The Pokemon Company appears to break silence over Palworld: "We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights"
Jan. 25, 2024The statement comes amid Palworld’s surge in sales
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
The Pokemon Companyseems to plan to “investigate” Palworld over the possibility of copyright infringement.
The Pokemon Company goes on to say that “we have not granted any permission for the use of Pokemon 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 Pokemon.”
Interestingly, the statement ends in what could easily be read as something of a swipe against Palworld’s tone, as The Pokemon Company also says it “will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokemon and its world.” Palworld has taken flack over allegations of glorifying animal cruelty, and was often summarized as ‘Pokemon with guns’, before release.
Nintendo has already taken some action over Palworld -a Pokemon-themed modthat replaced the new survival game’s models with those of Pokemon was taken down in less than 24 hours, prompting modding communities to lock down for fear of further action. But the CEO of Palworld developer Pocketpair has said that the studio has"absolutely no intention" of infringing on the IP of other companies. Whether that’s enough to get Pokemon off Pocketpair’s back remains to be seen - the similarities between some designs are clear, but in at least some of those instances, Pocketpair’s defense is likely to hinge around the idea that you can’t copyright the appearances of individual animals.
Former Pokemon Company legal head says Palworld “looks like the usual ripoff nonsense that I would see a thousand times a year”.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
A mysterious Palworld update appears to make a change designed to get around the survival game’s legal battle with Nintendo
Five years later, PUBG creator PlayerUnknown finally reveals his massive open-world survival game projects, aiming for “realistic worlds thousands of kilometers wide” across three games
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 first reactions are in, and they’re glowing: “It’s the closest Hollywood has made to a Dragon Ball movie”
