Nintendo taking Palworld developers to court

In January of 2024, Palworld took the gaming world by storm for being an unapologetic, blatant ripoff of Pokemon, just using the style of an open world survival game. It reached over 15 million units sold and had a concurrent player base of 2 million people as of Jan. 27. 

On Sept. 18, however, Nintendo filed a patent lawsuit against Pocketpair, the Palworld developer, meaning that Nintendo is going to sue Pocketpair on the basis that they are infringing on Nintendo’s patent of the popular Pokemon franchise. This isn’t unprecedented, as Nintendo has done lawsuits and cease and desists before, but this one has caught the public’s attention because of how blatant Palworld is. 

Another reason this caught the attention of everyone is a statement made by the creator of Palworld, Takuro Mozobe in a Bloomberg article, where he said that the game had made a profit that was “more than the studio could handle.” 

People have speculated that this statement is partly why Nintendo is going after them now, since they want to earn some money back since it’s their ideas being used. It’s not hard to argue that Palworld is a ripoff of Pokemon, at least when it comes to designs and some ideas like catching Pals. 

There has been no set court date from researching, but it is definitely an important case to look out for. 

Another interesting tidbit is that amid this lawsuit, Pocketpair still announced that Palworld will be coming to mobile phones, as it is already on Xbox, PC and Playstation systems. To announce a mobile port while under the heat of a lawsuit is a bold move, and a lot people still aren’t sure who will come out of this with the win; however, it is important to remember that Nintendo has sued before, and is a longtime experienced company, like in July 31, 1989 when Nintendo sued the then popular media rental company Blockbuster for photocopying their video games Manuals for replacements. 

Where this will go, no one knows, but it is definitely a case to keep an eye on if you are interested in video games, big company lawsuits or just Palworld as a game.