The Case Against Palworld

support links:

Special thanks to @StepBackHistory , @mothcub , @KayAndSkittles , @HeyItsVadim , @TheSerfsTV, @ThoughtSlime , @BigJoel , @Patricia_Taxxon , vanoreo and Rational Big Boy for yelling at me

Referenced Links

Tracks Featured (listed as they appear):
Ocean - Pokemon R/B/Y OST
Pokemon Center - Pokemon S/V OST
Proto Palworld - Palworld OST
Lavender Town - Pokemon R/G OST
Celebratin - Wanda Shakes
Union Cave - Pokemon G/S OST
Brutal Strike - Palworld OST
Riding (Night) - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild OST
Welcome to the Madhouse - Batman: Arkham Asylum OST
Ratbag - Middle-Earth:Shadow of Mordor OST
Pokewalker - Pokemon HG/SS OST
Nintendo WiFi Connection - Pokemon D/P OST
A New Friend in Mafia Town - A Hat In Time OST
Inside The Castle Walls - Super Mario 64 OST
Verdanturf Town - Pokemon R/S/E OST
Littleroot Town - Pokemon R/S/E OST
Ending - Pokemon R/B OST

0:00 Pokemon Fans Are Angry
2:45 Palworld
7:00 Ad Break
8:05 Derivative Art
12:30 Is There A Lore Reason
15:00 A Scientific Analysis Of Monster Designs
17:20 The Blue Mario Question
20:30 Corporations vs Art
24:55 Palworld In Retrospect
31:15 Outro

#RocketMoneyPartner #palworld #plagiarism

[LackingSaint]

I thought I may as well use this to keep an updated list of responses/clarifications to comments, to help avoid confusion. See below:
1. "Why do you hate Palworld? / Why do you hate a game you haven't even played?"
Please watch the video. I don't hate Palworld, and I have been playing it during and after putting together this video. You can be critical of something or at least acknowledge criticism of it without having a personal vendetta.
2. "Nintendo is not the same as The Pokemon Company."
Big thanks to the user who pointed this out, I had mistakenly used them interchangably a few times in the video and meant to add a disclaimer. This is not strictly a meaningful distinction in all cases, due to Nintendo still being part of the TPC, but it is worth keeping in mind.
3. "The 'copied' fan artist design was proven faked."
I discuss two suspected cases of fan artist plagiarism in this video. In the Hangyu case, it appears to have been a complete coincedence with the original artist discovering the Palworld design likely predated their own. In the Wixen case, which is moreso discussed, the original popular fan artist design predates Palworld's development by several years, and was not 'proven faked'. Will also update if more developments occur here.
4. "The model comparisons were proven faked. / The account that made the comparisons admitted they lied and deleted their account."
I have yet to be shown any basis that the models were 'fabricated' for these comparisons - so far the only argument I have seen is that scaling the models to size is equivalent to 'fabrication', which as I mention in the video I find patently ridiculous. Your model does not become original work purely because you made it bigger. No, the account did not admit to 'lying' about ther comparisons. No, they did not delete their account (which is linked in the description).
5. "The person who made the thread comparing the Palworld models only dislikes the game for annoying animal rights reasons."
I really don't care. The reasons people like or dislike games are up to them, and have no relevance to me unless it is shown that they were fabricating evidence against the game (which, again, I've yet to see).

support links:

[sunlocked]

The real criticism that I, a Digimon fan, have is that Palworld fucking stole our spot as the Pokemon knockoff with guns! Digimon is much more than that yes, but that was our niche. We earned that spot, whether we deserved it in the first place or not.

[theforgetfulalchemist]

Mama Saint being so happy at getting "Bulbasaur" right is so adorable

[__-begk]

A lot of people, myself included, interpreted Nintendo's "investigation announcement" as a way to get people to stop sending them messages by saying "We know, stop telling us"

[MacheTheFerret]

don't let this well-made video distract you from the fact that jack's partner is very slowly and subtly developing a british accent
brit-ification is in progress, it must be stopped at all costs

[simpleswordsman]

The rant in the first minute about Pokemon games adding a cool feature and removing it in the next game is actually SO REAL.

