Less than a week after the early access launch of the video game phenomenon Palworld, described as a “Pokémon with weapons,” The Pokémon Company announces that it is launching an investigation to review allegations of infringement of its intellectual property.
Released in Early Access on Steam and Xbox on January 19, Palworld from small Japanese studio Pocket Pair is an open-world survival and construction game in which you can capture creatures called Pals and teach them to fight. The title is played alone or online against a maximum of 32 players.
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Netizens quickly stormed the internet to denounce the many similarities between this new game and the Pokémon series.
Several publications have been able to compare dozens of creatures called Pals with their Pokémon equivalent.
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The CEO of the Pocket Pair studio said in an interview with Japanese Media Automation that the game went through all legal verification steps before its release.
The Pokémon Company reacts
After six days of silence, The Pokémon Company finally responded with a press release, not naming the game but simply pointing to a company's game released in January 2024.
We intend to investigate and take appropriate action to address any actions that violate intellectual property rights.
The company says it has received numerous inquiries about this title and has not granted permission to use Pokémon's intellectual property or assets.
Nintendo, the parent company of The Pokémon Company, is known for its particular inflexibility when it comes to its intellectual property. Australian YouTuber ToastedShoes learned this the hard way: the demonstration of his modification of the game, called Mod in English, which replaced Pals with Pokémon, had to be removed from YouTube at the request of the Japanese giant.
A huge success
Within four days, Palworld had already sold more than 6 million copies, numbers comparable to recent Pokémon games; Arceus had sold 6.5 million copies in a week, and 10 million copies of Pokémon Violet and Pokémon Scarlet were sold in three days.
The game is also one of the most popular on the Steam platform. On the live streaming site Twitch, it is one of the most streamed and watched games on the platform.
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One of the questions many people ask is whether it's about including firearms in a video game whose graphics appeal to children. “Palworld” is intended for ages 12 and up.
Photo: Pocket Pair
This monster and surprise success for this game, which was not among the most anticipated of the year, could be explained by the lack of boldness of the recent video games of The Pokémon Company, which is struggling to renew its series released in 1996, according to analysts.
The title is offered in Early Access, which means it is not the final version and is full of bugs. Pocket Pair admitted that the game's success had exceeded its expectations and that they were working to resolve the issues quickly.