Don McGowan, The Pokemon Company's former chief legal officer, has labeled Palworld as «ripoff nonsense.» His views on the hit survival game dovetail with those of some vocal Pokemon fans who are not happy about Palworld and eager to criticize it any chance they get.
Originally unveiled by Japanese developer PocketPair in mid-2021, Palworld is an open-world survival game with monster-taming mechanics whose early access version hit PC and Xbox consoles on January 19. Despite sharing more similarities with Craftopia—PocketPair's last title—than Pokemon, it has so far proven to be unable to escape the "Pokemon with guns" label attached to it by both critics and fans alike. But as the ongoing accusations of Palworld ripping off Pokemon suggest, that description may not be completely baseless.
Don McGowan, who worked as The Pokemon Company's chief legal officer over a 12-year period ending in 2020, has now offered his two cents on the ordeal. Speaking with Game File's Stephen Totilo, McGowan described Palworld as «the usual ripoff nonsense» that he used to encounter on a daily basis back when he was still with The Pokemon Company International. «I'm just surprised it got this far,» the industry veteran said. It is unclear whether that remark was meant to imply Pokemon ripoffs usually fizzle out before release, or that McGowan would look into suing PocketPair for copyright infringement if he were still in charge of all Pokemon-related legal affairs.
McGowan's former employer has so far remained mum on the hit game. Seeing how Palworld has been sharing gameplay footage for years leading up to its early access release, The Pokemon Company already had ample time to prepare a copyright infringement complaint. Whether it decided against doing so because it wasn't convinced it had an iron-clad case against PocketPair or some other reason is unclear. But there is little doubt that the conglomerate has been aware of Palworld and its similarities to Pokemon for a long time now.
This looks like the usual ripoff nonsense that I would see a thousand times a year when I was Chief Legal Officer of Pokemon. I’m just surprised it got this far.
The ongoing controversy has so far generated quite a bit of toxic discourse online, which culminated in the Palworld developers getting death threats from some seemingly disgruntled Pokemon fans. PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizobe has subsequently taken to Twitter to condemn the harassment of his employees, stating that he is ultimately the one responsible for the game's content.
Though some of its elements were seemingly designed as a parody of Pokemon, Palworld has long been trying to distance itself from comparisons with Game Freak's hit franchise. And while its efforts to do so have yielded
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A vocal portion of the Palworld fandom has recently taken to social media to ask Pocketpair to add corner roofs and a few other junction assets to the hit game. Their pleas add to the list of feature requests that Palworld players have put together to date.
One of the things that The Pokemon Company should be praised for with how it’s handled its franchise is that they’re never afraid to try new things to get attention for its property. One of the best examples of this happens to be with its animated series and shorts. They’ve hired multiple companies, including legendary anime studios, to create special visions of their world so fans could feel “even closer” to it. Today, the company decided to do that once again, as they made “Pokemon Ceruledge: Rumble in the Ruins,” a short video that features the fan-favorite Pokemon going up against a Dragapult!
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?
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.
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 Pokemon franchise has never really been known for coming anywhere close to pushing the envelope with its technical accomplishments, but recent years in particular have seen a number of the series’ mainline instalments being let down by the poor technical state they have launched in, from Pokmon Sword and Shield to Pokemon Legends: Arceus to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. The latter in particular launched in such poor condition that Nintendo was forced to issue a public apology.
The Pokémon Company has issued a statement saying it would look into infringement of its intellectual property after having received inquiries regarding "another company's game released in January 2024."