In January 2024, Palworld entered Early Access. Quickly, parallels to Nintendo’s Pokémon were drawn. Six months ago, the company planned to consider a lawsuit. Now, a Palworld developer has given an update.
Why would Nintendo want to sue Palworld? Palworld is a survival game where you can build and catch cute creatures called Pals. These look very similar in design to Nintendo’s well-known Pokémon. Additionally, Pal Spheres, which look much like Nintendo’s Pokéballs, are needed for catching.
On social media, Pal designs have also been frequently compared to Pokémon. This post was published on reddit, among others.
Nintendo is also known as a company that quickly resorts to lawsuits as a means of action. Here are a few examples:
Nintendo sued an emulator for Switch games. They also took legal action against an artist who was crowdfunding for hand-painted guides. They even had a YouTuber who discovered a secret Zelda game take down the respective video. Another YouTuber had 28 videos with 55 million views banned by Nintendo as of April 2023.
Due to the high similarity between Palworld and Pokémon, many feel that the thought of a copyright lawsuit is not far-fetched. In fact, Nintendo released a statement on this matter in January 2024:
6 months later – And now?
What does the developer say? In an interview with Game File, the Lead Creator of Palworld, Takuro Mizobe, spoke about the game. Among other things, the discussion involved whether Nintendo had contacted the Palworld developer Pocket Pair in the meantime.
In fact, Mizobe says: [We have] heard nothing at all. Nintendo and the Pokémon Company have not said anything to us.
Nintendo had originally announced that they would consider a lawsuit. Even now, about six months after the release of Palworld, according to the developer, nothing has happened in that regard – contrary to many expectations.
What did the situation look like in January? Even around the release of the game, the topic was heavily discussed. Pokémon fans were angry because Palworld had stolen their designs.
A mod was also relatively quickly released on Nexusmods, which turned the Pals into their Pokémon equivalents. An announcement video was swiftly taken down by Nintendo on YouTube and TikTok. Nexusmods also removed it from their site and stated that they did not wish to host any Pokémon mods for the game.
Of course, it is still possible that Nintendo will sue Pocket Pair. Palworld is still live, and it may take longer for Nintendo’s lawyers to review the lawsuit. MeinMMO asked for an expert opinion on this topic from lawyer Christian Solmecke. How he assesses the situation can be read here: Could Nintendo successfully sue the Steam hit Palword? – We ask a lawyer
