I'm late as hell to covering this story, but that means I'm right on time according to Nintendo's latest actions in the legal world. We all remember the meteoric rise of Palworld. That game was on every streamers' rotation and beyond that, even regular gamers were hopping in to experience "Pokémon with guns". I never hopped on the bandwagon myself but the appeal was easy to see: it was a Pokémon game that actually dared to do something different with the gameplay. The inspiration was tangible though, and at the time the community constantly joked about Nintendo planning to sue the devs as many of the "Pal" designs were suspiciously similar to Pokémon. Welp, months after Palword's peak when it's not even a big talking point anymore, Nintendo has decided to enact vengeance and attack the company with a lawsuit... against the game mechanics?
That's right. While many folks predicted a lawsuit to smack Palworld around for plagiarized creature designs, so far the reports for this case indicate that Nintendo is attempting to focus on patent theft. Patents are more for inventions and innovations rather than creature designs (as that falls more into copyright). If you're thinking "wait, what the fuck, but that's the main unique part of Palworld" and are very confused, that was the general response to this lawsuit's announcement. Nintendo has an incredibly strong copyright theft case and for some reason are choosing to try and confront Palworld for doing the thing they refuse to do with their modern games: innovate. While Palword is visually very reminiscent of Pokémon, the presence of shit like automatic rifles, crafting, and real-time battles clearly distinguish the gameplay mechanics and puts the game in its own lane. From what we can see so far, it appears Nintedo are trying to say they stole their patent of using spheres to catch creatures or some ultra-generic shit like that. Gamers are extremely disappointed by this move as game mechanic patents are usually very shit and restrictive for the industry overall. It's why you don't see anyone putting minigames in the loading screen, or the popular Nemesis System from Middle-earth: Shadow of War seeing other interpretations. Those systems are locked down by patents. Speaking of system, at least Palworld just announced its arrival on PS5 at the State of Play baby. Looks like they aren’t prepared to go down without a fight.
No Gojo, don't use the forbidden Nintendo Brand Circular Capture Device!!!
Just like my article, it's so late it's hard to understand the point in the first place. Nintendo are scrambling after the fact to try and limit the creative freedom of the game industry even further while they refuse to come up with new ideas for Pokémon games themselves. Fans are sad. Devs are sad. I'm sad. I wonder if this company even has any goodwill left these days. Did you hear about the lawsuit? Did you play Palworld back during the craze? Did you expect Nintendo to take the patent angle? Grab a spherical object, toss it at a non-descript animal-like being, and hide your finances in the comments below!
