A former lawyer who worked for the Pokémon Company speaks out about the case Palworld. He wonders how such a project, similar to Pokémon, can exist.
“ It looks like a common scam, like I saw a thousand times a year when I was general counsel for Pokémon. I’m mostly surprised he got this far. »: this comment is signed Don McGowan, former CLO (Chief Legal Officer) of Pokémon Company, quoted by Game File in an article published on January 22. Like many others, he gives his opinion on Palworlda hyper-cynical video game phenomenon which is accused of plagiarizing Pokémon a little too much.
In the eyes of someone who worked for the Pokémon Company for over ten years, Palworld would therefore be a slightly too obvious copy of the Pokémon games (we even find the “shiny” creatures). And, according to his words, it should not even be available for sale because of this overly strong resemblance. He finds himself in disagreement with some of his colleagues, who believe that Pokémon Company will hardly be able to win on the sole grounds of imitation.
Palworld developers defend themselves against plagiarism accusations
Faced with the numerous accusations hanging over his studio, the CEO of Pocketpair told Automation: “ We make our games very seriously, and we have absolutely no intention of stealing intellectual property from other companies. » According to Bloomberg, Nintendo, exclusive distributor of the Pokémon license, has indicated that it does not comment on individual cases, while Pokémon Company remains very silent for the moment.
As we discover in this article from Video Games Chronicle published on January 22, some Internet users have found evidence according to which Palworld would use 3D Pokémon assets — which would then amount to theft (which would have to be legally proven). The media interviewed developers and one of them explains: “ Under no circumstances can you accidentally reproduce the proportions of multiple 3D models of the same game, without stealing the models in question. Or, at a minimum, without tracing them in a very meticulous manner. I could testify in court as an expert on this subject. » For them, the Pocketpair developers may have taken Pokémon assets and drawn on top of them. Which would explain the similarities.
To date, Pokémon Company and Nintendo have not attacked Pocketpair and, as the days pass, sales of Palworld accumulate. On Steam, the game has exceeded 7 million copies sold, a performance achieved in five days (a figure that does not take into account Xbox Game Pass and the Xbox version). On the other hand, the two companies have already done what is necessary to make the Pokémon mod disappear, as one would expect. “ Nintendo came to me », said Toaster, the content creator who unveiled the audacious project. “ Listen to me carefully, we’re going to put Pals in Pokémon », he threatens in a tweet published on January 24.
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