Palworld Creator Loves That Others Are Trying To Clone The Game
from the best-pals dept
We’ve had several posts on the video game sensation that is Palworld in the past. Given that the game has been described by others as “Pokémon, but with guns”, we kicked things off both wondering if Nintendo was going to try to take some kind of misguided legal action on the game, while also pointing out that the game is an excellent case study in copyright’s idea/expression dichotomy. After all, the game does not do any direct copying of any Pokémon IP, but does draw obvious inspiration from some of the base ideas behind that IP. In fact, highlighting the dichotomy further was a mod that injected actual Pokémon IP into Palworld, which Nintendo then managed to get taken down.
One of the things writers of this sort of content like me tend to fret about, however, is how often rank hypocrisy suddenly shows up among subjects such as the creators behind Palworld. It’s not uncommon to see a content creator attempt to go after folks doing to them exactly what the creator did in drawing inspiration from others. If you were worried the people behind Palworld would fall into this category, however, it appears very much that you were worried for nothing.
With the success of the game, it was only a matter of time before someone, or many someones, tried to cash in on its success by making similar games, or “clones.” PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizobe noticed this was happening with Palworld and reacted thusly.
“Tencent is already making a Palworld clone game!” PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizobe recently tweeted,” according to a translation by Automaton. He seemed happy about it. “These are incredible times,” he wrote. Some initially interpreted Mizobe as being critical of these moves. An IGN story described him as accusing other companies of ripping off Palworld, a framing the CEO rejected.
“To ‘accuse’ someone of something, means to say they are doing something wrong,” Mizobe wrote in a follow-up tweet responding to the IGN story. “I don’t think what Tencent is doing is wrong. I’m proud that other companies want to make games like Palworld. The industry historically innovates when we borrow ideas from games we love. I’m surprised that many high-quality mobile games are already in development.”
No going legal. No threats. Not even a hint of a complaint. Instead, Mizobe acknowledged what we all already know to be true: video games, like other forms of culture, are and have always been built on what came before it. If the success of Palworld spawns similar games after the fact, that’s not only not a problem, it’s a good thing for gaming culture. Hell, Mizobe even went so far as to praise some of these games’ quality.
Imagine Nintendo doing anything like this. You simply can’t. In fact, when Palworld was released, Nintendo made some vague comments about looking into the game to see if it wanted to pursue any legal action. You know, the exact opposite of the route Mizobe took.
Who knows if these new Palworld clones that Tencent and others are apparently developing will ever see the light of day. We won’t know if they’re actually rip-offs until they’re out, but Mizobe doesn’t seem to mind either way.
And why should he? I imagine he’s far too busy counting all the money his company is making by focusing on making a successful game rather than wringing his hands over some clones that may or may not ever gain any traction.
Filed Under: copying, innovation, inspiration, palworld, takuro mizobe, video games
Companies: nintendo, pocketpair, pokemon, tencent
Comments on “Palworld Creator Loves That Others Are Trying To Clone The Game”
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Crabby Nintendon’t refuses to be flattered.
But can Nintendo go after Palworld clones and go after PocketPair when he tries to stand up for them? Would his attempts at covering his friends be enough?
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While I’m very sure some of the, ahem, less ethical Chinese “game” studios will use assets from the Pokemon games, Nintendo can, legally, only send their lawsuits if there is evidence that their game assets are being used.
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I still get ads for made-in-China mobile games that continue to use the official names and assets of Pokemon – despite quite clearly being standard monster collection gacha that have no affiliation with TPCI.
Nintendo knows these exist, it’s just not worth the effort for them to try their luck in the intellectual property sinkhole that is China. China will use IP, they just have very little care for attribution or reparations or any of the pesky legal expectations that pro-IP interests consistently demand from everyone else.
I suppose there’s nothing stopping Nintendo from going after Palworld over clones that Palworld has no personal involvement in, if only to be petty and vindictive. They probably feel they can continue to piss away even more player goodwill.
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Makes sense, as Nintendo would only have a problem with Palworlds developers, not people who made games based on Palworld when it was legal to do so. Ex post facto rulings are not legal and there’s no knowledge or intent to steal anything.
It’s surprising to see CEOs actually trying to NOT burn their already shaky PR through boneheaded moves like denouncing one of the giants of the gaming industry.
Most games are not original new games are based on concepts like fps shooter roguelike RPG fantasy adventure simulator etc then it’s how the game is made the story characters graphics style high quality voiceover that attracts people to buy the game
Mario games are mostly 2d or 3d platformers
They sell millions because they are very well designed with high quality graphics and simple story’s that can be played by adults or children
Other company’s make platformer type games but they cannot feature mario or Luigi eg characters owned by Nintendo
Anyone can make a game featuring cute creatures as long as they are not identical to the creatures owned by the Pokémon company
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Saying a game isn’t original because it is “fantasy adventure” or “a first person shooter” is like saying a book isn’t original because it is a historical romance, or a movie isn’t original because it is a horror film.
Just like nobody walked out of “Get Out” thinking “eh, just another film like Nosferatu”, nobody played through Shovel Knight thinking “yawn, another Super Mario Brothers knockoff”.
Its not like we’ve ever seen a clone introduce something new that somehow finds its way into the original.
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As I recall, Palworld is in Early Access, so if a feature of one of those other games gets popular enough there’s a good chance of it.
I’m open to the possibility that the Palworld crew are genuinely happy that people are producing knock-off games.
But the cynic in me has to ask: what choice to they have? What are they going to do — sue? There are only three outcomes there:
So, yeah. Saying “hey, making games based entirely on other peoples’ ideas is totally great” is the best option here.
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True, but why does it have to be a cynical choice?
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I think “the CEO is putting a positive spin on competing products he can’t do anything about” is more likely than “the CEO is genuinely pleased that competing products are being made, even though that will likely cost his company sales in the future”.
It is like when Hollywood ends up producing 2-3 movies on the same subject back to back, like “Wyatt Earp” and “Tombstone”. The filmmakers will say nice things about it when interviewed, but you know they’re actually thinking “man, screw those other guys”.
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It’s less the direct competition between”Wyatt Earp” and “Tombstone” and more the “Star Trek” and “Babylon 5” comparison. One has the backing of a major studio and the other doesn’t. One would have the big budget and survive for decades, the other is the idea of one man and is done in five years. One is a once-great franchise whose best years are behind it and one is a breath of fresh air
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Or, Pocketpair can voice their disapproval and people will eventually discover that their CEO might be one of them AI techbros.
There is no actual evidence that the company has tried to phase out artists, 3D modellers and other creatives in their companies, but their CEO has a ton of praise for the automation of certain art pipelines with LLMs.
Not so fast. Keep in mind that Nintendo regularly licenses Metroidvania games (and other games from genres they created or popularized) on their platforms such as the Nintendo Switch.
So actually, I can easily imagine such a scenario, and I’m not John Lennon or his ghost.
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There’s a big difference between getting indies on their platform and praising the indies for being as good as Nintendo’s game designers.
The former does happen, has happened and will continue to happen. The latter, though? It was not so long ago that Nintendo held onto the belief that American/European game designers were inferior to Japanese ones. Until Rare proved them wrong.
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Fair enough.