Topic: Nintendo Lawsuit's by Palworld

@FishyS Yeah. And even then, I heard that the image floating around actively manipulated the colors of some of the Dragon Quest monsters to make Pokemon look worse. No idea how true that is. Either way...my stance is pretty ambivalent. We just don't know the exact grounds Nintendo is suing on yet. It might be something completely justified, or something that's hard to justify. Pocketpair, meanwhile, is a questionable company that has openly stated their intent to try and focus on just making games that are hodgepodges of other popular games without innovating (which Palworld pretty blatantly does for Pokemon and ARK). It's hard to say they're this innocent underdog. I happen to own Palworld through a gifted copy of the game - haven't started it - but nothing about it has particularly struck me as a game that can topple Pokemon. Especially because it owes a good chunk of its sales to Chinese gamers - it's not really some mass rejection of Pokemon.

@PikaPhantom I think the Sony one is more complex. Playstation Studios is supporting the Switch though appeared to be forced (MLB is forcing Sony, Lego may be forcing Sony) meanwhile Sony Music Japan are actively supporting Palworld via a joint venture.

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2024/07/sony-music-japan-is-w...

It looks like Sony wants to be for Palworld what The Pokemon Company is for Pokemon. But like you say, Sony being actively involved in supporting Pocketpair in this lawsuit could damage business relations with Nintendo which may cause problems in the future if they want to support Nintendo hardware of their own accord in the future.

@PikaPhantom I genuinely hate the people who are saying "Nintendo is trying to own the Monster Collecting genre!"

It feels like the people who say that genuinely never played any Monster collecting games outside of Pokemon and don't understand the history of this genre. They probably weren't even around to see Yokai Watch grow to eclipse pokemon in Japan as the "dominant" monster collecting series.

I'm not surprised people ignore other monster collecting games though, given how Fossil Fighters was ripped apart extensively when it first launched- even on these forums. Persona is never thought of being a Monster Collecting game despite being one- and Digimon has always been branded as a rip-off, despite not even having the same origins as Pokemon nor same ideas. This genre seems to be cursed to just be full of misinfo and people pointing the finger. Hurts as an actual legitimate fan of monster collecting games.

Yeah, that last point gets to me too, and I'll admit it's part of why I'm pretty sour on Palworld. People have been passing off monster collecting games as Pokemon clones for as long as the genre was a thing, despite how many gems there are like Fossil Fighters, Yo-Kai Watch, and Cassette Beasts. The one competitor to really hit it big over here just ended up being the edgy, arguably cynical survival game with shooting and slavery.

Of course, this isn't even necessarily Palworld's fault, but the general culture and discourse around it is kinda depressing as someone who really likes these games.

As much as I was still able to enjoy the most recent Pokémon games, it's indisputable that a decent amount of people wouldn't be taking Pocketpair's side out of principle if it wasn't for the issues Scarlet/Violet had (not to mention the people still bitter over Sword/Shield). I'm looking forward to what they'll do with Legends Z-A; it would be great if the extra development time and potential leveraging of the Switch 2 capabilities can result in a game that can make a lot of people happy and improve the franchise's image, but I will still try to keep my expectations in check.

@VoidofLight Exactly. They're crying foul but are acting like Palworld is the first real competitor. The only other series they'll acknowledge is Dragon Quest just so they can go "Pokemon ripped someone off first so Palworld doing the same is fine," it seems. I've only really dabbled in Pokemon, I have to admit - I did try the demo for Monster Hunter Stories 2, but it didn't click with me, and I think the only other games I own that have monster collecting are Persona 5 Royal and Yo-Kai Watch 3, both of which I still have not started. But I understand that it is a decently well-represented genre for the kind of niche it slots into, both among third-parties and among indies, and so it just makes the people saying Nintendo is going to go after everything come across as foolish (which they probably are, but y'know). When Yo-Kai Watch became a phenomenon in Japan, Nintendo stepped in to try and expand its reach to the West, while Game Freak actively took influence from it for Sun/Moon. They wouldn't have done the same for Palworld no matter what given its content, but there's a clear precedent that they are more than happy to give other monster collecting games a spot on their system (sometimes even securing them as exclusives!)

