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The beginning of 2024 saw Palworld, a game that appeared to be heavily influenced by Nintendo’s Pokemon, become a breakout PC hit. Palworld sold millions in a very short period of time earning its devs at Pocketpair a small, unexpected fortune became a phenomenon.
With more than a passing resemblance to Pokemon, with the added feature of guns, the gaming world was quick to point out that notoriously litigious Nintendo would soon be knocking on Pocketpair’s door to ask them to stop that.
Way back at the start of the year Nintendo confirmed it would look into the matter and see if it, and sister brand The Pokemon Company had been infringed in anyway. And then it went oh so quiet for months.
People largely stopped playing Palworld, certainly in the numbers they had, but now, as Fall arrives, Nintendo’s legal hammer has finally swung into action having looked at Palworld for the best part of nine months.
Filing a lawsuit for Infringement of Patent Rights in Tokyo’s District Court, Nintendo’s “lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.
Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.”
The lawsuit against Pocketpair has also been filed in conjunction with The Pokemon Company.
Not only did Palworld sell multiple millions on Steam it also appeared as a Day One release on Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, for which Pocketpair will have also received payment. It is unclear what effect the granting of any injunction will have on the availability of the game, but Readwrite Gaming would assume it will not be a positive one.
Palworld maintains a Very Positive user review rating on Steam and currently has around 15,000 players in-game, compared to a high of over 2 million at its peak.
