SUMMARY
- Palworld is making waves that are great and controversial.
- Palworld, like other PC games, has received a few mods, some of which have already been taken down.
Although Pocket Pair attracted quite some controversy ahead of launch, Palworld was up for a dashing start after it was released on January 18, 2024. However, now, after a week of unprecedented success, things seem to be going down south for the action-adventure survival game.
Palworld opened to great success both in terms of concurrent players as well as copies sold despite being in early access and turned out to be the first blockbuster of the year. The game also received a small update with a promise of a bigger update on its way.
The game which initially released only Xbox and PC, was also announced to arrive on PlayStation in due time. The developers also announced the addition of several demanded features including PvP and raids to the game. However, the past few days have been a bit rough for the developers.
Nintendo issues notice to Palworld
Although Palworld had been accused of being a rip-off of Nintendo’s Pokemon since day one of its announcement, Nintendo had refrained from talking about it. Palworld bears many similarities to Pokemon in terms of character design, creature-catching mechanism, and more.
Fans had even termed the game as being ‘Pokemon with guns’, due to the only visible difference being the use of guns and weapons in Palworld. After stirring a lot of controversy over it, it was expected that The Pokemon Company, partially owned by Nintendo, would react to the use of their IP.
However, surprisingly, they stayed low, letting the game release, and enjoy its early success. A few days after release, a YouTuber uploaded a video and announced that they were working on a Pokemon mod in Palworld which would seemingly transform Pals into Pokemon. That’s when Nintendo decided to take down the video over a DMCA notice. Nonetheless, the creator said he still plans to release it for free.
Just two days later, Nintendo issued a statement that they were looking into the matter, saying, “We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024.” Not only that. they also announced that they are investigating the matter for any infringements on Pokemon-related intellectual property rights and that they would take appropriate action.
Nexus mods refuse Palworld mods
Like any other game, Palworld was also expected to get mods over time. But the last thing the modding community wants in this case is being sued by or getting handed a DMCA notice by an industry giant like Nintendo.
Thus, following Nintendo’s statement, Nexus Mods, the biggest modding platform, has announced that they will not host the Pokemon mods for Palworld. They revealed that this cancellation was out of a fear of legal action from Nintendo.
Nexus Mods refuses to host Palworld Pokémon mods out of fear of legal action from Nintendo. https://t.co/waLI3esh8J pic.twitter.com/FeY3mgKovj
— IGN (@IGN) January 25, 2024
Nexus Mods community lead Mathew Elliott said that the platform is “not comfortable” hosting Pokemon mods for the successful Palworld, however, it will allow other mods for the game. Elliott said, “As you may know, Nintendo (who jointly own the Pokemon franchise) has a consistent record of mercilessly submitting legal challenges, DMCAs, and takedowns against fan-made content.”
“Given Palworld’s similarity to the Pokemon franchise as a base game, hosting content that adds copyrighted characters or assets into the game is almost certainly going to put us at risk of legal action. We don’t think it’s worth the risk to allow this content to be shared in our community,” they added.
Elliot further goes on to say if they host Pokemon mods for Palworld, the last thing that can happen is Nintendo issuing DMCA/legal threats to them. And the worst can go up to Nintendo seeking action against them and uploaders of the mods.
“There are many creative opportunities to explore mods for this game that add to the world and gameplay, but do not infringe on existing IP so obviously. We’re really excited to see what the Palworld modding community comes up with,” Elliot said
Meanwhile, there are already a number of Palworld mods available on Nexus Mods. These include tweaking gameplay, enhancing the visuals, and unlocking maps.