Recently taking the gaming world by storm, Palworld, a new interactive online video game, is captivating enthusiasts globally and represents a mixture of infrastructure establishment, survival strategies and more. Created by Pocketpair, a Japanese game developer, Palworld, not unlike many games on the market right now, provides a vast open-world environment, allowing players to foster connections with unique creatures referred to as "pals."
This all happens while traversing the intricacies of resource management and tactical decision-making. In late January of this year, Palworld was finally released. It was met with commercial success and pending legal action, as its dedicated fan base began to liken the game to "Pokémon GO with guns."
Palworld's meteoric rise to success, evidenced by the sale of five million copies within a span of only three days, is a clear sign of its already lasting viral impact in the gaming community. According to Steam, the game achieved the second-highest number of concurrent players on the platform in its history, with 2,101,867 active players simultaneously. Though Palworld has stirred a considerable amount of positive attention, the game has also drawn criticism from devotees of Japan's most iconic animated franchise, Pokémon, due to character resemblances and open-world similarities.
As an online discourse against Palworld begins to escalate, Takuro Mizobe, CEO of Pocketpair, has recently reported receiving death threats directed at the company's developers. On the other hand, Serkan Toto, a prominent figure at the Japanese consultancy company Kantan Games, now attributes Palworld's emphatic success to its timely combination of multiplayer features with creature collection, shooter and survival genres, drawing comparisons to many games before it.
While Nintendo's Pokémon franchise basks in this unprecedented exposure and boost in popularity, recent iterations from the historic series have received mixed reviews. Brandon Huffman, a founding attorney at Raleigh-based firm Odin Law & Media, is confident Pocketpair has minimal legal concerns in the foreseeable future, citing the recurrent theme of borrowing concepts from former successes in the gaming industry. Additionally, Connor Richards, an attorney at the same firm and an avid player of Palworld, contends that the creature designs in the game bear minimal, if not zero, resemblance to Pokémon, alleviating growing concerns over potential copyright infringement, as initially reported by JDSupra.
Nintendo has yet to launch any formal legal suit against Pocketpair. Still, the game raises interesting copyright and trademark questions. This begs the question: is Palworld actually doing anything wrong? In the world of copyright law, the most obvious question is whether there are any substantial similarities between Palworld and Pokémon.
Under specific copyright laws, infringement can be proven if a "substantial similarity" exists between a copyrighted work and an accused work. That said, there is no set standard for determining substantial similarity. However, courts may factor in details such as the "total concept and overall feel" of the two works, comparing the level of creativity involved in procuring both.
According to legal experts, another interesting angle to take is trademark protection. Nintendo has established the Pokémon brand and characters over decades of publishing videogames, movies and a plethora of other content. While children have always been the target demographic for Pokémon, therefore never including guns in the games, Nintendo can instantly set themselves apart from a legal standpoint.
Nintendo has yet taken formal legal action against the Palworld creators but recently offered a statement on the matter. “We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024. We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon. 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,” stated an official post on the Pokémon website.
If Palworld is charged and discovered to be stealing assets, the repercussions would likely be monumental in scale, resulting in financial compensation or a complete cancellation of the title.
