The Pokemon Company Makes an Official Statement on Palworld: 'We Intend to Investigate'

The Pokemon Company has finally made an official statement regarding Palworld, saying, "We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon."

English translation provided on page.

[Eonjay]

Nintendo and GameFreak are best served by not commenting at all and just focusing on making the next Pokémon as good as it can be. Also what exactly are they gonna investigate? Are they gonna try to get the game taken down and sue the devs?

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

There are reports on Twitter that some Pals are 1:1 copies of Pokemons. Whether that's true or not, Nintendo intends to find out.

[oof46]

That guy was debunked. He scaled and edited stuff to fit his narrative.

[MrBaskerville]

It isn't, but a lot of the pals are obviously based directly on Pokemon designs. It's probably not illegal, just a little derivative and boring.

[gold_drake]

to be fair, ive seen some of those comparions and some i sort of agree and some are just not true at all lol

[xHeavYx]

Either Nintendo will do nothing and try to improve their own Pokemon games, or they'll sue Palworlds, and then release their usual Pokemon games that barely have any upgrades. If the later happens, hopefully fanboys will finally open their eyes and ask for more.

[GamerRN]

They aren't 1:1, but they are way too close, can be mistaken for Pokemon, and are handled like Pokemon, and even calling their game Pokemon with guns is damaging to the Pokemon IP. I think this game will be gone soon. Or at the very least, altered.

[Rocketisleague]

It's a copy that made money. Why wouldn't.they sue...

[SDuck]

saw a reel comparing many pals with pokemon. Inspirations are clearly there. One that jumped my eye was a Luxray copy.

Regardless, inspiration is still allowed and if GameFreak doesn't like a copycat being better than their games, step the F*k up

[OtterX]

Check this out though. Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest would like a word...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media...

[just_looken]

perhaps they can go grazy and make the combat on there pokemon games different then what it was in the 90's.

I am enjoying palworld but sadly i see it getting pulled down because everyone loves to bj there switch $180 for the last pokemon game if you got both editions it ran at 10fps crashed every time you turned around but made hundreds of millions of dollars.

They should have used digimon as a reference no one remembers that entire franchise anymore.

Well i will continue to enjoy palworld until the cancel culture bs takes out a fresh spin on the old digimon/pokemon games.

[Vengeance1138]

What are you even smoking?? Digimon is insanely popular with a massive following. Maybe don't speak on topics in which you know nothing about, kid.

[just_looken]

@ven

Were is the new tv/netflix show?
Is there a game out there for ps5/xbox one?

I see the cards here and there but its rare.

[Michiel1989]

just play the game man, why does what everyone on twitter say even affect your enjoyment of the game?

[Gregero]

lol I haven't ever really watched a show, but I use Digimon as background noise - or whatever is on the anime channel on Roku - when I'm cleaning the house and not using music.

Digimon was one of my first thoughts when I heard about all of this hub-bub.

[just_looken]

@Michiel

Twitter controls the world we lost netflix shows the whole dc crash even the marvel crap it all began on twitter then insta.

Look at media before after the explosion of twitter/insta we had way better tv/life/safety its all gone now.

hbo is going to make another entry into harry potter before twitter 0 issues but thanks to twitter as soon as it was announced riots irl and on the www because the creator is involved. When i watched all the og movies i totally was waiting for ron to grow tits /s

So dam sad 2018-now i miss the 2010 era never knew it was the last decent era

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

@Vengeance1138,
In Japan? Yeah, I'd agree, but it's barely there in the west, Pokemon just dominates the monster genre.

@Just_looken,
They're still releasing Digimon animes, the last one just finished up last year (don't know if it had a shortened run, or if they actually did intend to end it there). Digimon survive, the game, only came out in 2022, which wasn't that long ago, Digimon just isn't the media juganught that Pokemon is. Although I do like the monster designs in Digimon, I like some of those better than the newer Pokemon designs.

I also agree that we had better media in the past, I feel that the 80's/90's was the height of pop culture, the 00's were also pretty good too, but we don't see anything like that these days. I think part of it is consolidation, Disney owns almost everything, and their writers aren't doing the best job (plus plying us with constant super hero movies probably wasn't a good idea). I'm sure there's many other contributing factors though.

[just_looken]

@final

I never heard of digimon survive until right now you just mention it so i just looked at it yikes but the story looks good though only 500.000 sales worldwide another yikes.
https://twitter.com/BandaiN...

