I've been trying out this game on my bro's gamepass.
It's a blatent ripoff. There's nothing truly original in this game. In fact, Eurogamer had an article on it the other day, including an interview with the dev, and the dev outright said its a ripoff. Not just of pokemon.
So what? Everyone is ripping off everyone. In every single industry comporations are playing the copyright game, ripping eachother off and trying to hide it / change enough to avoid lawsuits.
China is the King of rip-offs and no one is able stop them!
Sure Palworld has taken inspiration from other games, like Pokemon, Ark:Survival and Zelda.
It has taken the best of these games and merged it into their own game, making enough changes to not infringe on anything! And if you actually played the game, you can see they put more than enough of their own in it, to make it a unique and fun experience!
8+ million people having a blast playing this game, including my son and me!
TPC and Nintendo have nothing to sue against. The investigation statement was just to stop their rabbit fanbase go all crazy on the internet and sending death threats to people at Pocketpair! If Pocketpair had infringed on any copyrights, TPC / Nintendo would have already stopped them, before they could release. That 3rd party Pokemon mod for Palworld was COD'ed within a day and youtubers were also COD'ed instantly and forced to remove all their videos.
These rabbit Pokemon fans need to get off their meds and take the fight to TPC to stop Gamefreak from releasing half finished mediocre games. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet were a complete disgrace, with terrible performance and now more than a year later they never delivered on their promise to fix the performance issues on these games!
I just worry about more long-term play. If you've played any of the other games that Palworld has ripped off then you've probably already played better versions of those mechanics and already understand how Palworld works. I think this will lead to getting bored quicker.
Well I think you and me are coming at this from different angles. I am not saying Palworld is amazing. Its like Valheim to me, where the game is pretty good overall, nothing specifically stands out other than its generally fun overall for a little while. No it doesnt have a long term end game like WoW.
These games can be recommended to most people and you know they will get some fun out of it.
Unlike most games now, where 80% of the game is good, but 20% of the game makes the other 80% unplayable.
I dont care if WoW, Palworld, Valheim are heavily inspired by other games. In fact I say good for them for identifying the parts customers want and adding those.
To me this sets a baseline on what will sell and what customers will have fun with. Now other games can get more edgy, and innovate.
Its better than watching Indie devs continously releasing games that only attract 25 players. Then trying to blame it on advertising or game saturation or whatever FOTM excuse is out there.
Is this game better than WoW? LOL no, but its also made on a 7 mil budget. At least it shows indie teams can make tons of money by following a simple forumla. Build games for customers.
Blizzard's whole business model was / is taking fun ideas from niche genres and then polishing them up for the masses. It's a successful strategy as long as they have innovative ideas to steal. When they run out of stuff to steal, Blizz has shown itself incapable of being successfully innovative on their own.
The issue with Palworld (for some) is they haven't taken the next step. They haven't innovated on anything. They haven't polished up anything for the masses. It's a straight up copy'n'paste with minor changes to avoid copyright stuff.
In addition, it felt like (to me) that they've actually dumbed down some of the stuff. Building is less detailed and creative than, say, Enshrouded. Combat is worse than most action combat games. The automation is definitely way shallower than games like Satisfactory or factorio.
Don't get me wrong, I still think Palworld has done a good job selecting the different mechanics that they want to stitch together. The pacing of the game also felt good to me during my short stint, not once did I wonder "what should i do next" because the game was always giving me goals to aim for.
I just worry about more long-term play. If you've played any of the other games that Palworld has ripped off then you've probably already played better versions of those mechanics and already understand how Palworld works. I think this will lead to getting bored quicker.
Gaming really does need innovation or genres get stale, but equally there's nothing wrong with polishing up old gameplay and fitting it together better. We have all seen good gameplay not taken forward to new games and gaming systems that sit uneasily together.
My greatest applause goes for innovation of course, but with so many games mismatching elements of gameplay and not bothering to push them further that has to get recognition.
Sick of these monopolies suing the small indie teams out of existence over nonsense.
How about when Pokemon releases its next game and steals all Palworlds popular mechanics, who will stick up for this little game. Because I am certain thats about to happen I guarantee it.
Monopolies need innovate and make good products people like and stop trying to hide behind copyright laws.
Owning intellectual property does not constitute a monopoly. For example, J.K. Rowling owns the rights to The Wizarding World, but other people are still allowed to sell stories about wizards as long as they don't use the exact names associated with the Harry Potter books.
