Palworld, which launched earlier this year, has faced scrutiny from Nintendo for its similarities to Pokemon.
Back in January, The Pokemon Company mentioned plans to look into Palworld. Now, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have decided to sue Palworld’s developer, Pocketpair, not for copyright infringement, but for patent infringement. Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games and a video game analyst, pointed out that Nintendo has used this approach before against other companies.
Toto told 404 Media that in 2018, Nintendo used similar tactics against Colopl, a Japanese mobile game developer. This led to a $30 million settlement in Nintendo’s favor. Now, Colopl pays Nintendo to use certain patents, and Toto thinks Pocketpair might end up having to do the same.
“I think that the profit margin is probably sky high for Palworld and I think that Nintendo didn’t like that one bit and said, ‘Look, they’re basically stealing our character designs,'” said Toto. “‘We cannot do anything about this. So let’s screw them with other things, like… patents that are very, very technical. The patents are not listed yet, so we don’t know which patents. We don’t know which patents Nintendo is actually talking about, but I bet with you already today that it’s going to be highly, highly technical things.'” People sometimes wonder why companies act this way.
Toto believes Palworld won’t be shut down because of the lawsuit, but he thinks Nintendo wants to punish Pocketpair for making a game too similar to Pokemon.
“I think that Nintendo just saw these guys are getting too aggressive,” added Toto. “Nintendo thinks Pocketpair is copying what they are doing, and before they even start distributing the PlayStation version or executing these IP expansion plans, Nintendo is going to spit in their bowl. I don’t think that Nintendo looks at these things through an idealistic lens at all. This is just a pure, cold-blooded business.”
Pocketpair has said that Palworld won’t become a free-to-play or live-service game. They also plan to announce a PlayStation 5 version soon. Sony and Pocketpair are working together on Palworld merchandise, aiming to grow the franchise beyond just games.
