Palworld: Nintendo's Lawsuit Wants To Block Indie Games From Being Creative

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Nintendo has finally launched a lawsuit targeting Palworld, a game that’s faced accusations of ripping off Pokemon. But the developer of Palworld is signaling that it plans on fighting back.

On Thursday morning, the game’s developer Pocketpair published a statement, saying Nintendo’s lawsuit does risk eating up resources it could put into improving Palworld, which is available for PC and Xbox.

“It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit,” the Tokyo-based Pocketpair said.

But in the same statement, Pocketpair also hinted how it’ll try to fight back against Nintendo’s lawsuit. “We will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas,” the developer said.

Filed in Japan, Nintendo’s lawsuit against Pocketpair isn’t exactly a surprise; back in late January, the gaming giant announced it had begun investigating Palworld for possibly using Pokemon’s intellectual property without Nintendo’s permission.

But the resulting lawsuit isn’t going after Pocketpair for copyright infringement, as many thought it might. Instead, Nintendo is accusing Palworld’s developer of patent infringement, suggesting the ensuing legal battle will revolve around game mechanics, rather than character designs.

“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,” Nintendo added in its own statement.

Still, Pocketpair says: "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."

In the meantime, the lawsuit is bound to serve as a warning to the gaming industry about using concepts from Pokemon, a franchise that started in 1996 and has revolved around capturing cute animals and then using them for battle.

Pocketpair’s CEO Takuro Mizobe has previously defended Palworld against comparisons to Pokemon. “We make our games very seriously, and we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies,” he told Automaton in January, adding that Palworld had cleared legal reviews.

Palworld was released back in January, becoming a surprise hit that immediately attracted over 2 million players on Steam a mere day after its launch. But the game's popularity has since faded, with its player base on Steam usually reaching around 30,000 players per day, according to SteamDB.