The Pokémon Company issues brief public statement in response to recent online discussions of potential IP infringement by developers of Palworld

The Pokémon Company have released a brief public statement in response to inquiries they have receive relating to potential intellectual property infringement by another game developer. Though the statement names no names, it quite clearly refers to Palworld, the so-called "Pokémon with Guns" game, which has been in the news recently both for its strong initial sales, the public statements of the studio's CEO in support of generative AI, and the similarities many of the game's "Pals" have to different kinds of Pokémon.

The statement, in both Japanese and English, has been reproduced in full below.

他社ゲームに関するお問い合わせについて​

お客様から、2024年1月に発売された他社ゲームに関して、ポケモンに類似しているというご意見と、弊社が許諾したものかどうかを確認するお問い合わせを多数いただいております。弊社は同ゲームに対して、ポケモンのいかなる利用も許諾しておりません。

なお、ポケモンに関する知的財産権の侵害行為に対しては、調査を行った上で、適切な対応を取っていく所存です。

弊社はこれからもポケモン１匹１匹の個性を引き出し、その世界を大切に守り育てながら、ポケモンで世界をつなぐための取り組みを行ってまいります。

株式会社ポケモン

Inquiries Regarding Other Companies’ Games
We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024. We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon. We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future.

The Pokémon Company

 

These bootlickers just hate Palworld because it proves that an indie developer with a fraction of the budget can make a game much more functional in early access than their pwecious Gamefreak can after a bunch of updates. Oh no, Pokémon has actual competition, how horrible! Now let's spread unfounded accusations of AI use and copying models and send death threats to this small developer team!

There's actually quite a bit of compelling evidence from the direct comparison of models.

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I highly recommend looking at the original investigation put on X by user @byofrog, and the posts they've reposts and quoted with other independent work showing additional evidence.

TLDR; It's pretty clear that 3D models of Pokémon were ripped and then use as a base. That's not simply "being inspired by Pokémon", that's outright tracing, adding a few additional details, and claiming it's all your original work.

 

That's my understanding; it's "crafting survival game with mons"

Which is just a roundabout way of saying "Pokemon with guns". Having played some of the game I can tell you that catching monsters and battling with them is indeed part of the gameplay but even ignoring that, many monster character models themselves are so obviously copied from Pokemon that it can't be denied. It goes beyond just being inspired by Pokemon and falls into the lines of plagiarism instead.

Also I had to laugh at this part of this article just because it's so revealing:

In a blog post published this week, the CEO even claimed that Palworld’s 100 character concepts were made mostly by a single graduate student.

“She was a new graduate and had applied to nearly 100 companies, but failed them all,” he wrote. “And she is now drawing most of the characters in Palworld.”

That really says a lot of about the artist and I'm stunned that she found employment with the company that produced this game given her reputation. I can't even sympathize with her struggles to find employment because it doesn't excuse copying another franchise's designs and calling them your own.

 

Also I had to laugh at this part of this article just because it's so revealing:


That really says a lot of about the artist and I'm stunned that she found employment with the company that produced this game given her reputation. I can't even sympathize with her struggles to find employment because it doesn't excuse copying another franchise's designs and calling them your own.

This is a pretty damning report indeed. We're starting to see a clearer picture of what might've happened. It seems they hired one artist to generate the monsters with A.I. using Pokemon designs as training data. This is looking easier and easier for TPC to prove copyright infringement.

 

This is a pretty damning report indeed. We're starting to see a clearer picture of what happened. They hired one artist to generate the monsters with A.I. using Pokemon designs as training data. This is looking easier and easier for TPC to prove copyright infringement.

I'll preface this by saying I'm not a fan of Palworld nor generative AI (yuck), but nowhere in this article does it conclusively (or even explicitly) say that they used AI for these designs — it's important to at the very least speak in hypothetical terms when we're speculating, so as to make sure we're not spreading misinformation, o7. I'd recommend you to maybe edit your comment to reflect that?

But yeah, this is roooough ahaha, right!? (ʘᗩʘ') I don't really think Palworld is that much of a Pokémon competitor other than cute creatures being present, and the survival-like genre doesn't particularly interest me... in all honesty, I would have been indifferent to this game had it not been that the CEO is a huge generative AI supporter (then the models controversy later on). I abhor all companies who use it in their products or simply support it, but that's not exactly here nor there... like, looking at those designs, you can't tell me that some of them aren't very very very close to original Pokémon designs. From further research I've been seeing around it does seem likely that this may have been intentional on the devs' part? Just my two cents though.

 

There's actually quite a bit of compelling evidence from the direct comparison of models.

​

I highly recommend looking at the original investigation put on X by user @byofrog, and the posts they've reposts and quoted with other independent work showing additional evidence.

TLDR; It's pretty clear that 3D models of Pokémon were ripped and then use as a base. That's not simply "being inspired by Pokémon", that's outright tracing, adding a few additional details, and claiming it's all your original work.

That's completely fabricated. Here's an article proving the models aren't ripped:Palworld Players Are Ripping Apart Pal Models To Prove They're Not Stolen

Anyone want to apologize to me and the developers for dogpiling me and spreading allegations that were proven false?

 

Anyone want to apologize to me and the developers for dogpiling me and spreading allegations that were proven false?

Uh, no? Even if the game models themselves weren't ripped (I never thought they were anyway since I couldn't be bothered to look into the specifics), that doesn't change the allegations about many of the Palworld monsters having designs that are blatantly copied from Pokemon. It's not even just being inspired by Pokemon; many of the Pals genuinely look like someone just combined aspects of various Pokemon and combined them together.

Also I love how you ignored this part of the article that you yourself linked to;

Of course, none of this is letting Palworld off of the hook for straight-up copying Pokemon designs, as the plagiarism accusations are still in full force thanks to certain pals clearly having features ripped straight off of certain Pokemon.

In other words, even the article that's defending Palworld admits that the developers copied Pokemon designs.

 

Far too many people I've seen think that plagiarism is only if you copy something 1:1, which is literally not how it works.

 

Translation: "Dear Pokémon fans: we would have already sued them if we think we'd win. Please stop spamming our email"

Palworld plagerized Pokémon in the same way Spaceballs plagerized Star Wars. They had years to sue them before the game's release. Nintendo is super cease and desist happy. Palworld is gonna be fine