Palworld could have easily made exactly the same game without looking like such a ripoff, and no one would be talking about possible lawsuits. The Pals did not have to look like Pokémon, and there's no reason you should have to catch them in balls. They chose to make it look like Pokémon because they knew it would boost sales. The fact that they were correct about that shows that they are trading on Pokémon's IP popularity, which means the existence of Palworld weakens the Pokémon brand.
Sick of these monopolies suing the small indie teams out of existence over nonsense.
How about when Pokemon releases its next game and steals all Palworlds popular mechanics, who will stick up for this little game. Because I am certain thats about to happen I guarantee it.
Monopolies need innovate and make good products people like and stop trying to hide behind copyright laws.
Owning intellectual property does not constitute a monopoly. For example, J.K. Rowling owns the rights to The Wizarding World, but other people are still allowed to sell stories about wizards as long as they don't use the exact names associated with the Harry Potter books.
Palworld could have easily made exactly the same game without looking like such a ripoff, and no one would be talking about possible lawsuits. The Pals did not have to look like Pokémon, and there's no reason you should have to catch them in balls. They chose to make it look like Pokémon because they knew it would boost sales. The fact that they were correct about that shows that they are trading on Pokémon's IP popularity, which means the existence of Palworld weakens the Pokémon brand.
The only companies that can enforce these IP issues are large corporations.
These big IP's are constantly stealing everyone stuff also. This is just a ploy for big companies to screw small companies, they are the only ones that can afford to patent everything in the world.
JK Rowling, you think she didnt steal 99.9% of that material from something else? There is nothing unique in those books, not even the names of the characters. It all existed before. So now that she has tons of money, she is copywriting all the material.
How did the world exist before lawyers and copyrights. LOL
This is just another viral trend like shitty leaky Stanley cups. I read an article headline stating this is the best MMORPG some dad has ever played x_X
This is just another viral trend like shitty leaky Stanley cups. I read an article headline stating this is the best MMORPG some dad has ever played x_X
It's probably the ONLY MMORPG that dad has ever played.
I don't really understand the ripoff vs innovation argument. Is this game a direct reskin of another? Can I go play another game that does all the things this one does in this way? If that's the case, sure it's simply another game reskinned, along with all the bugs and design problems of the other game.
But if this game took parts of other games and put them together, and there isn't another game that took those exact parts and put them together in exactly the same way, then it's not truly a copy of any one thing. What is innovation? Henry Ford did not invent the wheel, the internal combustion engine, or even the automobile. Nor does his development of the assembly line mean Toyota's process was not innovative.
I can't speak to what game design elements can be legally owned by someone and whether borrowing those elements crosses that line. Lawyers can argue that. But as a gamer, I don't understand this seeming need for "innovation". Just give me a great experience.
Oh, and where does DOTA fall in this spectrum? Did games like LoL steal from it? Or did it ripoff Blizzard because an iteration of it started as a WC3 mod?
I don't really understand the ripoff vs innovation argument. Is this game a direct reskin of another? Can I go play another game that does all the things this one does in this way? If that's the case, sure it's simply another game reskinned, along with all the bugs and design problems of the other game.
But if this game took parts of other games and put them together, and there isn't another game that took those exact parts and put them together in exactly the same way, then it's not truly a copy of any one thing. What is innovation? Henry Ford did not invent the wheel, the internal combustion engine, or even the automobile. Nor does his development of the assembly line mean Toyota's process was not innovative.
I can't speak to what game design elements can be legally owned by someone and whether borrowing those elements crosses that line. Lawyers can argue that. But as a gamer, I don't understand this seeming need for "innovation". Just give me a great experience.
Exactly, first off Palworld is a combination of many different elements from many different games.
People whining because a few of the mobs look like mobs from Pokemon, even though they have different names and abilities.
Its perfectly fine if a big game steals everyone of its ideas from smaller companies, but if a little company somehow takes any element from another game then we have to try to shut it down.
I agree give a good customer experience and let those companies make better games to compete.
This video shows you the number of games that had monster taming way before Pokemon. Pokemon made their games after these classics. They never created the monster catching genre.
Gashapon had those gacha machines trademark of Bandai with small things including creatures in balls in the 60's. Guess where pokemon got the idea of catching things in balls.
Capsule Monsters (Japanese: カプセルモンスターCapsule Monsters) was Satoshi Tajiri's early design concept of Pokémon, first proposed to Nintendo as early as 1990. According to the book Pikachu's Global Adventure, this early concept traces all the way back to Tajiri's childhood years, during which he had enjoyed bug collecting.
The name "Capsule Monsters" is inspired by Japanese gashapon machines.[1] Apparently, Tajiri had trouble trademarking the name "Capsule Monsters" so he changed it first to カプモンCapuMon and then later "Pocket Monsters".
