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wolfshadowheart, in The Pokémon Company Announces It Will ‘Investigate’ Palworld IP And Assets
@wolfshadowheart@kbin.social avatar

Some of them seem pretty bad. I feel like the example image with the eyes and the teeth is quite a damning stylistic choice, compared to some of their other monsters which look more like a palette swap and animal change with some model variations. Save for the few that straight up have the same attack, like the Deciduueye example, I think it's reasonable enough to use them for inspiration, although not necessarily the best option. It's a shame they felt the need to rely on something that is popular I think it hurt them a bit by not having as uniform a vision.

That said, even if I do think it's pretty obvious I don't want them to lose this if anything comes of it, Pokemon is just as bad and they have nothing to gain from ruining this persons work other than asserting dominance.

I do hope they use this as a learning opportunity for next time and maybe stop being so goddamn blatant in their "homage". I would have been much more inclined to the game if it felt like the monsters had some rationale behind them because the game is pretty solid overall. All I can say is that I hope the game continues to exist but maybe gets a more original in-world bestiary and not Pokemon Gen 15

TwilightVulpine, (edited )

Calling this one image damning feels like corporatized media has become so dominant, people don't really get anymore how similar things need to be for it to be an actual legal issue.

Superhero comics have a lot of characters that are obvious ripoffs of characters from other publishers and yet they are still legally distinct enough that they can get away with it. Comes to mind also how Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse to replace Oswald the Lucky Rabbit which, even though he also created, was owned by Universal. Both were rubber hose-styled. black-bodied, white-faced, big-eared animal characters wearing shorts, and yet that was also legally distinct enough for his ownership of the character to be established.

It would take far more than a similar face for Palworld to be liable of anything. Sure, it's enough for people to tell they have tried to imitate it, but by itself that's not grounds for legal action.

There are some claims of copying or tracing meshes going around on social media that could be an actual issue, but the validity of those is still questionable. The Pokémon Company needs to either point out a near identical design, and I do emphasize, near identical, or to prove that stolen assets were used in the game's creation.

saplyng,
@saplyng@kbin.social avatar

I'd argue against the example image being damning in the first place because it's fairly obvious they're both derived from the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, which is well passed the point of being public domain

TwilightVulpine,

Not only that but they have entirely different body shapes and color schemes. I doubt a face by itself could be copyrighted. If that was the case a lot of anime would have issues.

Gordon_Freeman,
@Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social avatar

The thing is they literally took pokemon 3D assets, edited them a little and that's all

Because pals look like this

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TOedaV033DY/maxresdefault.jpg

but now IN 3D!!!
Pals
https://imgur.com/PbtJxRr

They took Serperior head+ Milotic body and Primarina hair

https://nintenduo.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Palworld-Plagio-Pokemon-03-1024x576.webp

self-explanatory

For the thumbnail image, they took meoth face, purugly body and that's it

These designs are not "inspired" they simply imported the assets from a pokemon game on blender or something, used "copy and paste" for different body parts and that's it, job done that's their completely original creature, totally not copied

TwilightVulpine,

The person in social media who extracted and compared assets admitted they modified them to appear more similar because they didn't like how the game promotes animal cruelty.

One thing that a lot of people don't seem to realize in this whole discussion is that, whatever you may think of it as far as artistic integrity goes, Pokémon only owns the full complete design of their characters and the actual game files, but not every possible independently produced variation or recombination of those traits. They own Wooloo but they don't own every possible roundish sheep-like creature.

To be fair it's obvious that Palworld's company Pocket Pair doesn't care about originality. But whether the are literally infringing on the Pokémon property is unclear, and a lot of people are making serious but baseless accusations out of snowballing social media outrage.

If there's any actual, real issue that warrants a lawsuit, you can be sure that the Pokémon Company's lawyers will find it out. It's not like they need anyone to defend them, we are literally talking about the biggest media brand in the world.

jeebus, in The Pokémon Company Announces It Will ‘Investigate’ Palworld IP And Assets
@jeebus@kbin.social avatar

Nintendo always wanted to arm their Pokemon, just were too scared to do it.

FeelzGoodMan420, in Valve likely earned over $1bn in Counter-Strike 2 loot boxes last year

I haven’t bought a single fucking skin/box key since I started playing csgo in like 2014 :-). I guess I’m a fucking weirdo or something

snooggums,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

Me either, although a few years ago I sold some weapon skins and loot boxes that I received from playing CS Go when it first came out for enough Valve bucks or whatever to buy a couple of new games!

Loot boxes should not be in computer games.

FeelzGoodMan420,

This is the way.

thingsiplay,
@thingsiplay@kbin.social avatar

Loot boxes should not be in computer games.

