Palworld

[542365]

That's a satire article

Ahhh, my bad. They got me Glad to hear it.

 

[Mikeaveli]

I have to say the way this game's success has people melting down on Twitter is more entertaining than the game itself lol. Idk if its Nintendo fanboys or what but people are so angry over a game that obviously isn't meant to be taken seriously, its hilarious.

 

[HanSolo]

Played it for a few hours yesterday. Fun enough premise but feels like a game that you need to play with friends after a certain amount of hours of solo play to keep things from getting stale.

 

[Seedtype]

Palworld beats Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 with an all-time peak player count of more than 1.8 million

Everyone needs a Pal.

www.pcgamer.com

Sheesh, I hope someone makes Pokemon/Escape From Tarkov-like next.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Even though this game does look like soulless survival crafting slop, I will give it a fair shake since it’s on gamepass

 

[The Merchant]

Having a blast with it. Super addictive gameplay loop and the base-building is fun. Kind of hilarious that it took a $30 indie Pokemon clone to show everyone just how horrendously GameFreak has treated the franchise.

 

[Turin]

Still has more effort/heart put into it than Pokemon has had since probably generation 4 or 5.

Gen 5 is a top-tier gen. Everything after went to hell tho.

 

[Smoke]

Nintendo zealots provide top tier entertainment.

This game is fantastic.

 

[syz]

他社ゲームに関するお問い合わせについて｜株式会社ポケモン｜The Pokémon Company

ポケモンという存在を通して、現実世界と仮想世界の両方を豊かにすること。株式会社ポケモンのコーポレートサイトです。

corporate.pokemon.co.jp

Nintendo is "investigating."

 

[Smoke]

他社ゲームに関するお問い合わせについて｜株式会社ポケモン｜The Pokémon Company

ポケモンという存在を通して、現実世界と仮想世界の両方を豊かにすること。株式会社ポケモンのコーポレートサイトです。

corporate.pokemon.co.jp

Nintendo is "investigating."

This is just them trying to tell people to stop telling them.

One guy released a Pokemon mod for Palworld and within hours received a DMCA.

If Nintendo had a problem with the game they would have axed it in development.

 

[Jussi]

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

What is the end game/point of it? It's definitely addicting but I'm having trouble finding something that will keep me going.

I had a great time with Grounded, but I also waited until Grounded was complete to play it so that there was an actual point to it.

 

[Hammettf2b]

What is the end game/point of it? It's definitely addicting but I'm having trouble finding something that will keep me going.

I had a great time with Grounded, but I also waited until Grounded was complete to play it so that there was an actual point to it.

According to my best friend @Kairi Zaide, there isn't one.

 

[LarKing]

Surprised more people aren't talking about this. Really fun gameplay and a great idea for a game. It's actually hilarious how Pokémon couldn't make a game with this one's success

 

[PeteWorrell]

Surprised more people aren't talking about this. Really fun gameplay and a great idea for a game. It's actually hilarious how Pokémon couldn't make a game with this one's success

It's not surprising considering Game Freak have a poor record at reinventing themselves. They have been relying on nostalgia with remakes and pumping out as many games as possible. It makes for uninspired games that have been getting more and more bugs but people still buy them.

 

[Soedy]

News Release : Sep. 19, 2024 "Filing Lawsuit for Infringement of Patent Rights against Pocketpair, Inc." (nintendo.co.jp)

Nintendo is suing the devs. This is not about the design more about game mechanics (specificailly it seems about catching creatures:

I think I found the patent :
STORAGE MEDIUM STORING GAME PROGRAM, GAME SYSTEM, GAME APPARATUS, AND GAME PROCESSING METHOD Publication number: 20230191255 Abstract: In a first mode, an aiming direction in a virtual space is determined based on a second operation input, and a player character is caused to launch, in the aiming direction, an item that affects a field character disposed on a field in the virtual space, based on a third operation input. In a second mode, the aiming direction is determined, based on the second operation input, and the player character is caused to launch, in the aiming direction, a fighting character that fights, based on the third operation input. Type: Application Filed: September 21, 2022
US Patent Application for STORAGE MEDIUM STORING GAME PROGRAM, GAME SYSTEM, GAME APPARATUS, AND GAME PROCESSING METHOD Patent Application (Application #20230191255 issued June 22, 2023) - Justia Patents Search
This was filed at an appropriate time, no doubt to coincide with Legends: Arceus, and unfortunately looks like it would cover Palworld. Specifically the accuracy and catch rate calculation stuff (not in the abstract, but it's in the main body of the patent).
Note this is the US patent, but they probably have similar claims in Japan. Also, unfortunately, the claims are probably narrow enough to stand up in court, while being broad enough to cover Palworld.