Pokeball is copyrighted. That could be a potential problem though I acknowledge this after checking on Pokeball.
Palworld sphere
Pokeballs
Might be different enough though when you look at the shape. They call it a sphere not a ball and it isn't a ball.
Nexomon uses a pyramid trap and digimon is a digi device. Temtem and Yugioh uses cards. These aren't balls so no copyright infringement.
Also do not forget Star Trek had boxes you could trap beings in, a containment device. With a teleport beam you could catch beings and trap them. Considering that they were travelling though galaxies and encountering so many species. Monster catching isn't that alien an idea to that franchise although it did go against the United Federation of Planets guidelines and the prime directive. Over the run of the original series though it happened to the crew or they had to use it for the greater good. So the concept of monster catching is not something Pokemon can copyright.
When I look at Palworld they must have someone advising them on copyright because they made sufficient changes to just barely skirt the issues of copyright in the design. Too deliberate to be happenstance.
The Intellectual Property Enterprise court is convening, justice Cheyane presiding.
When I was practicing in Malaysia I mainly did debt collection and company law not any intellectual stuff. Plus Malaysia is a haven of pirates The thing I hated most was tort and those horrible accident pictures, Singapore had them in colour, turned my stomach looking at them. Left that real fast. I haven't practiced in 30 odd years , I left when I had my son. So my memory is beyond rusty in fact not at all any good.
After typing that I just want to say I graduated from Malaysia in the 80's so anything I know is so outdated, it is of no use.
I mean a good example and precedent set in the US would be Cabbage Patch kids vs the Topps and Garbage Pail kids cards in the 80's.
Don't normally like to quote Wikipedia but the information is accurate.
"Topps was sued by the rightsholders of Cabbage Patch Kids, Original Appalachian Artworks, for trademark infringement. As part of the out-of-court settlement, Topps agreed to modify the appearance of the Garbage Pail Kids to remove the resemblance between the characters and to change the logo design."
I mean a good example and precedent set in the US would be Cabbage Patch kids vs the Topps and Garbage Pail kids cards in the 80's.
Don't normally like to quote Wikipedia but the information is accurate.
"Topps was sued by the rightsholders of Cabbage Patch Kids, Original Appalachian Artworks, for trademark infringement. As part of the out-of-court settlement, Topps agreed to modify the appearance of the Garbage Pail Kids to remove the resemblance between the characters and to change the logo design."
First, there's nothing wrong with quoting Wikipedia, as it is very carefully policed and strict about citing its sources. If you are really unsure about an article, the source is right there for you to follow up, and you can quote that instead of WP if you want to.
But yes, the Cabbage Patch example is a great one. Garbage Pail settled out of court because they knew they couldn't win. I'm expecting the Palworld outcome to be very similar.
So, now we're trying to move the goalposts to Trademark infringement with a completely unrelated case, which is a completely different situation than copyright infringement.
Still waiting for that bombshell open and shut case to be announced. Any day now. Any..... day. So, how many previous open and shut cases has TPC sat on a long time before taking action? Wikipedia doesn't come up with anything.
The issue with Palworld isn't so much that it has taken other peoples ideas - as pointed out in this thread, that's generally how the world works.
The issue is how blatant it is.
They haven't taken other peoples ideas and then made it their own by taking the next step. They haven't made it their own. They haven't taken the next step. They've just stolen then changed enough to avoid lawsuits.
That doesn't mean the game is bad (I've bought it). The dev has made some good choices of what to rip off, and they've stitched them together fairly cohesively. I'm particularly pleased by the pacing of the game - the core game loop keeps driving me forwards.
Collect Pals -> Level Up -> Unlock new Crafting -> Collect Materials -> Build -> Collect More Pals to Work in whatever you just built -> Repeat
I'm in an unusual position in that I'm playing both Enshrouded and Palworld at the same time. I never play 2 games at once, I prefer to dedicate myself to one. But, when I was playing Enshrouded, all I could think about was the cool automation I could do at my base in Palworld. When im playing Palworld, all I can think about is the better combat and building in Enshrouded. So, im trying to do both!
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
So, now we're trying to move the goalposts to Trademark infringement with a completely unrelated case, which is a completely different situation than copyright infringement.
I don't think I ever used the word "copyright." If I did, I certainly didn't intend it to be a direct comment on this case. Anyway, it does not matter if some people got the terminology wrong. The case will not live or die based on the legal knowledge of a bunch of internet randos.
Anyway, if you are so sure it's not a problem, I'm not sure why you keep hovering nervously over this thread. No one here has the power to decide whether or not TPC moves forward with legal action.
