Pokémon lawyers are very interested in Palworld

No one, starting with the developers at Palworld, should be very surprised to learn this.

It’s a little more than a detail. It’s difficult in fact, for anyone who has ever played a Pokémon game, not to see disturbing similarities between the legendary Japanese license and the enormous success of the video game at the start of the year, Palworld. A resemblance which has inevitably been noted by many players and fans of the license. The Pokemon Company, which is known for being trigger-happy when it comes to defending its intellectual property, has not yet drawn its lawyers. But the company still deigned to comment on the disturbing resemblance between its games and that of the studio which has the audacity to step on its toes.

A phenomenal success… and similar criticisms

Pokémon fans didn’t wait for The Pokémon Company to issue a statement on the issue to criticize the game. While Pocketpair, the studio behind Palworld, describes its game as closer to Ark Survival than Pokémon, the comparisons are nevertheless largely understandable. The gameplay of capturing monsters (whose artistic direction is also reminiscent of Pokémon), experience for the latter, or even elemental attacks among others is not really unprecedented. But it would be wrong and reductive to reduce Palword to a simple copy of the legendary Japanese license. Because to the mechanics of capturing monsters and leveling up, we must still add the dimensions of survival, crafting, resource farming, and of course firearms which are absent from Pokémon games.

We can also argue that, if Pokémon generally created this type of video game, the Japanese company has not made a huge effort to renew it in nearly 30 years of existence, and new generations, just like the new decorations of each edition, were not really revolutions. It must be recognized that the constantly renewed success of the new titles in the license did not really push it to reinvent itself. So Palworld did it for them.

The Pokemon Company finally reacts, without deigning to name Palworld

In a press release posted on its site this Thursday, The Pokemon Company simply commented that the company had “ received a lot of reports regarding another company’s game released in January 2024. We have not granted any permission regarding Pokémon intellectual property for this game […]. We intend to investigate and take appropriate action in the event that Pokémon’s intellectual property is not respected »
.

It is likely, however, that the comparisons between the two games are not really a surprise to Pocketpair’s legal department, and that they have taken measures to avoid crossing paths with Pokémon’s lawyers as much as possible. Because if there are any infringements of The Pokemon Company’s intellectual property, they will catch them all.

Source : TechCrunch