Nintendo learned Patent Troll!
Nostalgia is a hard drug. You can still appreciate games from you childhood & not buy games or consoles from a evil company.
Plus, there’s always piracy. With that said, I generally prefer the older games anyway.
Yup. Piracy is bad so make sure to avoid that. Specifically, do not search for “Yuzu 1734” and combine it with “Firmware 18.1” and “Prod keys 18.1”, because if you did that you would be all set to pirate switch games. So to repeat, definitely don’t search for these things. Now you know what to avoid.
It’s speculated that the patent in question (or one of) is one that essentially protects the gameplay loop of Pokémon Legends Arceus.
https://ipforce.jp/patent-jp-P_B1-7545191
Running the first claim of the invention through Google Translate yields this massive run-on sentence description:
The computer causes a player character in a virtual space to take a stance to release a capture item when a first category group including a plurality of types of capture items for capturing a field character placed on a field in a virtual space is selected based on an operation input of pressing an operation button, and causes a player character in the virtual space to take a stance to release the capture item when a second category group including a plurality of types of combat characters that engage in combat is selected, and determines an aiming direction in the virtual space based on a directional input, and further selects the capture item included in the first category group when the first category group is selected, and the combat character included in the second category group when the second category group is selected, based on an operation input using an operation button different from the operation button , and causes the player character in the virtual space to take a stance to release the capture item when a first category group including a plurality of types of capture items for capturing a field character placed on a field in a virtual space is selected, and determines an aiming direction in the virtual space based on an operation input using an operation button different from the operation button, A game program which, based on an operation input of releasing the operation button pressed when having the player character perform an action, has the player character perform an action of releasing the selected capture item in the aiming direction if the capture item is selected, and has the player character perform an action of releasing the selected combat character in the aiming direction if the combat character is selected, and when the capture item is released and hits the field character, makes a capture success determination as to whether the capture is successful, and when the capture success determination is judged to be positive, sets the field character hit by the capture item to a state where it is owned by the player, and when the combat character is released to a location where it can fight with the field character, starts a fight on the field between the combat character and the field character.
Essentially, Nintendo has a patent on video games that involve throwing a capsule device at characters in a virtual space to capture them and initiate battle with them. In other words, they have a patent on the concept of Poké Balls (as they appear and function in Legends Arceus, specifically).
Palworld has “Pal Spheres”, which are basically just Poké Balls with barely legally distinct naming.
If this sounds like an unfairly broad thing for Nintendo to have a patent on, I’m not so sure I agree. It’s not like they’re trying to enforce a blanket patent on all creature collectors. Just the concept of characters physically throwing capsule devices at creatures.
If you think about it, that’s kind of the one thing that sets Pokémon apart from others in the genre. If there’s anything to be protected, that’s it. It’s literally what Pokémon is named after–you put the monster in your pocket, using the capsule you threw at it.
Palworld could have easily dodged this bullet. They claim they aren’t inspired by Pokémon, and that they’re instead inspired by Ark: Survival Evolved. Funny, then, that Ark doesn’t have throwable capsules, yet Palworld decided to add them. I’m not sure I buy their statement. And if this is indeed the patent being violated, I don’t think a court will buy it either.
I’m not trying to be a Pokémon apologist here. I want Palworld to succeed and give Pokémon a run for its money. But looking at the evidence, it’s clear to me Pocketpair flew a little too close to the sun here. And they’re kind of idiots for it.
I’m just surprised they aren’t getting nailed for the alleged blatant asset theft.
Arguably Ghostbusters (1984) is prior art for throwing a capsule and capturing 🤣
Edit: they even had a video game with the ghost trap.
Ark has cryopods which do the same thing mechanically, the only major difference being that you don’t visually throw them. If you use the vague wording on the patents surrounding pokemon’s box mechanics, it falls easily under there, since you are storing a captured creature in a digital storage.
Nintendo is the KING of frivolous patents. They’ve lost cases on it before, and with palworld being a sony interest, I don’t think the usual financial bullying nintendo brings to the table is going to cut it on this one. They need an airtight case and their vague patents (and recent history trying to patent THE LOADING SCREEN and vehicle speed matching for player characters with totk being denied) is a bad look for them in a courtroom. Like the US, the holder of a patent in Japan needs to file suits swiftly to protect the patent, or they risk losing cases (like this one. See “laches defense”).
Palworld is back in the top 100 global bestsellers today.
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Fuck off, Nintendo.
Is there any way to support pocketpair during the lawsuit? I already bought the game, and it’s one of my favorites, and pokemon can eat a dick
DM me, I can point you towards an account you can send money to.
Clearly a scam, if you need to send money to anyone, DM ME, I’ll make sure it gets to the right place. Also, any interest in buying a bridge?
Wow a lot of scammers around here, don’t fall for them! My uncle works at pocketpair; DM me I’ll make sure the money goes to the right place!
…what kind of bridge?
Thanks, I just hope my $5000 will be enough
It’s weird that palworld only accepts google play cards
Fuck Nintendo don’t buy their products.
