SUMMARY
- Palworld has been making waves on Steam and Pokemon Company seems to be have noticed.
- The Pokemon Company has issued a statement that they received many inquiries and will be investigating a game, without naming it.
Palworld, created by Tokyo-based Pocketpair, is a survival adventure game. In these games, players are dropped into an unfriendly open world and must survive by gathering supplies, making tools, and, of course, fending off hostile creatures, such as ravenous wolves or space aliens. First revealed in 2021, it was made available for Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S early access in January 2024.
Since its early access launch, Palworld has been an unexpected success, selling over 7 million copies in just five days and ranking second in terms of concurrent users on Steam.
Along with its Pokemon-like features, which have led some developers to accuse the game’s creator of copying concepts, the game’s usage of tropes and traditions from other popular survival games most notably Ark and Rust has also caused controversy.
Nintendo to investigate Palworld
The Pokemon Company is partially owned by Nintendo, which is notorious for its zealous defense of intellectual property. The Pokemon Company has now issued a statement on the game, stating that it has “received many inquiries regarding” another game, amid rumors that the survival game Palworld may have plagiarized sections of its creature designs from Pokemon. Pokemon Company did not name any game in their statement.
Wario64 discovered the message, which was posted on The Pokemon Company’s Japanese website along with an English translation. “We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024”.
Nintendo went on to say that they have not given any consent for the game’s usage of any intellectual property or assets related to Pokemon. Additionally, they plan to look into any infringements on Pokemon-related intellectual property rights and take appropriate action.
The final line of the statement from Nintendo, “We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future,” distinguishes Palworld’s brutal take on the monster-collecting concept from the happy world of Pokemon.
In another instance, a modder who added real Pokemon characters to Palworld has previously been subject to a DMCA from Nintendo. As a result, the mod has been taken down from both his YouTube video and tweet.
It remains to be seen if the Pokemon Company will pursue legal action against Palworld’s developer due to its purported resemblance to Pokémon monster designs.