Pocketpair, the Japanese developer best known for its 2024 action-adventure, survival, and monster-taming game, Palworld, has announced that it will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into claims of patent infringement following the announcement yesterday from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company about how they’ve filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocketpair, alleging infringement of “multiple patents” and intellectual property. Palworld, which remains available on Steam as an Early Access title for $29.99, peaked eight months ago on Valve’s platform with 2,101,867 players, according to numbers derived from SteamDB.
Pocketpair writes:
- “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.”
Nintendo announced yesterday (machine translation):
- “Nintendo…in collaboration with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Pocket Pair…in the Tokyo District Court on September 18, 2024.”
- “The lawsuit seeks an injunction against the defendants and compensation for damages, alleging that the game ‘Palworld’ developed and sold by the defendants infringes multiple patents.”
- “In order to protect the valuable intellectual property that we have built up through many years of hard work, we will continue to take the necessary measures against any infringement of our intellectual property, including our brand.”
Some promos for Palworld:
Game description:
Fight, farm, build and work alongside mysterious creatures called “Pals” in this completely new multiplayer, open world survival and crafting game! In a harsh environment where food is scarce and vicious poachers roam, danger waits around every corner. To survive, you must tread carefully and make difficult choices…even if that means eating your own Pals when the time comes.
Palworld is home to over 100 unique Pals, each equipped with a diverse set of skills to enhance the player’s adventure. Along your journey, you will also encounter formidable boss Pals that pose a challenge even for the most seasoned Pal tamers. Naturally, these boss Pals are also capturable.
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Discussion (9 replies)
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Who didn't see this coming?
Maybe... Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder
So Nintendo waited until they made their money before suing them. Smart, Nintendo, Smart.
"LeRoy_Blanchard, post: 89562, member: 137" wrote:So Nintendo waited until they made their money before suing them. Smart, Nintendo, Smart.
I'd call it slimy, Nintendo, slimy.
"LeRoy_Blanchard, post: 89562, member: 137" wrote:So Nintendo waited until they made their money before suing them. Smart, Nintendo, Smart.
I thought the same thing.
"LeRoy_Blanchard, post: 89562, member: 137" wrote:So Nintendo waited until they made their money before suing them. Smart, Nintendo, Smart.
To be fair they do keep their lawyers pretty busy.
Honestly who this really is going to suck for is the people who bought the game that if I recall correctly is online only. Especially if they get shut down.
Will be interesting to see how this goes. Palworld has made a truckload of cash and Microsoft grabbed onto it as an Xbox success story.
But yeah - it’s so obviously a blatant ripoff that can’t possibly win in any court other than a kangaroo court.
There’s enough cash and horsepower that a deal might get cut after some back and forth in the courtroom. Palworld will probably “adjust some assets” and cut a fat check in the end if my guess.
The interesting part is Palworld has probably made 90% of all the money they are gonna make - it isn’t a live service game or has a deep cash shop — although it may end up getting one after all of this. Not sure if the devs behind it have another hit in the tank or not.
"Grimlakin, post: 89570, member: 215" wrote:Honestly who this really is going to suck for is the people who bought the game that if I recall correctly is online only. Especially if they get shut down.
Its not online only. You can play locally, you can also host your own server. So if they take it down, assuming they don't forcefully delete it from your steam library and you got a good copy of it installed as well as a server installed then you can play locally or with friends without anything from them I believe. Just have to direct connect to the IP each time.
However, this is a PATENT infringement lawsuit, not a copyright one. Which means they're going after them for something Nintendo patented such as "Pal spheres" which are basically pokeballs or the storage system for the Pals, or something else.
Which based on this:
[URL unfurl="true"]https://gamerant.com/nintendo-pokemon-palworld-pocketpair-lawsuit-which-patent/[/URL]
Nintendo filed for this patent THIS YEAR and was awarded the patent. Talk about a sleeseball move on Nintendo. Like seriously, I don't think I'm ever going to buy a Nintendo product again. Screw those greedy bastages.
You can't protect a patent that has previously been used as open source or free ideas. It's too late. That work can continue to exist and evolve at least in most US courts that I know of. But I'm no lawyer.
Discussion (9 replies)
Join Discussion →Who didn't see this coming?
Maybe... Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder
So Nintendo waited until they made their money before suing them. Smart, Nintendo, Smart.
I'd call it slimy, Nintendo, slimy.
I thought the same thing.
To be fair they do keep their lawyers pretty busy.
Honestly who this really is going to suck for is the people who bought the game that if I recall correctly is online only. Especially if they get shut down.
Will be interesting to see how this goes. Palworld has made a truckload of cash and Microsoft grabbed onto it as an Xbox success story.
But yeah - it’s so obviously a blatant ripoff that can’t possibly win in any court other than a kangaroo court.
There’s enough cash and horsepower that a deal might get cut after some back and forth in the courtroom. Palworld will probably “adjust some assets” and cut a fat check in the end if my guess.
The interesting part is Palworld has probably made 90% of all the money they are gonna make - it isn’t a live service game or has a deep cash shop — although it may end up getting one after all of this. Not sure if the devs behind it have another hit in the tank or not.
Its not online only. You can play locally, you can also host your own server. So if they take it down, assuming they don't forcefully delete it from your steam library and you got a good copy of it installed as well as a server installed then you can play locally or with friends without anything from them I believe. Just have to direct connect to the IP each time.
However, this is a PATENT infringement lawsuit, not a copyright one. Which means they're going after them for something Nintendo patented such as "Pal spheres" which are basically pokeballs or the storage system for the Pals, or something else.
Which based on this:
[URL unfurl="true"]https://gamerant.com/nintendo-pokemon-palworld-pocketpair-lawsuit-which-patent/[/URL]
Nintendo filed for this patent THIS YEAR and was awarded the patent. Talk about a sleeseball move on Nintendo. Like seriously, I don't think I'm ever going to buy a Nintendo product again. Screw those greedy bastages.
You can't protect a patent that has previously been used as open source or free ideas. It's too late. That work can continue to exist and evolve at least in most US courts that I know of. But I'm no lawyer.