Nintendo is Going After Palworld - (Its Not What You Think)

With a new Patent Infringement lawsuit from Nintendo (aimed at Pocket Pair, the developers of Palworld for their similarities to Pokemon), I wanted to take some time and discuss the likelihood of this lawsuit ending up in Nintendos favor, despite very little long term consequences for Palworld as a game, and the historical precedent for why this outcome seems most probable.

As gaming fans on either side interpret the lawsuit and dig their heels in... reality may be a lot less extreme, and a lot more reasonable for two giant (and very successful) companies.

#palworld #nintendo #pokemon

[miguelrodrigues]

Even funnier is that Craftopia, a game made before Palword by Pocket Pair, already had a mechanic to catch monsters and even bosses.

[Sparticulous]

Nintendo is trying to break the video game industry if lawyers let this fly. People can patent game mechanics that are thirty years old and then apply it to existing video games

[jamesford]

A patent for catching something in a ball, in a video game…What a joke

[existentialselkath]

Nintendo has patents on things that almost every game infringes upon. They can sue almost everyone yet only decide to do so when they see competition. That's straight up anti competetive.

Gamesradar had the example of Nintendo patenting a character in an isometric game being visible behind objects as a shadow/silhouette. That's almost every modern isometric game.

[TheCoolCore]

Hopefully, Nintendo loses, patenting mechanics is such a bad move for creativity in the industry. Pocketpair shouldn't settle if all possible, Nintendo needs a reality check for 25 years of zero innovation with Pokemon.

[Aka-Spade]

Reminder: Nintendo alleges *multiple* patent infringements, and those infringements have not been disclosed. This is speculation, not fact.

[YawaruSan]

Nintendo needs to fail, it’s not just for Pocketpair’s sake, the entire video game industry is ruined by destructive self-obsessed narcissism like this patent trolling. Owning the concepts behind game mechanics is stupid and Nintendo needs to be put in its place.

[ikillomega]

Two important things to keep in mind: Nintendo is a litigious company and has a history of being a bully, especially to people and companies they know they can push around; and secondly, they and Pocketpair operate out of Japan, whose copyright laws are draconian at best and have little protections for who we would call the 'little guy'. Even in the most minor cases of copying or infringement of any sort, the courts will lean in favor of the original copyright holder discriminately. The problem here, from a purely Western perspective, is Nintendo looks like the bully. Nintendo's defenders (fanboys) who will jump in front of the proverbial bullet for them if it came to that have been praying for Palworld's downfall from the start, and while we in the West are used to games that are clones or copies, it's not easy to get away with especially against Nintendo. If you're getting into the games industry, or already are, you know NOT to screw with them, they're fast, merciless, and unrelenting. In Palworld's case, as this video and others have pointed out, Nintendo was scoffing at first until the game showed them up and embarrassed them, and now they want to stamp them out however they can. It's dirty business, it's bad PR from a Western perspective, but it's their prerogative, too. Personally, I think Nintendo look like assholes right now.

[MrScarduelli]

And people say that patents are good to “promote inovation”

What a joke, it is just a way for government to protect big corporations

[DarkSeraph]

meanwhile they openly endorsed Cassette Beasts. A Pokemon inspired monster catching game.
it's a little more complicated than people think.
I'm waiting for the end result

[YawaruSan]

Stop downplaying Nintendo’s malicious behavior. Nintendo is the asshole, period.

[orrax]

so if nintendo can do this why cant id software patent the full 3d FPS because of Quake?

[paweplaczek]

Nintendo did submit patents for several other things in Japan around time of Palworld reveal. This included releasing a monster by throwing an item on the battlefield. Basicaly mount summoning mechanic especialy a mount that is flying and lands on the ground after summoing to allow player to get on it. Those patents are specific to Japan. Most likely reason is that mayor courts such as US or EU would consider it patent trolling as those are common mechanics in games.

[knnhn]

I don't care if Palworld wins. I just want Nintendo to lose.

[Aqsticgod]

so nintendo gets to churn out progressively more crap games with the pokemon franchise while any competition is stifled? isnt that illegal?

[Snakedudelife]

Gameplay patents really shouldn’t be a thing.
Imagine if someone had patented “throwing a ball to another person”: Congratulations! The only ball game that can be played is some primitive form of catch.

🎩
🐍 no step on snek!🇺🇸🇭🇰

[raymond]

People: "Hey Nintendo, could you make a half decent Pokemon game? It's been a while since you've given us.... anything"

Nintendo: "Lol nah, don't need to"

Pocketpair: "Here's something that people might like"

Nintendo: "Lmfao yea right, no one will want your offbrand slop"

People: "Nice, I like this, I will buy this game"

Nintendo: "Wait, you can't do that, I'm going to destroy your company and then I'm going to figure out how to punish anyone that played the game"

[shadowforge]

Heres the thing I don't see anybody talking about, Pocketpair has another game called Craftopia that is pretty much a Breath of the Wild rip off that came out 4 years ago. That game ALSO has catching mechanics just like Palworld, that means since Nintendo didn't go after it Pocketpair can just claim they got the mechanic from their pre established game and non Pokemon.

[TheLuceon]

First thing I want to point out: 6:50 claiming that Nintendo 'won' their lawsuit against the other company on a patent claim is not accurate. As even pointed out in the video, it was settled. Settling (at least generally) means a trial does not happen, or at least does not fully conclude, taking the ability for a judge/jury to determine if the suing party claim is even valid. Settling does not make for precedent and for good reason. Nintendo achieved its goal, absolutely, but I would not take that case as precedent for Nintendo winning if a trial did take place with Palworld.

Second: 10:12 I don't really agree that Nintendo just wants money. I view it as them trying to a. sap funds from the competitor and b. making an example of them (Nintendo loves example making, history of it) to stifle others from getting too close to Whatever Nintendo deems is theirs.

All in all, I have no idea what Palworld devs will do. It is very interesting that Sony got in bed with the devs, I genuinely wonder what that contract looks like (did it include anything to do with Palworld or is it solely just Palworld devs making some new games for Sony?). I don't really believe Nintendo is trying to (but would like to if it could) bury Palworld, but Nintendo absolutely IS trying to exert and maintain control.

[aurondoxon]

I predict that Palworld will now use the sphere launcher as the default method to catch Pals as it's technically not "throwing" the spherical capsule but instead shooting it. Would also fit the theme of Palworld with their gun thing lol

(Also summoning the Pals will have you shoot at whatever surface you're looking at)