[turquoiseyoshi]

i think watching brit explaining dexit to jack's confused mom is the best way to explain dexit

[Peashooter]

The thing that bothers me about this whole debate is people assuming those who dislike palworld do so because they're Pokémon fanboys. I'm personally mad because a glorified ARK mod is taking attention away from better monster tamers like Cassette Beasts.

[psypsy]

It's like if South Park needed an in-universe equivalent of Pokemon.

[florencafilms]

The separation between disliking Palworld in defense of Nintendo and in defense of originality in games is something that needs to be talked about more.
Thanks for making this video, I think you really hit the nail on the head when you said that a lot of the celebration of Palworld seems to come more from a place of spite against Nintendo than happiness at having a good game.

[kittycat]

For the love of god Jack, let your mother go, she doesn’t deserve this! Why are you teaching this poor woman all about angry LARP man and pocket monster rage 😭😭😭
Free jack’s mum!

[tormentor]

Independent of unoriginality, what really confused me about Palworld was people saying "This is the Pokémon game I've always wanted."
Which, just thinking about it for even just a second, means that they wanted a Pokémon game that is really nothing like a Pokémon game.

[дигл_лайв]

Another thing I think people often mix up is that criticism and "canceling" are not the same thing. You can criticize the game and still like it a lot. Just because you criticize the game doesn't mean you want it to be deleted and the company that made it destroyed. Like you can have an opinion that both the game is fun and also that it's shady and a has lot of derivative assets. They are not mutually exclusive opinions.

[Skyhigh]

I think the difference between Palworld copying the designs (either literally tracing the models or making new models that are so heavily “inspired”) and so many beat-em-up games using Arkham’s fight mechanics is something tabletop gamers have known for decades: you can copyright art and specific text, but you can’t copyright mechanics.

Game mechanics have been and will always be remixed, retooled, and repackaged into new games. It’s one of the main way we define genres. “Metroidvania” games are ripping off castlevania and Metroid. There are Doom clones, Diablo clones, and WoW clones. Gamers are used to all that. We expect it, even. If someone figures out a good way to do things, we want the language of games to expand to incorporate that new mechanic, and then we want to be “fluent” in that mechanic when we see it in another game.

But, the art? Gamers expect art to be unique. If you’re making a small fan game, like by yourself, then sure, most gamers aren’t gonna care if you use a bigger game’s art, because you’re just trying to get the game in your head out into the world, and programmers are rarely also artists. If you’re not even on Steam, we can excuse you for not having your own artistic spin on things. You just want to focus on the gameplay, ok, that’s fine.

But…at some point, a developer makes enough money that we’ll stop forgiving them for not hiring artists. We know that that’s the only barrier. Humans are infinitely creative; if you have the money, you can absolutely hire enough people to make your game look and sound unique. So, the only excuses for not doing so, (after some arbitrary limit that will change for every person and certainly isn’t always parallel to a legal limit) is laziness and/or greed.

As you point out, Palworld has numerous genuinely good and unique designs. They *could* have done that for all of their monsters. Smaller companies have done so. They chose not to, and that’s worth criticizing, if for no other reason than because if it becomes standard practice to remix well known models like this, we’ll never get original-looking games again.

[piebaldyeen]

The larger point you were making about the nature of derivative works in gaming is incredibly interesting! I'd LOVE it if you could do a video where you elaborate on that concept without being only in reference to current events.

[sophitiaofhyrule]

What I find frustrating is all the people saying Palworld is anti-corporation when the CEO loves plagiarism, AI and crypto. What's the point of an anti-Pokemon game when it's even less ethical than the original?

[heretictom]

Palworld is fun, but the obvious mishmash of visual elements makes it really hard to take seriously even without fussing over the ethical concerns.

[JenKunoichi]

As an artist, I felt I was going insane seeing people unironically pulling out that Dragon Quest chart as a gotcha. This whole incident honestly just made me realize that many non creative minded folk very earnestly do not know the difference between stealing and influence. Made me think about how back in high school, the kids who were really good at tracing would just get lumped together with the art kids.

[sleepbeinshy]

seeing big joel (aka the international right wing terrorist and war criminal Little Joel) in a video always give me a giggle. I love that big/little guy

[TheClassyCharmeleon]

The one angle to the 'everyone should be able to use any ip' argument always sticks with me in a weird way cause while I value it on its surface I worry what would happen if massive companies felt emboldened to steal from small creators even more blatantly than they already do.