I will check steam one in a while for a good sale

Just checked on that anime only one season 2020-2021 i again was like ? last tv show i saw was the 90's one back along side justice leauge/static/batman beyond era

So ok i am wrong digimon still has media just little spits but it is there.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

@Just_looken

Digimon Survive was a very different type of game compared to previous Digimon games, I think that caused a bit of division with the fan base since it's quite dark and more of a visual novel/TBS game. Then again, Digimon seems to like dividing up it's fan base a lot for some reason, I think it's been a while since they had a hit, especially in the west. Video games is probably the only consistent thing Digimon puts out these days, especially if we compare Japan and the West.

I also think you might be looking at the wrong anime? The last one was Digimon Ghost game:
"The anime adaptation of the series began airing on Fuji TV in Japan from October 3, 2021 to March 26, 2023 replacing Digimon Adventure: in the same timeslot." I think the last Digimon I ever saw was Frontier which aired in the early 00's on Aussie TV, it might have been the last time we ever had Digimon on TV since Saturday morning cartoons and morning cartoons (Cheeze TV) died after the 10's. They do put stuff out, it's just not consistent, and only popular in Japan, and they did have a large gap of time with no animes. At least it's not like Zoids where the franchise just completely died off.

[Newmanator]

Exactly. Give us a game over 25fps and we’ll talk.

[Snookies12]

They're upset because someone is upstaging them. So sad to see they actually have some competition and can't just keep putting minimal effort into their titles going forward.

[-Foxtrot]

Pretty much

Regardless of the AI debate if they did or not, outside of that, the open world they created is better despite the lack of resources, budget (in Pokémon’s comparison) and it being in early access.

They’ve been upstaged and they hate it because now people are catching on. If the next game is worse than Palworlds official full release, people will call it out and it will be embarrassing to them

[PRIMORDUS]

I really hope that does happen to Nintendo. All they do is look for bullshit and try to sue. I'm hoping one day they get fucked over so bad that it actually hurts them in the long run. They really do not get it. Mods, skins, of their characters in games etc. will not hurt them period. Because people will buy another Mario, Zelda, Pokemon on a Nintendo system regardless.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I wonder if they'll loose their sh*t like PUBG did when Fortnite unseated them as top battle royale, although I don't believe Nintendo is that worried, I think they're more scared of their brand image being ruined by "Pokemon with guns".

They will aggressively protect their IPs and sue at the drop of a hat though, that's why it's rare to see mods, remember when BeatEmUps lost his ambassador role with Nintendo after streaming Zelda with mods? I feel sorry for that guy, he was really upset that that happened. I also saw someone make fan videos of gen 1 Pokemon games in Ken Sugimori's art style, it looks so good, and I would love to see Nintendo make that (I feel like they could have used that art style with Arceus).

[monkey602]

The harsh reality of this is that Palworld would have been nothing if GameFreak and Nintendo were living up to the potential of the Pokemon property.
All I can really see here is the laziness and incompetence of the pokemon developers at play.

[SDuck]

You're 100% correct in my eyes. Tbh the game doesn't look that interesting to me but it sure is a massive upgrade from the Pokemon formula.

[Blad3runner00]

Seems like we have some competition and Nintendo doesn't like it, because now they may need to put some effort into their Pokemon games. People were starving for a great Pokemon game and never got one, which is partially why Palworld is as successful as it is, while also adding other game mechanics which mesh so well.

[--Onilink--]

This really isnt a Pokemon game though, its just your standard Survival/Crafting game like Valheim or Ark (not that I dont enjoy it) with Pokemon style creatures

I dont understand why people keep saying its direct competition, if anything, its misleading people who will truly think its a Pokemon style game (like TemTem for example)

[notachance]

should’ve investigate why the most profitable entertainment IP in the world only managed to release games with subpar quality like scarlet and violet

[Lionsguard]

There's no reason to investigate that, the reason is clear and simple... Millennials and their ever-wanting need to part with their money no matter what the amount with anything "Pokemon" written on it.

Why bother giving anything of quality when you can make Pokemon Turd Sandwich and Pokemon Pisspot which are basically the exact same game and the Millennials will just buy it both up by the masses due to undying need to satisfy their childhood urges? It's the same thing with crap with "Supreme" written on it.

There's no need to push yourself when there's no competition to be had and there's a near endless supply of morons that will help support crap products.

[Relientk77]

Maybe if Gamefreak wasn't lazy and incompetent in the first place this wouldn't have happened.

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch has a better battle system, open world with monsters to catch and, plays better than any of the Pokémon games on Switch and it came out in 2011.

[Vithar]

if they had a legal case, it would be down already, look how fast the mods and videos get shut down.
Hopefully it teaches to stop being lazy and step up their game, Arceus was a disaster

[OneLove]

As strict as nintendo is with this, there is no way palworld would have got to the point where they could release this game if Nintendo was going to take action. It is in early development but they're still selling it so Nintendo would've been on their ass way before it would've got to this point.