Source: NeoGAF).

Don't know what to think of it.

 

[Albatros]

I feel for the Nintendo lawyer team that was locked up in a meeting room for 8 months.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

I'm torn about how to feel about this. On one hand, I hate massive companies being litigious toward smaller companies. But on the other hand, it's pretty obvious that this game is a Pokémon ripoff... Haven't played the game, but it seems like a lot of people enjoy.

 

[Seedtype]

Interesting lawsuit, but why hasn't Nintendo ever sued all the other Pokemon clones then?

 

[PeteWorrell]

Interesting lawsuit, but why hasn't Nintendo ever sued all the other Pokemon clones then?

This one made a lot of money.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I'm torn about how to feel about this. On one hand, I hate massive companies being litigious toward smaller companies. But on the other hand, it's pretty obvious that this game is a Pokémon ripoff... Haven't played the game, but it seems like a lot of people enjoy.

Yeah same. I see the internet is up in arms over this but Palworld looked (I haven't played it) super similar to Pokemon's specific game loop.

From what I understand with Nintendo's IPs, it's their world and we're all just living in it. They only do things how they want to do them and the consumers just deal with it. Apparently there's been a lot of frustration with the Pokemon series lately, I wouldn't know myself, but I can empathize with people being angry at Nintendo here.

 

[Knave]

I'm curious where this goes. Pocketpair's game engine which they reused in Palworld predates all these patents. Nintendo's aggressive patenting seems to date to late 2021 and early 2022 from what I've seen people write.

Palworld is essentially Pokemon Breath of the Wild. I get they're not the most upstanding group you would want to win a court case. It's clear what they were doing (ripping off Nintendo and not just with Palworld) and they were massively successful at it to where they rival the biggest Switch game sales numbers with an early access game that had no marketing behind it.

But I don't like the idea of Nintendo having an enforceable patent of a creature coming out of a high tech device (spherical or not) and the mechanical controls of how that's done with joysticks or button pads. I don't like the idea of patenting holding a glider over your head to glide off a cliff to the ground safely in a video game. These kinds of patents are bad for the game industry.

 

[Blitzkrug]

The patent isn't really the motivation here imo. Nintendo is just using it because it's the easier way into court rather than trying to fight on copyright grounds since one is more clear than the other.

"Controllable Character Uses Movement, Aiming, and Launching Inputs To Launch A Projectile At A NPC Entity That Then Calculates A Capture Precentage To Determine Success And If Successful Places That Entity In Player Possession" is a lot more straightforward than going "Hey that one pal looks kinda similar to our Lucario design"

Nintendo is more than likely assmad that because of this game existing, their Pokemon brand *may* get loosely associated with things the big N wants nothing to do with, like guns for example. There's actually a history regarding this type of stuff in Japan. General rule of thumb is while yes, devs/publishers patent everything and anything, they generally don't sue each other if it's breached because it's understood they all steal/borrow ideas from each other anyways. It's essentially an unspoken code of honor that actually became the subject of Nintendo getting egg on their face from trying to subvert it. In typical corporate cronyism fashion, the big guys will obey this but god forbid you're a smaller company that happens to catch their ire.

It's an interesting rabbit hole because once you start digging into the sheer amount of crap that has been patented you wonder why this doesn't happen more. For example, Ninendo filed some truly absurd patents after Tears of the Kingdom came out. Nintendo patents Link's Tears of the Kingdom abilities, and the loading screen. This video also goes into detail as to how this "code" works and how Nintendo caught shit for trying ignore it.

 

[Mikeaveli]

For those who haven't played Palworld, in terms of gameplay it's actually more similar to Valheim or Minecraft than Pokemon. It's a survival game with monster catching mechanics thrown in where you acquire monsters to both battle with and use as literal slaves at your camp lol. Combat is completely real-time.

It amazes me that "you can capture monsters in both games" is apparently enough to warrant a lawsuit. I guess Atlus missed their chance to sue Nintendo as they were doing it almost a decade before Pokemon Red and Blue.