The issue with Palworld isn't so much that it has taken other peoples ideas - as pointed out in this thread, that's generally how the world works.
The issue is how blatant it is.
They haven't taken other peoples ideas and then made it their own by taking the next step. They haven't made it their own. They haven't taken the next step. They've just stolen then changed enough to avoid lawsuits.
That doesn't mean the game is bad (I've bought it). The dev has made some good choices of what to rip off, and they've stitched them together fairly cohesively. I'm particularly pleased by the pacing of the game - the core game loop keeps driving me forwards.
Collect Pals -> Level Up -> Unlock new Crafting -> Collect Materials -> Build -> Collect More Pals to Work in whatever you just built -> Repeat
I'm in an unusual position in that I'm playing both Enshrouded and Palworld at the same time. I never play 2 games at once, I prefer to dedicate myself to one. But, when I was playing Enshrouded, all I could think about was the cool automation I could do at my base in Palworld. When im playing Palworld, all I can think about is the better combat and building in Enshrouded. So, im trying to do both!
This is what I don't understand. You say "they haven't made it their own" and "they haven't taken the next step", but then say they "made some good choices of what to rip off, and they've stitched them together fairly cohesively".
That term, "fairly cohesively", is striking. If I rip off something wholesale there wouldn't be a question of how cohesive it is. This suggests that these parts did not originally go together or come from the same source, and that the devs "stitched them together" with whatever changes needed to result in a "fairly cohesive" game experience. Is that not "making it their own"?
Granted, "making it their own" is an ambiguous, philosophical question like the ship of Theseus, so maybe that's why people bring up the legal arguments. In that case, if they truly have "changed enough to avoid lawsuits", as you say, then it would seem they did make it their own as far as the law is concerned. I'm not claiming that they did change enough or not, just trying to understand your seemingly contradicting points.
This is what I don't understand. You say "they haven't made it their own" and "they haven't taken the next step", but then say they "made some good choices of what to rip off, and they've stitched them together fairly cohesively".
That term, "fairly cohesively", is striking. If I rip off something wholesale there wouldn't be a question of how cohesive it is. This suggests that these parts did not originally go together or come from the same source, and that the devs "stitched them together" with whatever changes needed to result in a "fairly cohesive" game experience. Is that not "making it their own"?
Granted, "making it their own" is an ambiguous, philosophical question like the ship of Theseus, so maybe that's why people bring up the legal arguments. In that case, if they truly have "changed enough to avoid lawsuits", as you say, then it would seem they did make it their own as far as the law is concerned. I'm not claiming that they did change enough or not, just trying to understand your seemingly contradicting points.
If you ripped something off wholesale, there is no guarantee it would be cohesive. It would only be cohesive if the original product was cohesive.....but that is far from guaranteed.
It's extremely common to play games where there are a couple of core gameplay loops that work well together (cohesive) then a bunch of additional mechanics that don't work (like all themepark mmo crafting).
With regards to "making it their own", I was specifically referencing the mechanics, not the overall game. The component parts of Palworld are rip-offs, but the combination of those parts is it's own unique game.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
If you ripped something off wholesale, there is no guarantee it would be cohesive. It would only be cohesive if the original product was cohesive.....but that is far from guaranteed.
Yeah, that's pretty much my point. If you rip something off wholesale, how cohesive it is or isn't is irrelevant since it's basically a product of the original, copied material. But mentioning how cohesively this game is put together suggests you don't see it as a wholesale rip off, which you further clarified now.
With regards to "making it their own", I was specifically referencing the mechanics, not the overall game. The component parts of Palworld are rip-offs, but the combination of those parts is it's own unique game.
I agree with this last statement, and part of your original post suggested this, but to me the very act of taking different parts and putting them together in your own unique way is "making it your own". So I was confused as to which was your point.
Most of the animal designs aren't sue-worthy, I think, although there are a few exceptions. The worse one by far is the sea serpent who's hair model is almost one for one in terms of ratios and proportions the same as a 3D pokemon serpent's hair model or something like that.
Someone did a "Plagiarism Tier list" for it which I mostly agree with.
In terms of in-game mechanics, I don't think anything can be sued for there. Balls are arguably just a nod to gachapon (which is the case with Pokemon's own pokeballs, too) and you actually do combat with your person in an action game as opposed to Pokemon which is a turn based RPG.
Comments
China is the King of rip-offs and no one is able stop them!
Sure Palworld has taken inspiration from other games, like Pokemon, Ark:Survival and Zelda.
It has taken the best of these games and merged it into their own game, making enough changes to not infringe on anything!
And if you actually played the game, you can see they put more than enough of their own in it, to make it a unique and fun experience!
