- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
This means the game will probably get sold on Steam as well as other official stores. They were previously unable to due to the lawsuit.
This means the game will probably get sold on Steam as well as other official stores. They were previously unable to due to the lawsuit.
It honestly feels like a very strange world where Palworld isn’t investigated by Pokemon for infringement, but DnD is investigated by Nexon. Granted, I don’t think either claim has validity.
It’s a pretty different situation under closer examination. The DnD developers are ex-Nexon employees and they (allegedly) pitched the idea internally before deciding to leave and take the idea with them.
Nexon thought that they had a legal leg to stand on because of how IP laws work (i.e.: employee ideas on company time are company IP). Perhaps more importantly; they probably felt a need to retaliate in order to send a message to other employees who might want to try something similar.
Palworld, on the other hand, is made by a team with no ties whatsoever to GameFreak. If Pokemon were a younger franchise they might possibly have a patent case of some kind, but even the 3D games go back almost 24 years now.
Palworld has no former employees of gamefreak and is a completely different game than Pokemon and a completely different genre. Some of the monsters look kind of similiar to pokemon but they arent copies.
But Palworld is being investigated.
The announcement they made seemed more like a statement of awareness than any foreboding of litigation. They already filed a takedown more specifically for the mod that changes to Pokemon models.
And knowing how hawkish their lawyers are, they’ve probably had their eyes on Palworld since it was announced anyway. If there was anything actionable, they would have jumped on it already.