Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld isn't just bad for the industry, it's bad for Nintendo
Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld isn't just bad for the industry, it's bad for Nintendo
Can the tension of "family friendly nice guys" and "we sue everyone and sent a disabled person to jail" really continue existing in perpetuity?
You're viewing a single thread.
I don't understand. So if I make a video game and my main character is an Italian plumber who wears red and blue, jumps on mushroom people and grows when he eats a mushroom, and Nintendo sues me. Nintendo is wrong? Or are we pretending palworld isn't "Pokemon with guns" which was literally what people were pushing it as
Step 1: learn the difference between trademarks and patents. Then we can have a meaningful discussion.
Oh I'm sorry Lemmy lawyer. I didn't know we needed a law degree to comment on threads
That’s not what I said at all. I gave you very helpful information to put you on the path of understanding this case.
the problem is, palworld isn't "pokemon with guns", they used that slogan originally sure, but palworld 100% shows more similar mechanics and concepts to ark then pokemon, it's a mix of pokemon style mechanics and Arks RPG mechanics. I would say they had a stronger suit against trademark than they did mechanics side.
The only game mechanic similarity between the two is the ball capture system and the fact that it's called a trainer/leader when you battle the NPC's anything else is already present in other games.
By this logic, any game that features the ability to tame or capture monsters would be a pokemon clone. That's far too broad of a category to allow as a patent if challenged. I personally believe it will result in them losing the patent as a whole if it is that patent they are fighting with.
Anyways, it's very very clear what game palworld took it's creature design from. So I don't think the lawsuit is as silly as the Nintendo haters insist
that would be a trademark or copyright suit not a patent suit. Patents are strictly mechanics, they didn't sue on design, I agree I think they had a better case on that, but the Nintendo lawyers decided otherwise
In the US, Atari tried to sue someone who made an Asteroids clone back in 1981 and lost because Meteors, the clone had made some improvements on the idea of Asteroids (color, among other things). This cemented US legal precedent that you can't sue people for "ripping off" games so long as they make some meaningful change to it and aren't just making a direct knock-off.
This current case is in Japan, however, where the legal landscape is very different and companies need to be legally aggressive to maintain any rights to their IP from what I understand. I have no idea how that's going to go down.
"Catch creatures to use to fight" is a broad enough theme that it should be fair use, and has other precedent. For example, it was done in Bomberman Generation. Why didn't Nintendo sue Konami?