Palworld Has Sold 8 Million Units on Steam; The Pokémon Company Will ‘Investigate’ the Game

It's not even the end of January yet and the games industry has already announced layoffs for several thousand employees, showing that 2024 could be even more problematic than the already troublesome 2023 in this regard. We reached out to MIDiA Research Senior Analyst and Strategy Director Karol Severin to discuss the state of the games industry in this post-pandemic, high-inflation environment.

The Pokémon Company has issued a statement about “another company’s game released in January 2024”, a thinly veiled reference to the breakout hit Palworld, AKA “Pokémon with guns”. Is a copyright infringement suit coming at Palworld developer Pocket Pair? Well, maybe?

Fortnite is coming back to iOS this year, at least in Europe, Epic Games announced today. It will do so by taking advantage of the Digital Markets Act law passed by the European Union, which will let the Epic Games Store on iOS.

When it comes to The Pokemon Company, they are the mastermind behind the biggest media property in the world. That might sound like we’re overselling the importance of Pokemon, but if you look at the sales? They’re the ones who clean up the most. Anyway, for over 25 years, they’ve been making all sorts of titles attached to their pocket monsters. From the mainline RPGs that started the craze to the NUMEROUS spinoffs that helped build up the brand even more, they’ve been cranking things out almost every year or so. But when it came to the ninth generation of their beloved series, they hit their first true speed bump.

The Pokémon Company finally put out a statement addressing the similarities between the designs of some creatures from its namesake franchise and Pocketpair’s viral monster-collecting survival crafting game Palworld. The company says it is investigating the matter.

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A week after the release of Palworld in early access, The Pokemon Company issued an official statement. There has been a lot of controversy regarding the similarities between Pokemon and Pocketpair’s survival game, as Palworld features various creatures that look just like The Pokemon Company's pocket monsters.

The Snorlax has awoken. The Pokémon Company broke its silence on Palworld, the smash hit Pokémon-inspired survival game, on Thursday, saying it intended to investigate the game and “take appropriate measures” if it judges that its intellectual property rights have been infringed.

The Palworld-wide domination continues. Along with some truly monumental numbers on Steam, the open world survival and crafting game — which the internet has dubbed 'Pokémon with guns' — has seen its US numbers on Xbox briefly surpass those of perennial favourite Fortnite.

The Pokemon Company has finally made a public statement about Palworld, but without referring to it by name.

Game developer People Can Fly has laid off around thirty developers from an unannounced Square Enix game codenamed Project Gemini. The news was broken yesterday by Kotaku, which obtained an email sent by Development Director Adam Alker to his fellow employees. Alker chalked the layoffs to budget limitations and a decision to shrink the game's scope.

The Pokémon Company has issued a statement about “another company’s game released in January 2024”, a thinly veiled reference to the breakout hit Palworld, AKA “Pokémon with guns”. Is a copyright infringement suit coming at Palworld developer Pocket Pair? Well, maybe?