Is Palworld any good?

[Mister Six]

Yes, the only reason for not becoming a screaming lunatic over a video game ripping off a visual style is homophobia. As Madhair said, this isn't plagiarism. Plagiarism would be if they have Pikachu and Bulbasaurs and the exact same gameplay. This is no more plagiarism than the glut of FPSes about space marines shooting mutants that came out in the wake of Doom. Less so, given that the gameplay is completely different. Lifting the Pokémon visual style is tacky and blatant, but it's not IP infringement.

Having looked around at this now out of curiosity, it strikes me that the unproven (and to my eye patently fabricated) AI claims are most likely an attempt by aggrieved Pokémon fans to escalate their fury at lazy aesthetic plundering to the level of widespread international outrage by glomming onto a pre-existing furore.

Anyway, must dash, going to put on a Link costume and immolate myself outside the offices of Genshin Impact.

[Milo]

Copyright infringement rather than plagiarism would be closer.

[Mister Six]

No, copyright would apply to the game's code, which I assume hasn't been lifted from a Pokémon game, or its dialogue and cutscenes.

In any case, what are they going to go after? The game isn't a Pokémon game, it's a crafting survival shoot 'em up. The only case they'd have is that it obviously rips off the Pokémon style - but you can't copyright an art style. And since the games don't purport to be part of the Pokémon franchise, there's no trademark infringement.

[Milo]

That's just not true on a couple of points. Copyright doesn't only apply to the code, you can infringe a trademark without explicitly claiming to be the thing you're infringing, and the gameplay being different isn't enough to stop potential infringement applying to aspects of it.

[Mister Six]

That's just not true on a couple of points. Copyright doesn't only apply to the code

...or "its dialogue and cutscenes". I guess I should have expanded that thought more broadly to the art and sound assets etc, but again it's not actually infringing on any of Pokémon's copyrighted content. Nothing in the game is actually copied, at least as far as I'm aware.

you can infringe a trademark without explicitly claiming to be the thing you're infringing

That's true, but the game explicitly being marketed as its own thing and not actually containing any copyrighted designs should get it off the hook there, I reckon. It's not like a T-shirt with Pikachu smoking a blunt or something.

[Milo]

I'd say it's not possible to claim it's definitely not infringing on pokemons copyrighted content. The character designs are very similar to copyrighted Pokémon designs, I don't think anyone would argue otherwise. Whether they're similar enough to infringe is really for a court to decide. I'd say there are certainly at least a few that are similar enough to constitute infringement of copyrighted content.

[Pink Gregory]

isn't this just a really boring debate that 'gamers' brought into being because they think AI will stop games being woke or what fucking ever

[Milo]

Quite possibly. The arguments do seem excessively aggressive, even for gamers. Especially given that it's basically about where you draw the line on a sliding scale between 'complete copy' and 'totally original'.

[Pink Gregory]

I know that Nintendo tend to be quite aggressive with their IP and all that, but at the same time it feels like there's this thing that 'gamers' can't quite square in which they want games with megabudgets and content content content but they also want the corporations that sell games to...not act like the large, rapacious corporations that they are?

[Milo]

Just belatedly realised it's one of those instances where most of the arguments about about who's doing the thing (or who they're doing it versus) rather than the thing itself. Some of these people aren't even interested in intellectual property law!

Apply the test of switching positions. Palworld release a game with a load of character designs developed from scratch, as close to original as any of these things can be. The Pokémon company has lifted them, filed the serial numbers off and put them in a game. Does your view of the matter change?

[Mister Six]

I'd say it's not possible to claim it's definitely not infringing on pokemons copyrighted content. The character designs are very similar to copyrighted Pokémon designs, I don't think anyone would argue otherwise. Whether they're similar enough to infringe is really for a court to decide.

It's been established, at least in US law, that you can't copyright or trademark a general art style, only specific combinations of colours, specific characters etc.

It's why Yahtzee's Second Wind "Ramblomatic" videos look almost exactly like the "Zero Punctuation" ones he did for The Escapist, except with a black hat, glasses, a dog and a red background rather than a white hat, no glasses, demons and a yellow background.

