one carefully crafted, even strategized, response - it won't have any impact on Nintendo but may help sway more public opinion to their side.
 

Ceadeus

Member
N..no your honour...I swear to god it's not a so called Pokemon, what is Pokemon anyway? A cereal brand? A twitch streamer?

"Proceeds to show comparison in court"

VEd4c70.png


😶😶‍🌫️ "Damn guys, Nintendo are far more clever than we thought...RETREAT!!"

Edit: now I know what patent infringement means lol, I just wanted to be funny
 
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ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
N..no your honour...I swear to god it's not a so called Pokemon, what is Pokemon anyway? A cereal brand? A twitch streamer?

"Proceeds to show comparison in court"

VEd4c70.png


😶😶‍🌫️ "Damn guys, Nintendo are far more clever than we thought...RETREAT!!"
You do understand that it's not about the assets and Palworld designs are different enough to be out of court?

The whole patent take from Nintendo smells like a prime bullshit. But this time they can't fold a rich company with powerful partners, unlike the recent emulation kerfuffle where Yuzu authors were simply too poor to defend themselves.
 

Elios83

Member
The game is obviously heavily inspired by Pokémon but it's not a direct copy and they're not ripping off assets and designs afaik.
So Nintendo does not have much ground, they're just trying to strangle them under legal expenses until they settle in some way.
 
Whether you think Nintendo suck or not, this guy worked for JPMorgan https://www.pocketpair.jp/aboutus so he's not some plucky upstart from his mom's garage even if he want's to frame himself that way.
So everyone who has worked for jp Morgan is rich or something? I get that you want to support Nintendo but that is an insane thing to comment. Fact of the matter is, he founded an indie studio and made a game. He is a plucky upstart, having worked for big company before doesn't change that. What's next, you will say hades devs aren't indie because the founders are ex-EA employees?
 

Ceadeus

Member
You do understand that it's not about the assets and Palworld designs are different enough to be out of court?

The whole patent take from Nintendo smells like a prime bullshit. But this time they can't fold a rich company with powerful partners, unlike the recent emulation kerfuffle where Yuzu authors were simply too poor to defend themselves.
I thought that was about creatures design yes.
 

Natsuko

Member
The game is obviously heavily inspired by Pokémon but it's not a direct copy and they're not ripping off assets and designs afaik.
So Nintendo does not have much ground, they're just trying to strangle them under legal expenses until they settle in some way.

But this is not about the designs of the creatures. We are talking about patent law.
 

Mattyp

Gold Member
N..no your honour...I swear to god it's not a so called Pokemon, what is Pokemon anyway? A cereal brand? A twitch streamer?

"Proceeds to show comparison in court"

VEd4c70.png


😶😶‍🌫️ "Damn guys, Nintendo are far more clever than we thought...RETREAT!!"
There’s enough points of difference in that easily, it happens in fashion daily if you want a good research in the matter on how many points of difference they need before it’s all good.
 

Bernoulli

M2 slut
You do understand that it's not about the assets and Palworld designs are different enough to be out of court?

The whole patent take from Nintendo smells like a prime bullshit. But this time they can't fold a rich company with powerful partners, unlike the recent emulation kerfuffle where Yuzu authors were simply too poor to defend themselves.
yuzu's mistake was providing the keys i think
 
Being able to stump up millions to get multiple games out would suggest that to me but I've not seen his bank account. my point was more for the people who think this is someone fighting the good fight or going against greedy corps when he's a crytobro from a major bank.

It's scum against scum in my eyes.
As a software dev, if I got an offer from JP, I would get in, why? Because I like to get a good wage. Does that make me evil? How do you know the budget of his games? Not every indie dev or founded is rich. You start small, and hopefully expand. That seems to be what he has done.

At the end of the day, it is still an indie dev versus a multi billion platform holders.
 

LordNerevar76

Neo Member
Being able to stump up millions to get multiple games out would suggest that to me but I've not seen his bank account. my point was more for the people who think this is someone fighting the good fight or going against greedy corps when he's a crytobro from a major bank.

It's scum against scum in my eyes.
This is some pretty delusional equivocation. Regardless of where this one person got his start up funds, it's a small indie company against a massive corporation notorious for, effectively, legal tyranny. It's 100% sensible to back pocket pair here if only to discourage Nintendo's carefree legal attitude.
 

BlackTron

Member
So everyone who has worked for jp Morgan is rich or something? I get that you want to support Nintendo but that is an insane thing to comment. Fact of the matter is, he founded an indie studio and made a game. He is a plucky upstart, having worked for big company before doesn't change that. What's next, you will say hades devs aren't indie because the founders are ex-EA employees?

For all we know he could have worked as a bank teller but this seems unlikely given he also opened a digital currency exchange.
 

Hookshot

Member
How do you know the budget of his games?
Because he was very vocal in how it "only" cost under $7mil to make, to cultivate this image that he's not part of the big boys that people are buying into. Despite millions of dollars and careers at multinational banks being well beyond most of the world.

Nintendo should put more pressure on Game Freak to be able to compete with Palworld and their developers rather than focusing on destroying them.
Game freak have sucked since the off. The amount of bugs in the first game make certain stats do the opposite of what the text says. and Iwata, an outsider had to improve the 2nd gen.

The fact their new games are so basic allowed this clone to flourish.
 

BlackTron

Member
Man everyone is very against Nintendo on this one. Most of the time I think Nintendo goes too far and can be unfair. In this case I feel like they are actually right because Palworld not only rips off Pokemon's general concept but adds insult to injury by smugly taking their look and style for use in the same kind of product.

If Palworld had its own style like Dragon Quest does and Nintendo gave them shit over it, I'd be staunchly anti Nintendo here. But they took not only the idea but also everything about it blatantly. I don't really think you should be able to do that to anyone and it shouldn't matter whether the one being stolen from is a small startup or giant corp.
 

Natsuko

Member
Which patent? What was violated?

According to reports, it is probably about catching with the Pokéball or, in this case, the Pallsphere. However, other reports mention several patents. Someone in the other thread posted this a few hours ago.

Whether this is ultimately a violation will have to be decided by judges and not by the forum.
 
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