Back when Palworld was released in January, we were all waiting to see what Nintendo and The Pokémon Company would do next. Well, they’re now finally taking legal action.
If it feels a bit strange that they waited this long to do anything, you need to understand that Pokémon is a very large, long-running, and complex franchise. If you want to secure the intellectual property of something like Pokémon, you need to do a great deal of preparation.
Not to mention, when something comes along that’s effectively “Pokémon with guns”, you need to really look into what it’s doing that potentially breaches your intellectual property rights.
So both companies have released statements today that both Nintendo and The Pokémon Company will be challenging the company Pocket Pair about infringing patents related to Pokémon.
Honestly, this legal reaction from both Nintendo and The Pokémon Company was inevitable, but this is a very high stakes and very public challenge that they have to win to protect the future of Pokémon.
Personally, for all of Palworld’s popularity, this kind of blatant plagiarism needs to be challenged. It’s taken decades of hard work to get Pokémon where it is and Palworld effectively piggybacks off that.
It’s not “disruption” or any other kind of breathlessly delivered tech VC buzzword; it’s just plagiarism and one at the expense of another franchise.
I’m not the hugest fan of Pokémon, but if Palworld was left unchallenged, that sets a very bad creative precedent for gaming. While some fans may be upset with how Pokémon has changed over the years, if games like Palworld are allowed to exist that means no game is safe from being copied outright.
From an financial standpoint, that would only make games even riskier in terms of their investment. That would be a devastating blow to all games everywhere, so a lot is riding on this legal challenge from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company.
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