Fan loyalty plays an important role in the gaming industry. The medium is full of iconic publishers and developers, but few companies in the industry are as important as the Japanese gaming giant, Nintendo. The Nintendo company is responsible for influential franchises such as The Legend of Zelda AND Pokemonand these two series have earned considerable respect in the gaming community. Therefore, it makes sense that Japanese fans would side with Nintendo in its most recent legal saga.
In recent days, Nintendo has filed a massive lawsuit against Pocket Pairdevelopers of the extremely popular game Palworldfor infringement of copyright. While fans are divided on the issue, gamers in Japan are much less divided, as they believe Nintendo is completely within its rights to sue Pocket Pair for damages. The lawsuit may take a long time to resolve, but early on it appears Nintendo has everything it needs to secure a quick victory.
Palworld may have gone too far over the copyright line
Nintendo has never been one to take lawsuits lightly
Nintendo has been involved in some of the highest profile legal cases in video game history, as the company seeks to protect its intellectual property from those who want to profit from it. Recently, Nintendo won a lawsuit against six Chinese companies that used the Pokemon brand to create a bootleg game known as Pocket Monster reprint. Pocket Monster reprint used all the original Pokemon drawings as well as the box art for Pokémon Yellow as the app logo. Needless to say, these companies were not affiliated with Nintendo in any way and were forced to pay over $6 million in damages to Nintendo.
Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld turns out to be the highest profile case of all time. The case against Palworld it started with a rather strange patent application from Nintendo that probably won't make it to court. This patent shows that Nintendo wants to completely own the concept of catching creatures with a throwable object and then using them to fight in battle. This part of the case is the only one that is almost universally considered flawed. Games like Devil's story AND Dragon Quest used this concept before Nintendo, and it is also difficult to patent the basic game mechanics.
Much of Nintendo's lawsuit focuses almost entirely on projects that Palworld stolen in the creation of the game. Similarities between creature designs are not uncommon in the gaming industry, as it can be quite difficult to create a variety of new creatures for a game. Dragon Quest AND Pokemon they have many creatures that look similar despite not being stolen copies of each other. With Palworldthis was far from the case, as the designs are too similar to the iconic creatures of Pokemon be a mere coincidence. Friends like Anubis and Lamball resemble Pokémon Lucario and Wooloo respectively, while Grizzbolt looks like a strange mix of Pikachu and Electabuzz.
It is possible that these designs were intended to be copied Pokemonhis creatures. A former Pocket Pair employee recently said that the company's CEO ordered employees to copy some of the most popular Pokémon designs. At this point, the only surprising thing about Nintendo's lawsuit against Pocket Pair is the fact that it took nine months to make. Nintendo usually doesn't wait long in cases like this, so it was strange to see Nintendo take almost an entire year to enforce legal action Palworldalleged copyright infringement. Despite this wait, Nintendo seems poised for victory, which would please many of the company's Japanese fans.
Pocket Pal has already been sued for plagiarism
Palworld's design choices are not difficult to spot
With Japanese fans taking Nintendo's side in this cause, it becomes important to point this out In the past Pocket Pair has copied Nintendo's creative ideas, albeit to a much less effective extent. THE Palworld the developer copies Nintendo and smaller games like the popular indie title, Hollow Knight. While some of the similarities between Palworld AND Pokemon can be dismissed as a coincidence, it's hard to say the same Nevergravewhich features too similar gameplay and art style to Hollow Knight be a simple case. Pocket Pair was also developed Craftopiawhich is almost a 1 to 1 copy of the very popular Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Japanese fans appear to be supporting Nintendo's case against Pocket Pair not only for its current actions, but also for its shady track record.
If Pocket Pair didn't already have a reputation for plagiarism in the gaming industry, Japanese Nintendo fans would likely be seen as supporters of the big company while trying to remove an independent company from the medium. However, this is not the case, as fans simply don't like to see companies copying others' ideas, especially if the copied version generates nearly $1 billion in profits in less than a year. Japanese fans don't support Nintendo for no reason, but these alleged cases of copyright infringement were becoming too difficult to ignore. On top of that, Pocket Pair recently struck deals with Sony and Aniplex, two companies that Nintendo hasn't worked well with in the past. After all of this, Nintendo made the seemingly inevitable choice and sued Pocket Pair for damages due to its potential copyright infringement. Pokemon franchising.
Serkan Toto, a Japanese Nintendo analyst, spoke briefly on the topic, saying that reactions to Nintendo's lawsuit in Japan are mostly favorable, but that Western countries are more mixed, with some seeing Nintendo as an attempt to crush the loser. Opinions on Nintendo's lawsuits are often mixed, but in a case like this they probably shouldn't be, as Pocket Pair's actions could be seen as a repeated trend over the past few years. Overall, this cause has probably been around since Palworld launched in January 2024. While the game hasn't been asked to shut down completely, it may be difficult to keep it going if Pocket Pair has to pay large compensatory damages to Nintendo. This legal saga will likely take months if not years.
Nintendo Forces Palworld Japanese support In a corner
Pocket Pair may not be prepared to fight an uphill battle
Nintendo has earned a reputation for having a strong legal team due to its numerous lawsuits in the past, and it looks like this fact will come to a head in the coming months. Despite Pocket Pair's past actions, it has never been the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit, so this is new territory for the indie developer. Furthermore, the lack of public support in Japan will make the uphill battle even more difficult for Japan Palworld developer.
Luckily for Pocket Pair, lawsuits like these tend to take a long time Palworld will be able to stay online for a while longer. However, Nintendo could seek higher damages if the game continues to generate profits. Additionally, Nintendo could possibly issue a cease-and-desist order if the lawsuit gets out of hand. Players will have to wait and see if the game will still be online when this lawsuit against Palworld reaches its conclusion.