As much as I like Valve, Valve is one of the major player bringing and normalizing Lootboxes into games. Even before the Lootboxes was a thing on smartphones, let alone before they arrived on other AAA games as well. I think this is the worst contribution of Valve to videogames. And this statement comes from someone who usually defends this company.

snooggums,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

Same! I don't play CS 2 and pretty much forgot that they do the lootbox thing.

thingsiplay, in Valve likely earned over $1bn in Counter-Strike 2 loot boxes last year
@thingsiplay@kbin.social avatar

Last year after I showed off my brother the Steam Deck, he decided to sell most of his CS:GO skins and purchase with the money the Steam Deck (but 64gb model). It was one of his best decisions, because he was thinking of getting a cheap laptop to play simple games and do simple web browsing.

Now he is a Linux user. :> Gott'em!

WanderingPoltergeist, in Switch version of Persona 3 Reload isn’t planned, Atlus would need to discuss it
@WanderingPoltergeist@kbin.social avatar

I'm more than happy about the Xbox version of Persona 3 Reloaded...It shocked me that Xbox was getting some more Atlus love! If anything, I would hope Atlus saves the effort for a successor to the Nintendo Switch, which seems to be in the hands of some dev studios (based on rumors).

WanderingPoltergeist, in Multiplayer being 'considered' for Cyberpunk 2077 sequel says CD Projekt
@WanderingPoltergeist@kbin.social avatar

If it's optional, I don't mind if multiplayer is being considered. However, I want them to focus fully on making a rich single-player experience (my personal preference for games) as a lot of games that just shoehorned in multiplayer were lacking in the single-player experience. My interest is always diminished by the mention of multiplayer, I will take a wait and see approach when this sequel is released and reviewed before forming a real opinion.

WanderingPoltergeist, in Games only need fast travel when they make travel "boring", says Dragon's Dogma 2 director
@WanderingPoltergeist@kbin.social avatar

I think even the more compelling games I've played used fast travel...Not as an excuse to reduce exposure to a tedious world, but to respect a gamer's time! I prefer fast travel to hubs and allowing me to make a short journey to wherever my next objective is. No Man's Sky has my favorite system for fast travel: Teleportation Portals which you can use to create a network of fast travel spots. It makes exploring previously settled planets a lot easier but still encourages the player to explore their unique universe. It's limited, but in an elegant way which I find to be pleasing.

I can only think of one game that made travel boring: Skyrim. The main reason is that once you've experienced one random event...You've seen them all as there's no flavor to those random on the road events. Fast Travel to any point on the map was designed to hide the blandness of Skyrim.

Even Hideaki must realize that travelling the same road repeatedly will become dull because one can only pack so many random events in a game...I hope that he makes for an option to even avoid that level of tedium in the extremely late/post-game. Else his game will become the very thing he's critiquing.

WanderingPoltergeist, in Riot lays off over 500 staff, with Legends of Runeterra and Forge indie initiative teams hit hard
@WanderingPoltergeist@kbin.social avatar

This isn't a necessity for Riot; the American Gaming Corporations are addicted to layoffs because it's a naked display of their power. If they were made to take responsibility for their bad financial decisions, CEOs and other corporate leeches would have their unnecessarily high pay cut.

Gordon_Freeman, in Palworld’s success is partially born from Pokémon fans’ discontent
@Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social avatar

I don't thinks so. It popular because "pokemon with guns" became a viral meme which sucks.

A a discontent pokemon fan myself I would love someone to make a pokemon clone since Game Freak is not really interested in doing good pokemon games anymore. But "Ark Survival Evolved with knockoff pokemon skins instead of dinosaurs" is not what I want

TwilightVulpine,

Pokémon with guns wouldn't have gotten millions of sales on its own. When the trailers came out people were laughing but they weren't exactly eager to play.

Given the persistent popularity of survival crafting games, I think "Ark with knockoff pokemon" is exactly what people wanted. After all, even before this, Pixelmon was one of the most popular Minecraft mods.

Gordon_Freeman,
@Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social avatar

Pokémon with guns wouldn't have gotten millions of sales on its own

The day before sold millions (but this one was refunded by millions too) and everybody and their mom knew it was a scam since it was announced like 2 or 3 years ago. Internet is weird, if something becomes viral it will sell, the quality does not matter, people just wants to be in

snooggums,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

As far as I can tell The Day Before was overhyped early and people bought it because of the marketing. Palworld did some advertising, but the mass adoption appears to be mostly word of mouth that the game is actually fun when it was made available in early access.

That matches what I have seen from people commenting and my personal experience as I don't remember hearing about it before and hopped on because of friends recommending it. Palworld is a word of mouth success like Valheim and for similar reasons of competent styling, smooth gameplay, and survival that isn't punishing the player from the moment the game starts.

Gordon_Freeman,
@Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social avatar

As far as I can tell The Day Before was overhyped early and people bought it because of the marketing

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDayBefore/comments/lwaach/people_keep_saying_its_a_scam_whats_the_scam/

That's a 3 years old post. Everybody knew it was a scam back then. to the point the studio released "We are not a scam, trust me bro" statements (which made it more obvious it was a scam)

I don't remember hearing about it before

Internet has been talking about "pokemon with guns" for 2 years or so since the developers were already famous because they launched a "Breath of the Wild" knock off (Craftopia) that also sold well (not at the same level of palworld, but for being the first title of a brand new indie studio it sold really well)

snooggums,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

Apparently not everyone knew the day before was a scam or it wouldn't have sold millions of units. Just because some people predicted it does not mean that the general population had any awareness of that expectation.

