It’s hard to miss the new successful phenomenon game, Palworld. However, this one is the victim of a big controversy, as one could imagine.
This is not the first time that we have talked to you about Palworld on Gameblog for its very close resemblance to the Pokémon universe. We even ironically called it “Pokémon with guns”, as its resemblance to the Nintendo franchise was simply undeniable. Well, in fact, the new game is currently at the heart of a big controversy. This was somewhat to be expected, unfortunately.
Palworld: accusation of plagiarism and massive use of AI
The recent survival game on Steam, Palworld, developed by Japanese studio Pocketpair, is currently at the heart of a plagiarism controversy. The controversy mainly concerns design similarities with the famous Pokémon, a situation made worse by the creator’s past linked to generative artificial intelligence tools. An entire program…
Since its early access launch on PC and Xbox, Palworld has quickly experienced meteoric success. Even claiming two million sales in just 24 hours. However, this craze has also reignited debates around blatant similarities between the designs of Palworld characters and those of the Pokémon series. Despite its orientation towards survival gameplay similar to games like Ark or Rust, the influence of Nintendo’s franchise is clearly visible. It would be bad form to assert the contrary.
Plagiarism or not plagiarism?
Moreover, Internet users have noted and shared worrying similarities between the creatures of Palworld, called Pals, and Pokémon. Raising questions about the authenticity and originality of these. Voices are being raised on social networks to criticize Palworld, going so far as to suggest a reuse of existing Pokémon.
Pocketpair’s history with generative AI tools further complicates the situation. In particular, an artist who frequently comments on social media named Zaytri pointed out that one of Pocketpair’s previous games, AI: Art Imposter, relied heavily on an AI image generator as a central element of the game. We will come back to this more, but for the moment there is no proof of any of this. On a related note, Takuro Mizobe, CEO of Pocketpair, previously expressed his enthusiasm for using AI image generators in content creation. A controversial practice in creative circles. These tools are sometimes seen as substitutes for professional artists, exploiting their works without authorization.
Nintendo remains silent for the moment
Of course, this doesn’t confirm that Palworld’s designs were made with the help of AI. But this hypothesis could explain some of the similarities observed, especially since the Palworld development team was mostly inexperienced. Composed partly of amateurs and even of a former convenience store employee, even if everything is obviously possible.
In a recent blog post, the CEO revealed that the majority of Palworld’s character concepts were developed by a single recent graduate student, who had failed in her applications to numerous companies. Despite these controversies, Palworld enjoys very positive reception on Steam, with largely favorable ratings among over 43,000 reviews.
We know that Nintendo is always on the lookout when it comes to plagiarism. For the moment the Japanese company is quite calm. It remains to be seen what will happen in the future. This is not the first time that a universe has been accused of plagiarizing Pokémon. This was also the case at the time for Digimon. The problem is that the Palworld game already benefits from a Pokémon mod. Enough to really attract the attention of Big N.
What do you think of the game?
Opinions differ greatly on the game, even among the developers. A comment also sparked strong reactions, because a Naughty Dog developer (@TheCartelDel) explained that he had an intuition that the game was “malicious” (implied, that there was something wrong with it). Update: the original message has been deleted by the developer in question.
On the other hand, some developers, like Dinga Bakaba from Arkane, defend Palworld by explaining that the game ultimately hits the nail on the head:
Ultimately, this game found the center of an improbable Venn diagram :
People who like Pokémon: Cool, Pokémon with weapons
People who don’t like Pokémon: Cool, Pokémon with weapons
THE players who like survival games: A survival game!
The use of AI: no proof yet
At the same time, he also defends the studio on the use of AI, explaining that these are only suspicions, and that no concrete proof has been provided.
The suspicion is legitimate, but I am uncomfortable with the fact that it is said to be a fact, it is misinformation.
So AI or not AI? In a long thread, he explains that the game is inspired by Rust and Ark, and that it is in fact a gigantic melting pot:
What this game is: A survival game inspired (from the developer’s mouth) by Ark and Rust. Its main hook is the amount of imitations, references, parodies and (effectively) mixtures of designs and concepts from successful games: Pokemon, BOTW, Elden Ring, Minecraft, Fortnite at the very least.
Wasn’t this big mix an additional difficulty for the game? On the official blog, we can read some rather unexpected comments from the CEO and the Palworld studio:
Looking at the results, it’s truly a miracle that Palworld is now finished and released in this manner.
Further, we can even wonder how the game could have been developed. We can thus read:
For starters, no one on the team has a strong preference for guns. I don’t have any particular preferences either. I know about the AK-47, but when I hear about the caliber or something like that, I give up.
These comments are quite disturbing when we know that the game highlights firearms and that they have a large place in the gameplay.