@PikaPhantom Monster Hunter Stories is strange mechanically, but I enjoy it at the same time. The only Monster collecting games I've had issues getting into were Ni No Kuni and Dragon Quest Monsters. They have really wonky combat systems that sorta turned me off from trying to play them. Outside of those two though, I genuinely really liked most of the Monster taming games that I've played. Pokemon, Digimon, Persona, Megaten, Yokai Watch, Fossil Fighters, and a few of the indie offerings like Monster Crown and Coromon are games I genuinely enjoyed for what they were.

Fossil Fighters was one of the few series I wish people gave more of a chance towards. The game invented triple rotation battles before Pokemon did, and the mechanics were actually genuinely fun. It was a sort of Spectrobes clone in a way, but even then the system of digging up the fossils and cleaning them in order to eventually revive them into monsters you battle with was genuinely great. Frontiers kinda ruined the battle system, but they improved upon cleaning fossils- with any part of the vivosaur basically reviving them (and not just the head like in previous games). Bought the game instead of HGSS and I never regret that.

But yeah, Nintendo doesn't want to go after the whole genre. My guess is that they're whipping out the patents either because something specific was infringed upon, or they want to get rid of the game because of it being a blatant rip-off of pokemon, but the copyright with designs wouldn't hold up as well as a patent suit. I don't think either option is the best, but I also just don't really feel sympathy for PocketPair, as they aren't the "little guy" they're claiming to be. The CEO kinda asked for it by saying he doesn't want to innovate when making games and instead wants to ride the coattails of other game franchises.

@BrazillianCara Yeah, it seems a lot of the people who are taking the side of PocketPair are pretty much just angry at Nintendo/Gamefreak for how Scarlet and Violet ended up on a technical level. People who bash pokemon no matter what.. like how people flocked to TemTem because it was the "pokemon killer," and not because of the game living off of it's own merits.

On the other hand, it seems like the people defending Nintendo are basically the opposite extreme. They hate Pocketpair outright for copying the designs of Pokemon, and want the game removed from Steam and the company closed for good due to it.

Personally, I'm just of the mindset that Pocketpair flew too close to the sun, but Nintendo isn't outright in the full right either.

@StarryCiel Also yeah, this is what bugs me. People act like this for Palworld despite it basically being the most generic of the monster collecting games. One guy was saying that it was the "Most unique" game in the genre that he's played, and when I mentioned tons of other Monster Collecting titles the guy told me that those were all "Turn-based games." A good amount were, but they still put their own spin on their combat systems. I mentioned some that weren't as well- like Monster Rancher.. but I guess the guy never played Monster Rancher before.

@VoidofLight Just this year I've played Monster Hunter Stories 2, Dragon Quest Treasures, and New Denpa Men and enjoyed them all; there really is quite a lot of variety in monster taming games. People tend to focus on the few with more name recognition in the Palworld type arguments.

@PikaPhantom Although Pokemon definitely lifted a bunch of monster types from Dragon Quest (ghosty ball thing, monster caterpillar, etc) the actual art style was pretty different. And the mechanics are fairly different. Although I think it's important to realize Pokemon wasn't 'first' the argument 'a different company copied some ideas in the past so it is ok for our game to copy to a much larger extent' is a silly argument.

@VoidofLight Oh, right - Ni No Kuni is also a monster collecting game. I tried that out when I had a Game Pass trial and liked what I played of it enough to end up getting the Switch version.

@FishyS The thing about Dragon Quest is that you can tell it's a situation where they're inspired rather than copying outright. While some of the monsters in the original 151 mirror those found in Dragon Quest, a lot of them are mostly just because they're based off similar inspirations rather than being copies of Dragon Quest Monsters. Those that are closer- like Nidoran, tend to be moreso because of actual inspiration (the difference is that they made their own design rather than just taking elements of different Dragon Quest monsters and mixing them together).