[OhReginald]

So nintendo didn't have a problem with all the hundreds of other pokemon clones. No issue with ni no kuni???

[--Onilink--]

Being a Pokemon style game has never been an issue, just look at TemTem, there was never any kind of similar discourse about it.

If there is a problem with this one, it will be whether they truly used ripped Pokemon models for their creatures, and I dont mean just similar designs (though I gotta wonder why they even made some of them so similar in the first place), I mean taking the character models directly from the games

[TricksterArrow]

TemTem was never as successful as this. Hence: they did not care.

[--Onilink--]

@Trickster

Nintendo doesn’t care if they are successful or not, they are one of the most litigious companies around.

If they can sue, they will. If they can’t they won’t.

Anyone saying or thinking that just because of the statement or just because its popular, they will or wont take action really havent paid attention to how Nintendo operates

Yes, Palword has been very successful, in a market that Nintendo doesnt even operate in. And they also sold like 25million copies of Scarlet and Violet… so once again, if there are grounds for suing, they undoubtedly will, but given that its not just someone directly putting Pikachu in the game, they will need to determine if they took any actual game assets or not

[Nebaku]

There was definitely this discourse about TemTem.

They were routinely called out for copying Pokemon's formula verbatim. Down to just buying fakemon to use as monsters.

It just happened on a smaller scale.

[anast]

This is the main problem when devs don't have the talent or creativity to use original sources to make something their own. Now, the lazy genius companies like Nintendo can claim their IP and get a piece of that.

[Neonridr]

just because they are investigating doesn't mean anything will come of it. I'm sure this is partly just PR talk saying they are doing their due diligence to have a peek.

It doesn't always have to be doom and gloom.

[Ninver]

They're just upset at the fact they can't be incompetent any longer and someone else has delivered what fans have been asking for years.

[gold_drake]

on one hand i understand. they have to do something. its business and legal stuff

on the other hand, Gamefreak is incompetant when it comes to 3D modeling and this game is upstaging them. showing us what a pkmn should look like these days.

but what the hell took them so long?
ive heard about this game for a while now.

[Nebaku]

Gamefreak is incompetent in regards to environmental modeling.

The Pokemon and Trainer models on the other hand have always been fantastic.

There is more effort put into a single Scarlet/Violet model than almost all of Palworlds put together.

[jjb1981]

These clowns are mad because nobody is as hyped for their Turdemon games as they are with Palworld. Nintendo really should take a shot at developing for PC so that their Pokémon games can hit 60fps at all times.

[GotGame818]

I knew the first 5 minutes I played this would happen. The sad thing is Palworld is better than most Pokemon games.

[GoodGuy09]

Lol. And the poor modder that got hit by the ninjas...

[Murdability]

Dude $&@$ gamefreak they put practically the same thing out every year. Praise palworld for doing something new

[Software_Lover]

If they are worried now, just look at the Palworld development Roadmap. PVP! Pal battles! New Islands! Multiplatform!
In one shot, they are blowing anything that Nintendo has done over the past 10+ years out of the water.

[Eonjay]

I have to agree but can you really blame them. People just line up by the millions to buy Pokemon. To them, they were sitting on a golden egg. This is a perfect example of what happens when a company doesn't have proper competition.

[Elda]

I don't play Pokemon but I can clearly see that the characters in Palworld resemble the characters in Pokemon. I knew sooner or later the Pokemon company were going to come for the company of Palworld.

[Smellsforfree]

I mean...who is to say they weren't ripping off digimon or any of the other pokemon knockoffs that have already existed before?

[Hereandthere]

They have Microsoft backing as long as they keep it xbox exclusive, take advantage of this perk Palworld devs.

[Eonjay]

They don't have Microsoft's backing lol. The deal was just to put the early access on Xbox. That is it. They don't have exclusive rights. The devs already said its coming to other platforms.

[H9]

The more hurt Gamefreak is the better, these guys have been giving the worst experiences out of Nintendo's line-up for years now, however it's hard to imagine any improvement happening because the next pokemon will sell like crazy with or without palworld, Pokémon's popularity is in a league of it's own

[Gregero]

Nintendo doesn't want to have to try to make their games better :D They expected the same formula to last (as bad as it is) like Madden games do.

[babadivad]

There's nothing to investigate

[BrainSyphoned]

Surprised Pikachu face.

[CrimsonGuardVII]

honestly this game looks boring to me, however don't think Nintendo or any else can do anything about it. even if they win they would just demand royalties, but i doubt they could shut it down even with the best legal outcome their way.