It's also why Nintendo didn't send the war dogs in when Genshin Impact straight up stole the art direction from Breath of the Wild.

Nintendo can't copyright the idea of "little monster friends", otherwise they'd have cunted in Digimon 25 years ago. They can't copyright or trademark the art style. They'll probably have a go at saying "little monsters in this art style is infringing on our trademark", but I think it would be fairly trivial to point out that none of the specific monsters are from Pokémon, the game isn't being promoted as a Pokémon game and it doesn't even play like a Pokémon game. It'll still have to go through the courts, obviously, but I don't think there's a strong case here. But, of course, I'm not a lawyer.

Apply the test of switching positions. Palworld release a game with a load of character designs developed from scratch, as close to original as any of these things can be. The Pokémon company has lifted them, filed the serial numbers off and put them in a game. Does your view of the matter change?

Well yeah, in the sense that Nintendo is usually great at design and has the money to make its own original things without ripping people off, and also it's a much bigger company so it lifting shit off a smaller one is far more outrageous.

"Hey, you're not bothered that this little guy stole money from this billionaire! But I bet you'd be bothered if the billionaire stole money from the little guy!" Well yeah. It doesn't mean I'm pro-theft though.

I don't really care about Palworld, I think it looks like shit even if it plays well, and ripping off Pokémon's art style is lazy and cynical in a way that mildly revulses me. I wish they weren't being rewarded with so much money and press. But I also find the livid response online and the cynical pushing of the AI narrative even though there's not actually any evidence of that pathetic and gross too.

All that said I still wouldn't expect a lawsuit over Nintendo stealing Palworld's shit to bear fruit (especially since Nintendo has even more legal heft than whoever made Palworld).

[Mister Six]

Had a bit of a think and regret my sarcastic tone in this thread. Apologies to all for that.

[Thursday]

I agree with your overall points though.

[Milo]

Had a bit of a think and regret my sarcastic tone in this thread. Apologies to all for that.

Did get my back up a bit, but I decided that you were sort of responding to the stuff being posted in those *other places*. No worries.

I do think there's enough there to be potentially infringing though, the art style itself isn't the issue - it's more the clear recognisability of some of the characters that could sink it.

I don't know if they might even have been on safer ground being even closer to Pokémon designs and treating it as a parody. They're in a bit of an odd space, sort of denying they're ripping off the Pokémon designs but benefitting from far more success than they'd have got with designs that weren't pokemonny.

All that said, I don't really care all that much about any of the actual IP rights issues but I have found the discourse around the Internet quite depressing. Too much bad law stuff and aggression. It's weighed on me.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Weeee aaaare similar to but legally distinct from the Lollipop Guild the Pokémon World

I dunno. If you can just wander around and camp with your dog monsters and collect the ones that look like dogs and then settle down and breed the dog monsters with each other that might be fun

[Wonderful Butternut]

I dunno. If you can just wander around and camp with your dog monsters and collect the ones that look like dogs and then settle down and breed the dog monsters with each other that might be fun

You can breed any Pal with any other Pal, (dunno if this results in horrible freaks of nature that demand you kill them) so technically yes. but the survival / crafting element would get in the way. You need Pals that can do certain tasks to automate basic resource collection for you. Unless you really like manually cutting down trees and breaking rocks. The NotaVulpixHonest (the only dog-like Pal around the starting area) I have can't do any resource gathering.

Once you have basic base running by itself, then yeah, I suppose you could just go around with your pack of doggies.

[Mister Six]

You can breed any Pal

Absolute filth.

[brat-sampson]

It was gamepass, played it for 5-10 mins, it needed me to build something with a material I didn't have and couldn't find... wandered around a bit, threw a 'PalSphere', missed. Ugly / basic-ass looking overworld. Punched a chicken to death and got some steak. Meant to build a base but not arsed.

Shite, uninstalled.

[falafel]

Oh how dare they, Hollow Knight is special. Hollow Knight doesn't have ladders though, maybe that's the original feature.

I put quite a few hours into hollow knight waiting for it to become the majestic masterpiece everyone said it was. Nice artwork. The rest just felt... Futile? Like killing time.