So you donāt think these patents are going after any aspect ofĀ PalworldĀ that players would recognize as a defining feature of a PokĆ©mon game?
I mean, thereās like a mechanic where you throw the spheres, right? And this is a very obvious, in your face system [thatās very much like PokĆ©mon]. But I think that it will be a lot more technical than this. Nintendo would have dug through every single action inside the game, they would have probably reverse engineered it, and just find ways to sue these guys.
You can bet your life that Nintendo hates this company, and they couldnāt find an angle with the character designs. This is why they are not mentioned in their press release. So they come with these technical peculiarities. So I personally believe, if you act like this, you can sue like 90 percent of the game developers in the world. Iām sure thereās like thousands of games that have a confirmation screen when you go from sleep mode to resuming the game right, but if you basically trigger the wrath of Nintendo, they will come after you.
Actually thatās what they are going after. Thatās why they are filing a patent infringement and not a copyright infringement cause.
Yesā¦ technically. But clearly with those broad parents the could also technically go after other monster catching games that have been around forever. I think the point is that Palworld poked the bear a little too much, particularly with the character designs which look to me like they fed all 1000+ Pokemon into generative AI and slapped the results into their game. Are they getting sued for character design? No. Do I think that is a big part of WHY they are being sued? Absolutely.
Yeah but thatās not the point.
The point is Nintendo being able to parent troll any threat they see because the Japanese patent system is so dumb and rotten that they are allowed to patent something as stupid as a confirmation window to resume a game.
That is the real problem here. Nintendo is being shitty and has a dangerous capability to literally kill any game they donāt like.
Thatās all that matters. They can (and will, letās not pretend they are a charity) sue potentially any competitors because of this. Nintendo is not a good company and doesnāt act in good will. They want money, and they will do whatever to get more. Shutting down a fan game by simply saying āI have more money than you so even if youāre not doing anything wrong, you canāt afford defending against meā or patent trolling any game that has even a simple confirmation window.
Yeah, they could. However, I think if they DID sue Digimon, TemTem, Monster Hunters, etc using the same patent trolling tactics, theyād probably have a harder time winning, because those games havenāt (as blatantly) copied Nintendo. I suspect thatās why they havenāt done so.
From the article:
Yeah, they are abusing the patent system. And yes, they potentially have a case against basically any game. This is what we should be talking about.
And we would be talking about it, if Palworld was NOT such a blatant ripoff of Pokemon.
Itās like using the OJ Simpson trial as an example of how messed up the LAPD is. Is the LAPD fucked up? Yes. Is OJ Simpson someone that we should be sympathetic to? Not so much.
If they start going after games that are NOT blatant ripoffs of their IP, then yes, Iām much more concerned about the abuses of the patent system. Patent trolling IS a real problem, Iām just not sure if Palworld is the right catalyst for people to be sympathetic about patent trolling.
And still, Nintendo canāt sue for copyright (or doesnāt want to) which is interesting, because if it was such an evident rip off as everything says and the case was so clear, why wouldnāt they go that way?
Thereās inspiration in the monsters, but what else? Is PokĆ©mon an open world with survival mechanics? Can PokĆ©mon carry weapons?
The problem is still the fact that Nintendo has these patents. That is the issue here. I wouldnāt argue if they made a copyright claim, but they are doing a scummy thing and they are setting a precedent thatās dangerous. Basically theyāre telling a new player in Japanese business āhey, weāre the big fish, we own the place, you donāt have business here, go awayā.
Yeah, the āchilling effectā is a big problem. Iām sure the creators of TemTem and other alternatives are getting nervous.
I guess weāll never know whether Palworld could have avoided this with a different art style or varying the catching mechanics more.
Nintendo even owns a patent for āriding a creatureā in a game. That is such a broad concept that a normal parent system shouldnāt allow because of how broad it is. Itās just dumb. And Nintendo is taking advantage of it.
Edit: temtem is not Japanese, and any other patent office in the world will laugh at Nintendo if they tried to make a claim in their countries, but since Palworld is Japanese as Nintendo, they can make the claim there.