It is probably something stupid like Nintendo having a patent for “pocket” in names, since Pokemon is “pocket monsters”
Patents in videogames should be banned.
I agree, but I think all intellectual property laws should be repealed. I came to the conclusion that patent, copyright, and trademark are all varying levels of bad years ago and I think it clearly holds the human race and human progress back by limiting creative iteration.
That would be trademark infringement. Patents are much more nefarious.
*Patents should be banned.
Fixed it for ya. ❤️
That’s genuinely not as simple as you think it is. You realize there was a time before modern patent law, yes?
Patents should be banned ❤️
Patents are (at their core) a good thing. It protects little Jimmy Inventor from putting hours and his blood, sweat and tears into coming up with a novel invention, only for some big corpo to see it, steal the idea and bully Jimmy out of the market.
Jimmy has legal recourse to sue the big corpo if he has a patent, whereas without one he has nothing.
Just because the system’s been gamed (especially in the US) doesn’t mean it’s impossible to reform, and is currently still better than nothing.
But patents for genetic beans, or drugs that the government or public institutions that we the public fucking pay for should be allowed.
Patents are not, at their core, a good thing. They are nice for an idealized and transient scenario, but the reality of capitalism is that the vast, vast majority of investment, production, etc. are done by a handful of large companies, and that includes R&D. Patents are, in reality, overwhelmingly one of the many tools large corporations have to shut out upstarts. In short, it entrenches the power of monopolies, trusts, and similar large businesses.
And that’s without even starting on how the law can be abused and, with the way our legal systems work, it is fundamentally more abusable for the side that has more money and can afford top corporate lawyers to concoct convenient arguments, leaving little Jimmy in the dust.
In the US, every employment contract has a line where any “invention” of an employee belongs to the company, so
I agree. The system is screwed up, but that doesn’t mean the intention was bad. Having no patent rights just means that whoever has more money will win. Big corps have the resources in both money and infrastructure to bring anything anybody else invents to market faster.
So today, big corps win. If we do away with the system, then big corps win. The only solution is reform. Or consumer knowledge and the ability to resist buying something in protest (which has failed time and time again which is evident by the big corps existence).
Patents should be banned ❤️
Patents as well as intellectual property laws, are entirely unnatural and only exist to prop up Capital.
Its against human nature to prevent cultural iteration.
Patents as well as intellectual property laws, are entirely unnatural and only exist to prop up Capital.
Most people won’t understands this concept due to poor education they received. They will spout the propaganda that benefits their owner daddy and they will feel super smug about it too 🤡
Sure, but how do you solve the problems that patents in turn solved (and brought new problems with them of course)? That as kinda my point, if we just ban patents we can just look back to know which problems we need to solve in another way.
That took a minute
Had to delve into the patent dungeon. Its large and all the names are incomprehensible.
It could be they waited to not trigger the Streisand effect too hard.
Interesting it’s a patent lawsuit and not copyright. I haven’t played Palworld and barely know how Pokemon works; is the gameplay in any way similar?
Except for the capture mechanic working similar, which hopefully was not just copy-pasted, the gameplay is completely different. Palworld plays like Arc x Fortnite, while Pokémon plays like Final Fantasy.
And the general design-inspiration itself shouldn’t be an issue. Because I don’t think “style” can be copyrighted
I know that’s how it works in the US, but the lawsuit is in Japan, which you always hear about having stricter copyright laws. Not really sure how this one will play out though.
Yeah but again, not a copyright lawsuit.
They’d have very little chance in a copyright suit and they know it. Because you can’t copyright game mechanics or general concepts, and those are the things Palworld pretty obviously copies.
You capture monsters in balls, hurting them more makes it easier.
Outside of a passing similarity to Pokemon, I wonder what the suit is about
It’s about Nintendo and their rabid legal practices.
Nintendo sues Nintendo for using Nintendo intellectual property
I heard that Pocket Pair use relatively questionable methods to develop their games such as AI and literal copy-paste for their concept art which they then just alter.
But its more hearsay than everything else I guess.
Please don’t post hearsay. If you want to post something incriminating, take a second to verify it first. This is how bad rumors propagate, and as a society today it’s a problem we’re facing like never before. Do your part!
In this case you’re completely wrong.
People have supposedly ripped several models from both games and some seem to line up nearly 100%, while others obviously use parts of the model.
But yeah, I can’t say I checked if they’re valid videos or made to enrage people.
Rage bait.
Weird. They seemed fine with it when it launched.
They are working on a new Legends game, which is somewhat similar in gameplay.
Could be that they’d rather not have any association made.
The lawyers had time to figure out an angle.
it’s really funny to me how obvious the… “inspiration” of this game is from pokemon, and yet nintendo has been struggling so hard to come up with something to sue them for, like i don’t really care about this in and of itself, but seeing a big company unable to remove a splinter from their toe and copyright unable to be enforced brings me joy.
Ahh I see, Nintendo has discovered the internet.
Me looking at the thumbnail of this post: “ah electabuzz or something right?”
People in this thread: “it’s totally different!!!”Not even what the lawsuit is about… It’s the creature capture mechanisms that they feel infringed on.
