I've already introduced the rampant excitement over the existence of a real competitor to Pokemon veering it's face, providing players with something they haven't had from the big N in so long- some damned variety! I still think the game is mid, but I despise Survival games and Palworld retains that eye rolling demand for keeping your 'food bar' full so... I was never going to love it, now was I? But with the eyes on it that doesn't just mean the furor is reaching it's zenith, but the backlash too. It is surprising how many go to bat on Nintendo's behalf, a company that would suck out your blood and crush your bones for compost if you got somewhat in it's way. Don't get it twisted, Nintendo despises it's players for anything more than their wallets. If they could lobotomise everyone in a global campaign of tyrannical terror they would giddily jump at the chance, just to avoid hearing us lesser bein gs dare to espouse the names of their scared properties with our unworthy lips. 'Play the games and shut up', is the memo at Nintendo HQ.
In fact, the only people who don't appear to be trying to balance atop Nintendo's 'hubris' are the inexplicable animal right's activists that rally against Palworld for the 'support of animal abuse' that it 'promotes'. Which is to say that the game allows the player freedom to beat Pals to death, shoot them, or literally grind them up for resources. Terrible things to do to real animals. Good thing this is a game! This is a pathetic and wasted argument by children who never developed their frontal cores enough to differentiate between fiction and real life. They're the kinds of scum to rattle on about their virtuous mannerisms and then send off barrels of vitriolic hate-filled fan mail to actors who played mean people on a show they watched. They're idiots, not worth the time of day or the right to be listened to.
The 'Palworld AI' theorists on the otherhand, lean on something concrete. They allege a world wherein Palworld used AI to make it's game or design it's Pals and drum up fears in the rampant take over of non-human run tech other throwing creativity. Which is a genuine concern born from the belief that those with no idea what art is about are reading to turn it up in factory to the detriment of the very idea of art itself. And if a game championing that suddenly became popular- what does that mean for the industry? Except... that is total vibes based assumptions at this point. Not a single verifiable accusation has been made, and not even a convincing example proving the influence of AI has been uncovered. The CEO mentioned interest in AI technology in the past, but that doesn't mean it had anything to do with Palworld. And if AI did suddenly learn how to code coherent 3D models, I would be shocked.
One popular thread on Twitter alleged that the Palworld team were literally stealing assets from Pokemon, leading to a lot of the familiar feeling Pokemon we've seen. Primarina was the poster child of this one, with a wireframe model of hers compared against Azurobe's hair piece. The comparison is absolutely crazy... until you learn that the Twitter user in question literally malformed these models in order to make them seem identical. Why? Because of the animal abuse thing again, she doesn't like 'the promotion of animal abuse' and decided to create actual deformation. And why come to Pokemon's defence, a game which "sanitizes cockfighting" as one Twitter user put it? Well... she thinks that's bad too. (You can tell from her vacant expression, the lights are not all on upstairs.)
The next accusation? That Palworld is stealing the designs of Pokemon and changing them up in small ways. That one actually has some legs, there are some Pals that look eerily similar to popular Pokemon in such a fashion that 'copying' can be pretty safely called. Similar design elements are one thing but literally switching and swapping out parts, such as Snorlax's iconic face design with the teeth switched downwards, is pretty blatant. That being said, it's not all the Pals who suffer from these issues. It's not even the majority of them. And the validity of this issue has been watered down by critics who literally slap up non-sequiturs like the two Penguin monsters from either franchise, both with designs based off of nautical imagery. You mean they made a Penguin into a sailor? How could they ever think of that without copying Nintendo's homework?
But the crazy part of all of this? Nintendo has said next to nothing on the issue to anyone. All we ever got was a 'we're looking into it', and zilch. Nintendo even knew about this game for at least a year, and they've yet to take action. And yet when a Pokemon mod was teased for Palworld, Nintendo shut that down before the creator could even upload a full video showcasing it, yet alone release the thing. Even former Nintendo employees seem confused, with one former copyright department employee remarking how they are surprised the game made it this far. Which kind of implies that something is in Nintendo's way right now. Perhaps Palworld really has managed to wiggle it's way out of the path of copyright infringement by the absolute skin of it's teeth!
Which really brings me to the pertinent question in all of this- Is Palworld actually safe then? Is this the kind of game that is going to last long enough to be a staple of this year, or will it be gone in a month from a takedown notice? If I were being a realist, I'd say that the only reason Nintendo haven't taken this down is because they're so upset that they're busy compiling the personal details of everybody who worked on, advertised for or distributed the game so that they go after all of them individually in separate lawsuits- because that is the kind of people Nintendo are. As I've said before, if Nintendo could legally fire bomb the homes of people who are too outspoken about their love for Nintendo franchises, we'd be dealing with world wide wildfires every other week.
So, my advice is to all that are interested in an Ark Survival clone that actually plays like a game and not a glacial breeding simulator tied to a wallet milking machine- get yourself a copy of Palworld right now whilst it's still for sale and, considering it's an online only game as far as I can tell, squeeze as much entertainment as you can muster from the game before big bad Nintendo comes knocking. Merely the concept that people are having fun within a subgenre they thought they had monopolised is enough to drive the murderous rage in Nintendo's cold heart, and if they can't win in a legal case I wouldn't but it past the team to go door to door visiting vengeance on all those who betrayed Pokemon for this pretender. But personally, I hope Palworld stays. And I hope it's just the start of many more creative offshoots of the monster collecting concept that push Nintendo to get their act together and revitalise the Pokemon franchise to actually, oh I don't know: be competitive in the modern game design space? Wouldn't that be something?
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