@PikaPhantom I tried it- and I don't know if I like the combat. Mainly since you control the monsters manually whilst also controlling the player character. I'll probably get back into it and force myself to play it eventually though- seeing as I bought the game a while ago and I'm on a massive kick with clearing out my backlog.

@NinChocolate This isn't true. If this were the case, Level 5 would have been sued for making Yokai Watch.

I'm undecided if I'm just going to post the meme of Yami Yugi playing a trap card that's just the word "Yes" or not tbh. Probably leaning towards no, but more because of the ethics of the company behind Palworld regardless of Pokemon theft than anything.

I care about things that actually negatively affect human beings, and Palworld has not negatively affected a human being, AFAIK.

@NinChocolate In Japan, Nintendo made no money off of Yokai Watch. In America they helped to publish the game, but the games sold poorly in America. This is also ignoring the fact that games like Persona exist, which aren't published by Nintendo- nor was Nintendo making any money off that IP. Megaten as well. Game series that sell relatively well when compared to pokemon, and yet occupy the same space.

@kkslider5552000 It can negatively affect human beings, it's just not as overt. If Palworld steals Pokemon's designs, that could mean Pokemon makes less money. Less money means that Game Freak/TPC may need to let some staff go, and that could cause the affected staff to have trouble feeding their families. And in a legal system, these kinds of laws need to be applied generally. You can't just apply laws differently based on how big the involved parties are, you can't have a fair, just, and orderly society that way. If you're upset about Game Freak's lack of effort and polish, you want them to face consequences on that basis, not in some unrelated matter that isn't their fault.

@NinChocolate Looking through the list, about half of them look like knockoffs. They seem to just slip under the radar of being copy/paste jobs by mishmashing elements of existing Pokemon together, but in general they're recycling design elements of specific Pokemon that goes beyond just artstyle similarities.

In what reality does this even happen? I think every mainline Pokemon on Switch sold double or more of the entire Wii U console, the console cycle where Nintendo still didn't cut jobs because Iwata took a pay cut.

I mean, I am, but I would say this about most scenarios like this.

@NinChocolate Even then, again Persona. Nintendo makes nothing off of Persona and yet it's still a popular series that is allowed to exist. Persona was Sony's thing for far longer than Palworld. The first Persona game to be brought to switch was Persona 4 Golden back when it got the PC port. Until then, Persona 1 to Persona 5 were Playstation exclusive games.

@kkslider5552000 Maybe not in this specific scenario, but that could easily happen for other developers that are less altruistic than Iwata (that pay cut he took during the Wii U era is the exception, not the norm among CEOs, most CEOs are more willing to throw their underlings under the bus to save their own skins). The whole point of a legal justice system is to apply law equally to everyone maintain order. If you start making exceptions to one group or another based on innate differences like the size of the company, that group gains unfair power over others and becomes difficult to keep in check. In other words, those smaller companies you're trying to empower will become just as arrogant as Game Freak and TPC by treating them favorably based on their size.

@NinChocolate Persona is a monster collecting game, but the monsters are tools that you fuse into stronger monsters. Mostly based off of biblical figures. Digimon is another big monster collecting franchise that's been exclusive to Playstation before coming to Nintendo platforms. Bandai never got sued for making Digimon.

The point is that Nintendo isn't doing this to shut a company down because they want to be the only monster collecting game. If they wanted that, then they would've tried this years ago with multiple other franchises that were massively popular. Instead they didn't. The only reason they're doing it with Palworld is because Palworld genuinely copies game mechanics from Pokemon and Ark Survival Evolved. Mainly rooted in the CEO of Pocketpair's beliefs about not wanting to innovate with game dev, and wanting to instead make what's trendy.