Palworld is officially being sued by the smart suits over at Nintendo, who are making claims of patent infringements. The Palworld devs claim that they weren’t afforded any heads up on the matter, nor any details about what exactly they were infringing upon, although many of us probably could guess, if we needed to.
I wish I could say “I told you so”, but my initial response to Palworld’s release included something I no longer agree with, so let’s correct things:
Firstly, the bigger point of my article on Palworld was that if you spent money on it, you were essentially spending money on Nintendo, who would eventually sue the game’s developers, Pocket Pair. That’s still true.
What isn’t true, or right, was my initial assumption that Palworld would remain a half-completed game that disappeared over the course of a night with the devs making way with their profits to try and avoid legal battles with Nintendo: Clearly this assumption was incorrect.
To their credit, Pocket Pair has not only continued to develop Palworld with a strong sense of commitment to the players and fans of the game, but have also vowed to continue doing so while battling these legal troubles.
Despite my affection for such dedication, it has to be said that the gaming community seems to be taking a rather blind “Big company bad!” attitude towards what’s currently happening to Pocket Pair.
I predicted that the game would face legal troubles via Nintendo, I don’t think anyone with more than two brain cells could have not seen that coming. The fact that it’s finally arrived is unsurprising, and the fact that I have respect for Pocket Pair’s commitment does not mean that I blame Nintendo for taking legal action against a company that has CLEARLY stolen their creations for profit.
The gut reaction seen by the gaming community, at least on Reddit, is one that seems to refuse to see the forest for the trees: Palworld is fun, I have respect for some facets of Pocket Pair’s development standards, and suing them is by no means an immoral action by Nintendo.
GLHF
-E
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