Takuro Mizobe, CEO of Pocketpair, has revealed that his team has been receiving not only “abusive and defamatory comments,” but even “death threats,” following allegations that Palworld, their new multiplayer, open-world survival crafting game, is basically a Pokémon rip-off. Some believe that Pocketpair may be facing legal action from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company soon, but Toasted Shoes, a modder, has gone ahead and teased a new mod that will apparently bring Ash Ketchum and Pikachu into the game, which launched in Early Access last week.
Mizobe says:
- “We are currently receiving abusive and defamatory comments against our artists, in addition to tweets that appear to be death threats.”
- “While we have received various opinions about Palworld, it is important to note that the supervision of all materials related to Palworld is conducted by a team, including myself. I bear the responsibility for the produced materials. I would appreciate it if these comments towards artists involved in Palworld would cease.”
Comments from AAA game artists:
- “You cannot, in any way, accidentally get the same proportions on multiple models from another game without ripping the models. Or at the very least, tracing them meticulously first.”
- “To give you an idea of how impossible this is, sometimes we have to copy one mesh to another when we make sequels to games, for example, redrawing an NPC from one game to another, and even when we rework those old models, they only SOMETIMES match this closely due to rigging changes that might need to happen.”
- “There have been times when dozens of artists are given the same concept art to create a 3D model, for example, during art tests for jobs. I’ve seen 30 artists try to make the same horse using the exact schematics.”
- “None were as close to each other as these Palworld models are to the Pokémon models. None. The silhouettes and proportions here are near-perfect matches.”
- “The wireframe meshes look different, so they’re not the same models, but it’s so close that they may have built over the top of the Pokémon models and made a few changes so they weren’t exactly the same.”
- “When does ‘heavily inspired’ become a blatant copy? It’s much easier to take a successful style and tweak it slightly than it is to come up with a new, cohesive style, right? I wouldn’t be comfortable passing this off as my work; it’s just too close in many places.”
since I'm bored as hell, I'm gonna be making a thread of this i think… Palworld design analysis trying to spot every pokemon they jumbled together pic.twitter.com/Ch9jcx5hCI
— onion_mu (@onion_mu) January 18, 2024
TFW you and your cousin have exactly the same proportions. #Palworld #Pokemon (Luxray model from SV) pic.twitter.com/1nyq7t1k0a
— byo (@byofrog) January 21, 2024
Pokémon mod preview:
Palworld already has a Pokemon mod
— Toasted (@ToastedShoes) January 22, 2024
Full video on my YouTube tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/X1ohT6mJiT
Popular Palworld mods:
Game description:
Fight, farm, build and work alongside mysterious creatures called “Pals” in this completely new multiplayer, open world survival and crafting game!
In this game, you can peacefully live alongside mysterious creatures known as Pals or risk your life to drive off a ruthless poaching syndicate. Pals can be used to fight and breed, or they can be made to work on farms or factories. You can even sell them or eat them.
Source: X
Via: VGC