Palworld Devs Aren't Concerned About Pokemon Plagiarism Claims

Palworld's CEO says the company has "no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property" of others.

By Logan Moore

The CEO of Pocketpair, the developer behind the hugely successful Palworld, isn't worried about claims that the game is plagiarizing Pokemon. Since its first reveal years ago, Palworld has been dubbed "Pokemon with guns" by fans, given that it features many cute monsters that are combined with guns and other survival game stylings. Despite these baseline similarities between Pokemon and Palworld, though, Pocketpair is firm in its belief that it has a wholly unique game on its hands.

Speaking to Automaton, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe opened up about these comparisons that have been drawn between the monsters in Pokemon and Palworld. In response, Mizobe said that Pocketpair already went through a process prior to Palworld's launch to ensure that it wasn't infringing on other creations. As a result, no outside companies ended up taking action on Pocketpair, which means that the studio believes it's now in the clear. 

"We make our games very seriously, and we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies," Mizobe went on to add. 

Elsewhere in Mizobe's conversation, he mentioned that he doesn't even believe Pokemon is the franchise that Palworld is most similar to. While acknowledging that Pokemon is a "great predecessor" to Palworld, Mizobe said that he believes Pocketpair's latest game is far more similar to something like Ark: Survival Evolved. Given the gameplay mechanics and systems of Palworld, it's easy to see why Mizobe has this belief, even if the game is filled with Pokemon-like creatures. 

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Currently, Palworld continues to be on a hot streak that doesn't seem like it's going to be slowing down any time soon. Despite only having been available since this past Friday, Palworld has already sold over 5 million copies, outpacing the sales of some of this past year's biggest games. It also became the third most-played game in the history of Steam early this morning when it amassed 1,582,482 players at a single time. Even though 2024 has just begun, it seems like Palworld could end up being the year's biggest game. 

[H/T Kotaku]

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