No, The Pokémon Company isn’t suing Palworld

Unless you’ve been living under a Geodude this past week, you are probably aware of a game called “Palworld” which is frequently referred to as Pokemon with guns. The game has sold an eye-watering 8 million copies with an estimated 1.5 million downloads on Xbox’s Gamepass platform. The game has far exceeded expectations and received a lot of coverage, both positive and negative, ranging from (so far unproven) accusations of using Generative AI, virtual animal cruelty, and many players praising the game. All of this has put Palword under the watchful eye of the Pokemon Company, which has issued a statement causing everyone to run with the story that Pokemon will sue Palworld. But will they? Let’s take a look:

The Pokemon Company Statement reads: “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.”

While at face value, it may seem like this is an opening salvo towards Palworld, but in my opinion this statement was issued in regard to the Pokemon mod by Australian content Creator “Toasted Shoes” that surfaced shortly after Palworld launch. This statement was issued 48 hours after that mod and its corresponding videos were taken down, and if we take a closer look at the words – “We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game”  it becomes a bit clearer they are referring to Pokemon assets modded into the game, and not the game itself. The second part of the statement I feel refers to how they don’t want to see videos of Pokemon shooting each other or being consumed by the player. As well as the method of capturing Pals, as Pokemon players don’t physically beat Pokemon into submission with a club either, we use other Pokemon to achieve that.

Now, I should state that I’m not a lawyer in any sense my only legal experience is one time I ate a 2-litre tub of ice cream and binge-watched “Suits” on Netflix, but the Pokemon Company has been aware of this game since 2021, and could have taken legal action anytime between the announcement and today. Considering Nintendo’s ruthlessly efficient legal team, (which is super effective) if they intended to stop the game, it would have been done much earlier, especially since Toasted Shoes videos were almost instantly taken out. Mod Hosting sites have stopped hosting the files for fear that Nintendo will come for them next. Nintendo has a long history of taking down modders, rom sites, and ironically, hackers named “Bowser.”  Toasted Shoes has also made a video informing his 700k followers that Nintendo was indeed behind the copyright strike on his video.

As for my opinion (that nobody asked for) on the Palworld discourse enflaming social media right now, I think it’s downright disappointing as it’s taken away attention from games that should be talked about right now, like the current layoffs in the industry or the incredible reboot of the Prince of Persia series, which was almost instantly dwarfed by the AI, Plagiarism, and startling abuse directed at the developers of Palword. Then there was another knock-on effect of abuse being directed toward the Pokemon Company and its employees with people saying this is the game Pokemon should have been. While I know the more recent iterations of Pokemon have been in rough shape, hurling abuse to developers won’t fix that, and yes, Pokemon could certainly benefit from a shake-up, but threatening to kill someone because they created a game isn’t going to do it.

With the industry hurting, social media creating further divisions, and just how shitty the world is sometimes, wouldn’t it be nice if we criticized fairly? We can criticise Palworld on one hand for its heavy “inspiration” of existing IPs for models, but on the other hand, we can also praise it for its fun approach to gameplay and mechanics to create something new and engaging for players.

Discourse and abuse shouldn’t have a place in the Video Games industry as it doesn’t encourage innovation, it suppresses it.