Nintendo Sues Palworld Developer Pocketpair
Remember Palworld, the indie video game from Japanese developer Pocketpair that took the gaming world by storm when it debuted earlier this year? It’s the action survival game that took clear inspiration from Pokémon in which the player is dropped into an open-world environment and tasked with capturing “Pals” and using them as workhorses to build forts, weapons, and the like, as well as fight your enemies for you. The similarities between Palworld and Pokémon were striking enough for the game to be affectionately referred to as “Pokémon with guns” by its fans. Palworld was a smash hit when it was released in January, selling over eight million copies in its first six days and having 2,101,867 peak concurrent players on Steam, just a little under current sensation Black Myth: Wukong’s peak.
#Palworld has sold over 8 million copies in less than 6 days!
Thank you very much!!
As stated previously, we continue to work at full-speed on addressing bugs and issues!
Thanks for your support!#Pocketpair pic.twitter.com/4PLB1J4CYH— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) January 25, 2024
At the time, there was speculation that Nintendo, which owns The Pokémon Company, could sue Pocketpair for trademark infringement since the Pals look so similar to Pokémon. There were a few indications that it might come to that. A modder was planning on creating a Palworld mod that would let gamers play as Ash and other Pokémon characters, but Nintendo put a stop to that right away. They also issued a statement in January saying they would “investigate any infringement of intellectual property rights” and “take appropriate measures.” But that was the last anyone heard of it, and Poketpair said they “cleared legal reviews” before releasing Palworld, so it was assumed that the whole thing had blown over.
Well, apparently, it hasn’t, because Nintendo is now suing Pocketpair for infringement of patent rights. They and The Pokémon Company are seeking “an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages” because Palworld “infringes multiple patent rights.” Why did this come about all of a sudden, nine months after Palworld hit the scene? Well, that part makes Nintendo look shifty. According to legal documents (courtesy of X user god’s little reject), Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a patent for Poké Balls in May, with game designer Kazumasa Iwao – an employee of Game Freak, which co-owns The Pokémon Company with Nintendo and Creatures Inc. – listed as the inventor of the Poké Balls. The patent covers pointing and launching an item or character as a video game mechanic; in other words, they argued that if gamers can point and launch anything in your video game, you’re ripping off Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. And a court agreed, granting the patent in August.
nintendo are so infuriated palworld wasn’t able to be charged on design copyright grounds, they created a patent for the game mechanic “pointing & aiming an item for launch” specifically just to sue palworld. nintendo fans are so stupid they think it’s for trademark infringement https://t.co/9MKFNFPIiM pic.twitter.com/DDMBi4z94z
— god’s little reject (@destructionset) September 19, 2024
Now that it’s all on legal record, they’re suing Pocketpair and claiming the indie studio ripped off pointing and launching from them, basically saying they copied Poké Balls. Pocketpair responded to the lawsuit, but they didn’t say much beyond how unfortunate the situation is:
Regarding the Lawsuit
Yesterday, 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…
— Palworld (@Palworld_EN) September 19, 2024
Former Blizzard producer Mark Kern makes a good point about this: Pokémon has been around for a long time, but Nintendo and The Pokémon Company only chose to patent this game mechanic a few months after Palworld was released and became a huge hit. He’s right, and this suggests to me that Pocketpair was correct in saying it was legally covered, and Nintendo didn’t have a leg to stand on in court. So, they invented one, filing a patent after the fact and using that to sue so they could shut down a game and its developer that were making money from something that satirized one of their brands. It’s dirty pool, and while I’m not a legal expert, I don’t know how it can hold up in court since Palworld was developed and released before this patent existed.
Palworld exploded on the scene in February.
Patent about poke balls filed in May.
Patent granted in August.
Nintendo sues Palworld the following month.
Folks, this is Nintendo using lawfare to try to kill an indie studio that embarrassed them by creating a better Pokémon… pic.twitter.com/Z2ovQ3W3rw
— Grummz (@Grummz) September 19, 2024
I agree with Kern; Nintendo is trying to shut down a promising indie competitor before it becomes too big a thorn in their side. And if they don’t shut down Pocketpair, they will at least have caused them enough legal trouble to dissuade the next studio from taking a chance on their corner of the market. Besides which, as Madam Savvy said in a comment, patenting game mechanics could severely limit how many games are developed. These things tend to build on each other with each new incarnation; what would’ve happened if someone patented first-person shooting, for example? We’d still be playing Maze War, having never gotten Wolfenstein, Doom, Call of Duty, or – don’t make me cry – Goldeneye. Depending on what happens with this case, gaming could be very different in the future.
Pretty lame. I don’t think game mechanics should be patented though….
This could cause a shift in the way patents are handled in japan, which could make this the most important case in the creative industry they’ve had in a while.
I wish they’d just give the money to game…
— Savvy (@MadamSavvy) September 19, 2024
Let us know what you think of Nintendo suing Pocketpair over Palworld in the comments!
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Comments (5)
Thanks very much! It seems pretty broad to me; it doesn’t specify picking something up and launching it, for example. I don’t think Nintendo will use it that broadly; they probably just want to mess with Palworld and Pocketpair. But it sets a bad precedent.
Agreed. Point is though it is very broad and could theoretically be used as I described unless I am miss reading. Either way your right set a bad precedent if a company like Nintendo does it.
Yeah, there’s a danger in it if Nintendo wins against Palworld and then decides it has a taste for blood. Because then not only will it have that ridiculous patent but it’ll have precedent on its side. I was listening to a podcast a while back, and the guy said one of the problems with having so many government officials still being boomers is that they don’t understand a lot of more modern issues, industries, and technologies, and he used gaming as an example. If you bring up an issue like this and the dangers it has for the industry, they’ll say, “Video games? You mean like Pong?” I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a similar situation for the courts; a lot of judges simply don’t have the frame of reference to fully understand a lot of these issues, so they make dumbass rulings like this.
Agreed. I have a soft spot for Nintendo since the DS was my first gaming device. What they are doing here is idiotic and as the ability to not just harm the games industry. It has the ability to outright destroy the indi game industry.
So by point and launch something wont that be pretty much be granades in other games? Or granade launchers, or anything else that is pretty much point and toss/click. Also the last time a game mechince/system was patented the nemisses system for the Shadow of Mordor games you never got any game similar ever again with other titles. Do correct me on that if its wrong. This one just got me to post my first comment here haha.