Gordon_Freeman,
@Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social avatar

it wouldn't have sold millions of units

People started to sell their steam accounts that owned the game and keys for the game for hundreds of dollars when it was announced the game was some bad that it was going to be removed from steam

If something is popular it will sell, the quality does not matter. You have the best example in Pokemon itself

TwilightVulpine,

The Day Before did not sell a single million units and Palworld is not getting widely refunded, even though everyone who starts it, dressed like a caveman, immediately realizes they aren't getting to play with guns anytime soon. There were streamers showing this even before the game was out.

It's true that virality is unpredictable and popularity is not a measure of quality, but I think a lot of people are being overly dismissive of the fact that Palworld managed to hook people with something that appealed to them. Not to say it's a bastion of quality and originality, obviously not, but it has something going for it.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

Off the top of my head, there's Temtem and Cassette Beasts that try to mimic the formula more closely, and then there are a bunch of "Pokemon but _____" takes on the formula that you can find with a quick Google. This is "Pokemon but <survival game>". Last I heard, Ark didn't let you assign dinosaurs to a factory or have some of the more RPG systems like boss fights, but quite frankly, I found Ark so obtuse that I didn't play for long.

Gordon_Freeman,
@Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social avatar

The problem with TemTem is that it's an always online game, if the servers are turned off you won't be able to play, not even the single player campaign so it's a hard pass.

And the art style of both games are not my cup of tea, the do a disservice selling me the game.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

I'm a fairweather Pokemon fan at best, but I'm with you on Temtem for the same reason; many people don't have the same reservations as you and I, so I thought I'd mention it. I think Cassette Beasts is that game and reviewed well, and to ignore it might be to ignore exactly the game you're asking for, but I'd also point you toward the "creature collector" tag on Steam. I've never heard of Coromon before doing that search to leave this reply, but mousing over it for a second shows a video that proves they know what they're making (87% positive Steam reviews). Same goes for Nexomon: Extinction (92% positive). No one will know what you're looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.

Gordon_Freeman,
@Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social avatar

No one will know what you're looking for better than you, but people have been making games inspired by Pokemon for a long time now.

A Pokemon clone with high production values made in Japan. Or if it's not made in Japan one that uses it own art style, I simply can't stand the "Fake anime" aesthetic that most indies use, like they learned to draw using this as refference

Think of Shin Megami Tensei (but not SMT V, that one sucks, they removed the dungeon crawling and the puzzles)

shani66,

Cassette Beasts was the true goty last year!

GreenAlex, in Games only need fast travel when they make travel "boring", says Dragon's Dogma 2 director
@GreenAlex@kbin.social avatar

It's a fair point. I completely forgot fast travel was a thing when I played Spider-man because I enjoyed swinging around. I think teleportation is often used as a crutch to get around the fact that travel does tend to be boring (hello Bethesda).

Nommer, in Palworld’s success is partially born from Pokémon fans’ discontent

No, it’s success is because it’s extremely addicting. Especially for people with ADHD because there’s so many small and easily achieveable dopamine hits that’s easy to get lost for hours.

ouRKaoS, in Games only need fast travel when they make travel "boring", says Dragon's Dogma 2 director

The only reason I knew there was fast travel in Spider-Man was because there was an achievement for it.

SharkAttak, in Nvidia RTX Remix beta now out, expect shiny remasters of classic games
@SharkAttak@kbin.social avatar

In this instance, we can see ray-tracing versions of Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind and Half-Life 2, complete with higher definition assets.

So if you take old games and put in high def models and textures, and use raytracing, they look better? Who woulda thunk.. at least if modders are involved, the'll probably do a better job than official software houses.

shani66, in Games only need fast travel when they make travel "boring", says Dragon's Dogma 2 director

Man I’m glad dd2 is in his hands

TwilightVulpine, in Palworld’s success is partially born from Pokémon fans’ discontent

This take reminds me of how disappointed I was when I got Pokémon Violet, excited to see what pokémon would be like in open world, and then I realized there was nothing to do in between towns and bosses. Overall, it felt less interesting than older games where you needed to solve puzzles and mazes to progress. It's not even like there is much of an incentive to do things in your own order because every challenge has fixed levels. You could play multiplayer but there was nothing to do in multiplayer but to roam around. Due to the short draw distance and low frame rates it wasn't even like admiring the creatures roaming around felt so impressive.

The real time catching mechanics in Arceus were pretty fun, I liked the stealth elements, but without them SV felt like it was only going through the motions of having an open world, without understanding how to make use of it.

50gp,

arceus (and SV) wouldbe been way better if they learned to design compelling points of interest in their open world and not do amateur work that looks like auto generated landscape

Kbin_space_program,

The best thing to do in pokemon violet is to make the jump over the cliffs when you're level 15 and can face level 30 pokemon on top of the cliffs in the first zone.

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