Nintendo is suing Palworld after all

Palworld was ridiculously popular upon its release earlier this yet. And I mean “briefly eclipsed the almighty Fortnite” levels of popular. But that popularity was a double-edged sword, because people wondered how long The Pokémon Company could ignore “Pokémon with guns.”

At first, it maybe seemed like The Pokémon Company and its parent company, Nintendo, might leave Palworld developer Pocketpair alone. Given Nintendo’s rich history of suing for intellectual property infringement, this seemed surprising. But shortly after Palworld‘s release, The Pokémon Company issued a statement that refused to name the game in question, but cooly affirmed it was looking into the matter and would “address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon.”

The results of that investigation are apparently in. On September 19, 2024, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company announced they are suing Pocketpair for patent infringement.

Oof

In an official statement, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company assert, “This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.”

Palworld developer Pocketpair, a small indie studio, is also based in Japan, so the case will be settled in Tokyo District Court.

In a response statement, Pocketpair replied, “At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details … It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit.”

Normally, I’m 1000% for the little guy in any fight against a big corporation. But you catch Pals in the wild with gall. Some of the Pals even look like Pokémon. Nintendo is famous for suing to protect its intellectual rights. There’s not much separation between the new idea and its inspiration. This lawsuit was obviously coming.

My hope is that Nintendo doesn’t sue Pocketpair into non-existence. Remember, Digimon was allowed to exist beside Pokémon—and Palworld has deals with Sony and anime production studio Aniplex. Perhaps Pocketpair will have to iterate on the idea of “Pals” to further differentiate them from Pokémon. Which, hoping that the extra labor is properly compensated, could at least help to give Palworld an even stronger, more unique identity.

Do you really want your game to forever be known primarily as “Pokémon with guns”?