At least in the U.S., the general consensus surrounding the lawsuit is one of apathy towards intellectual property rights and hatred of Nintendo’s past behavior. I, for one, hope that Palworld gets sufficiently butchered so that all of the content in their game is actually their own and not something they’ve copied from another IP.
It isn’t at all surprising to me that the gaming community has completely forgotten about the value of protecting a company or individual’s intellectual property, but the blunt fact is that most of the people rooting for Palworld in this lawsuit are spite voting against Nintendo in a way that would, if they got their way, create a precedent where copying another entity’s work (or using AI to do so, mind you) would be completely legal and ultimately a toss up as to whether or not the infringing entity would be punished.
Not only is Palworld not the first game where Pocket Pair, the Palworld development studio, copied Nintendo’s work, but it also isn’t the small passion project most people seem to think it is. The ballpark figure for total sales is (roughly) 20m units. That’s 20m against their sale price which, if we account for sales and lower slightly, is going to be around $25 USD.
$500m in sales for a work that, despite whatever original aspects of its game it might have, has copied much of its character content directly from another entity. How anyone is surprised that this is lawsuit is taking place in the first place is just as ponderous of an ordeal as anyone rooting for Palworld’s content stealing.
Ultimately, it seems that people think intellectual property rights should only apply to people, companies, or other entities that they like instead of being a broad rule of law.
