It was a turbulent weekend for PalworldThe ark-like survival game, colloquially “Pokémon With weapons.” The latest version of Pocketpair has already done it sold over five million copies since launching in Early Access on January 19th and shot to the top of the Steam and Twitch charts over the weekend. Palworld has been a lightning rod for controversy for a variety of, and in some cases, quite legitimate reasons, from claims that it’s an outlandish meme taking on a childhood staple to accusations of using AI in the creation of its characters use.
But there the team claims to have recently received death threats For people unhappy with the game’s premise, it’s a good time to step back and look at the bigger picture. Let’s recap what’s happened since then Palworld started, from plagiarism and AI accusations to the meaning of its success Pokémon Fans and the future of the franchise.
Palworld is not a threat to Pokémon
Here at Exp. Share, My cityis weekly Pokémon In our column, we take a look at the history of the adventures of Pikachu and his friends and the culture that has emerged around them over the past 28 years. Part of understanding this story is understanding that we have been here before and will inevitably be here again – despite the cultural ubiquity of Pokémon, Game Freak and The Pokémon Company don’t have a monopoly on the monster-taming genre. There have always been competitors in this area Pokémon has.
Digimon started in 1997, a year later, as virtual pets Pokémon Red And Blue was released on the original Game Boy. Although it never quite arrived PokémonDue to its popularity, it has maintained a loyal fan base for nearly three decades and carved a niche for itself in the young adult genre with its stories that set it apart Pokémon‘s family-friendly tone. Monster Rancher has quietly maintaining its own part of the public consciousness Also since 1997. These grew around the same time as Pokémonbut they never gained as much traction as Ash and Pikachu did in the late ’90s.
Even outside of mainstream multimedia and age group-oriented attempts to emulate Nintendo’s formula, games like Shin Megami Tensei had monster-taming elements long before Pokémon existed since the original was released almost a decade earlier Red And Blue. Dragon Quest has since used these mechanics in several of his games Dragon Quest V (1992) and even has its own spin-off series Dragon Quest Monsters, that focuses entirely on these systems. The Yo-Kai watch Series was released as Pokémon It was an early contender when it launched in 2013 has struggled to maintain its momentum ever since. TemTem Was created in response to Pokémon‘s perceived flawsand the MMO has built its own endless community Pokémon‘s reign.
Welcome to Exp. Share, My city‘S Pokémon Column where we dive deep to explore notable characters, urban legends, communities, and just plain weird quirks from around the world Pokémon Franchise.
There is a larger discussion here about competition, the capitalist belief that the best product on the market wins, and the fact that seemingly nothing (even franchises with Probably better games lately) can overtake Pokémon. The point is, though, that this franchise is too culturally entrenched for a game like this Palworld to overthrow Pikachu from his throne in the Monster Taming Kingdom. Pokémon Scarlet And Violet may Starting in a broken state and still Selling 23 million copies on just one platform. So when we make the argument PalworldSince we’re about to dethrone the decades-long winner of the race to tame monsters based on copycat monster designs, we need to put things into perspective.
There are individual issues affecting employees of The Pokémon Company and its subsidiaries that we will address, but are not something we need to worry about the most profitable entertainment franchise of again and again, and we definitely don’t have to resort to death threats.
But let’s not pretend PalworldThe characters are not an obvious copy
The “Pokémon “With Guns” is a simple acronym, and its memetic power is proven Palworld‘s favor. But when you actually sit down and look at Pokémon and Pals side by side, there are some egregious similarities that you can’t just pass off as something else [animal]. As fans have pointed out, some of PalworldThe characters from are almost identical to those from Pokémonwith color palette changes and some details shifted so far that they are not 1:1 copies. This thread alone has more than 60 examples comparing Pokémon and Pal designs, and while they don’t all match the original pocket monsters, there are more than enough to be concerned about.
Pair of bags claims it has overcome the hurdles necessary to ensure Palworld is legally protected from allegations of copyright infringement. The studio claims Nintendo has made no attempts to cancel the game since its announcement in 2021, but it’s unclear whether the boom in interest might prompt Nintendo to pay a little more attention. Palworld probably falls under this Parody lawwhich protects works that imitate others in an “exaggerated, comedic manner,” and given that there are similar but not identical creatures with assault rifles, that sounds like an apt description
Shooting is just one of several mechanics that remain Palworld different from Pokémon. Pocketpair’s game contains elements of Fourteen days‘s building, ark‘s survival modes and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild‘s exploration. Yes, you play as a human, finding creatures in the wild and trapping them in a spherical object that shakes a few times as they try to escape, all just like you would in one of Game Freak’s RPGs. But ultimately it doesn’t fill the gap this would create Pokémonis the hypothetical downfall.
What about the AI allegations against? Palworld?
Part of the reason Palworld There is so much controversy that Pocketpair used AI to create its Pals and how that AI might have actually scraped Pokémon Records for material. Given the widespread fear of AI-generated art, especially some generators Scratch copyrighted material from human artists, it is now (unfortunately) natural to wonder when the virtues of a game seem to be derived from something else. As Palworld As the game has gained popularity following release, more and more people have pointed out that parts of some Pals look almost completely ripped out Pokémon games.
Takuro Mizobe, CEO of Pocketpair, posted about the allegations and the response X (formerly Twitter). While he did not entirely deny the above points, he nevertheless demanded that the anger directed at the team’s artists cease and took responsibility for the game’s production Eurogamer‘s translation.
Pocketpair has openly used AI in previous projects. KI: Art fraudster uses AI-generated art on a mechanical level, requiring players to create art using an AI tool instead of drawing and CEO Mizobe has expressed interest in the impact of AI on the video game industry. However, there is no concrete evidence to confirm this PalworldThe characters were created through artificial intelligence or some sort of statement from the studio. My city has reached out to Pocketpair and asked the studio for comment on the allegations that it used AI Palworldis the creation of and will update the story if we hear back.
As well as Forbes points out Steam has introduced a new policy This requires developers to disclose the use of AI in their games. At the moment, Palworld has no such disclosure on the shop window front.
I still haven’t played Palworld However, and considering how busy the next month is going to be, I don’t know if I ever will. But if the game’s success has shone a spotlight on anything, it’s the way misinformation can spiral out of control. There is a lot of criticism that is worth it PalworldThis is true, but at this point in time parts of it are unfounded. Palworld can easily be written off as something else Pokémon Clone for its derivative designs, but it also carves out its own niche in the monster taming genre. There’s more to say about Pocketpair’s game than just being a rip-off Pokémon and more information gaps need to be filled before we start sharpening the axe.