8+ million people having a blast playing this game, including my son and me!
TPC and Nintendo have nothing to sue against. The investigation statement was just to stop their rabbit fanbase go all crazy on the internet and sending death threats to people at Pocketpair!
If Pocketpair had infringed on any copyrights, TPC / Nintendo would have already stopped them, before they could release.
That 3rd party Pokemon mod for Palworld was COD'ed within a day and youtubers were also COD'ed instantly and forced to remove all their videos.
These rabbit Pokemon fans need to get off their meds and take the fight to TPC to stop Gamefreak from releasing half finished mediocre games.
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet were a complete disgrace, with terrible performance and now more than a year later they never delivered on their promise to fix the performance issues on these games!
These games can be recommended to most people and you know they will get some fun out of it.
Unlike most games now, where 80% of the game is good, but 20% of the game makes the other 80% unplayable.
I dont care if WoW, Palworld, Valheim are heavily inspired by other games. In fact I say good for them for identifying the parts customers want and adding those.
To me this sets a baseline on what will sell and what customers will have fun with. Now other games can get more edgy, and innovate.
Its better than watching Indie devs continously releasing games that only attract 25 players. Then trying to blame it on advertising or game saturation or whatever FOTM excuse is out there.
Is this game better than WoW? LOL no, but its also made on a 7 mil budget. At least it shows indie teams can make tons of money by following a simple forumla. Build games for customers.
My greatest applause goes for innovation of course, but with so many games mismatching elements of gameplay and not bothering to push them further that has to get recognition.
These big IP's are constantly stealing everyone stuff also. This is just a ploy for big companies to screw small companies, they are the only ones that can afford to patent everything in the world.
JK Rowling, you think she didnt steal 99.9% of that material from something else? There is nothing unique in those books, not even the names of the characters. It all existed before. So now that she has tons of money, she is copywriting all the material.
How did the world exist before lawyers and copyrights. LOL
It's probably the ONLY MMORPG that dad has ever played.
People whining because a few of the mobs look like mobs from Pokemon, even though they have different names and abilities.
Its perfectly fine if a big game steals everyone of its ideas from smaller companies, but if a little company somehow takes any element from another game then we have to try to shut it down.
I agree give a good customer experience and let those companies make better games to compete.
This video shows you the number of games that had monster taming way before Pokemon. Pokemon made their games after these classics. They never created the monster catching genre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster-taming_game
Gashapon had those gacha machines trademark of Bandai with small things including creatures in balls in the 60's. Guess where pokemon got the idea of catching things in balls.
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Capsule_Monsters
Capsule Monsters (Japanese: カプセルモンスター Capsule Monsters) was Satoshi Tajiri's early design concept of Pokémon, first proposed to Nintendo as early as 1990. According to the book Pikachu's Global Adventure, this early concept traces all the way back to Tajiri's childhood years, during which he had enjoyed bug collecting.
The name "Capsule Monsters" is inspired by Japanese gashapon machines.[1] Apparently, Tajiri had trouble trademarking the name "Capsule Monsters" so he changed it first to カプモン CapuMon and then later "Pocket Monsters".
Pokeball is copyrighted. That could be a potential problem though I acknowledge this after checking on Pokeball.
Palworld sphere
Pokeballs
Might be different enough though when you look at the shape. They call it a sphere not a ball and it isn't a ball.
Nexomon uses a pyramid trap and digimon is a digi device. Temtem and Yugioh uses cards. These aren't balls so no copyright infringement.
Also do not forget Star Trek had boxes you could trap beings in, a containment device. With a teleport beam you could catch beings and trap them. Considering that they were travelling though galaxies and encountering so many species. Monster catching isn't that alien an idea to that franchise although it did go against the United Federation of Planets guidelines and the prime directive. Over the run of the original series though it happened to the crew or they had to use it for the greater good. So the concept of monster catching is not something Pokemon can copyright.
When I look at Palworld they must have someone advising them on copyright because they made sufficient changes to just barely skirt the issues of copyright in the design. Too deliberate to be happenstance.
30 odd years , I left when I had my son. So my memory is beyond rusty in fact not at all any good.
After typing that I just want to say I graduated from Malaysia in the 80's so anything I know is so outdated, it is of no use.
NOTES
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1: That was intentionally offensive.
Someone did a "Plagiarism Tier list" for it which I mostly agree with.
In terms of in-game mechanics, I don't think anything can be sued for there. Balls are arguably just a nod to gachapon (which is the case with Pokemon's own pokeballs, too) and you actually do combat with your person in an action game as opposed to Pokemon which is a turn based RPG.