Palworld maker vows to fight Nintendo lawsuit on behalf of fans and indie developers (www.eurogamer.net)
from moe90@feddit.nl to technology@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 12:11
https://feddit.nl/post/21243119

#technology

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rocci@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 12:15 next collapse

I’ve never been interested in Palworld, and I certainly don’t intend to play it, but I’ll probably buy it today.

Because fuck Nintendo.

Fredselfish@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 12:25 next collapse

Same wasn’t even thinking about this game. But now I got to have it. Fuck Nintendo. Never buying a new game from them every again. They should be sued into bankruptcy.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 12:51 next collapse

It’s clunky and the novelty wears off quickly, but it was worth a play.

callouscomic@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 12:56 next collapse

It’s clunky and the novelty wears off quickly

Referring to all Nintendo games.

leekleak@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:10 next collapse

Dunno man, it is possible to accept they make good games while still condemning their corporate bs…

TheLowestStone@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:24 next collapse

They make some good games. They also sling out a bunch of crap and repeatedly rerelease games at full price.

bassomitron@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:26 next collapse

Yeah, games like Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart, Luigi’s Mansion, etc. are fun as hell and very polished. I can’t think of a single first-party Nintendo game that’s released riddled with bugs in recent memory, whereas the rest of the industry can’t say the same, excepting Sony’s first-party games.

Syrc@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:08 collapse

I can’t think of a single first-party Nintendo game that’s released riddled with bugs in recent memory

Literally Pokémon. SwSh, SV and BDSP are all a bug-ridden mess. You will probably find more bugs playing SV for an hour than in all gen 3-6 games together.

Although yeah, it’s a (huge) anomaly and the rest of the first-party games are extremely polished. It just sucks to be a Pokémon fan in the 2020s.

bassomitron@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:47 collapse

I don’t think Pokemon is first-party since that IP and the dev studios fall under The Pokemon Company, whereas games like Mario and Zelda are developed by studios within Nintendo itself. I could be wrong.

Edit: I just looked it up, and yep, Nintendo only owns 33% of The Pokemon Company.

AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 21:18 collapse

If they ain’t first party, they’re certainly close enough that you couldn’t tell the difference.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:19 collapse

A completely different (sub)company and dev team make those games. Nintendo just owns part of it.

JJROKCZ@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 16:09 next collapse

It’s possible to acknowledge that yes but no they don’t make good games, just half-assed rehashed entries in the same 4 tired series they’ve been pumping games out of for decades

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 16:30 collapse

Hard disagree. I really enjoy a lot of Nintendo’s games, and will be buying Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom right around release. Some favorites:

  • Smash Brothers
  • Mario Kart
  • Zelda - didn’t like BotW and didn’t get TotK, but I loved the Switch ports of Skyward Sword and Link’s Awakening
  • Kirby
  • Mario Party
  • Super Mario 3D World
  • Xenoblade Chronicles

My kids like Pokemon and my SO like Ring Fit, but I think that series is pretty boring. And here are some I haven’t played, but probably will:

  • Astral Chain
  • Switch Sports
  • Luigi’s Mansion
  • Paper Mario
  • Metroid
  • Pikmin

That said, I very much don’t like Nintendo as a company, especially its opposition to emulation. But I do like their first party titles, and they’re very polished at launch, unlike many other big studios.

Grangle1@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 17:42 next collapse

Basically my stance. Do I like all the anti-competitive crap they pull? Absolutely not. But they do still make and/or publish most of my favorite franchises. This isn’t like, say, Microsoft or Google who bake their evil directly into their products.

callouscomic@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:35 collapse

But… they don’t. Their games are old the minute they’re released. Sure they have enough bare minimum charm to wow the masses, but when you truly take a skeptical and honest eye to them compared to many other games, you realize how lazy they are with the copy/paste approach most of the time, inability to add basic common niceties of modern gaming, and generally lacking worlds that feel unfinished.

If it weren’t for the IP name recognition, most of their games would be panned as meh.

AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 21:17 collapse

I maintain a stance that the only reason they’re still around is because of brand recognition. Literally the only reason I could think of anyone liking their slop.

TheTechnician27@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:23 collapse

Yeah, I was gonna say, Gen IX Pokémon looks like some of the clunkiest, most repetitive shit imaginable.

Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 19 Sep 2024 16:45 collapse

God, I wish Nintendo made the Pokemon games, because then they might actually not be ugly, terribly optimized garbage. Nintendo owns a minority share of The Pokemon Company, which is also owned by Game Freak and a company called Creatures. Each company takes care of different aspects of the franchise. Game Freak still does all the game development, and I wish they wouldn’t because they obviously don’t care about the franchise anymore and haven’t for quite a while.

TheTechnician27@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 16:50 collapse

The fact they put ILCA on BDSP (and how abysmally that turned out) was the nail in the coffin for me for trusting Pokémon games to be of any quality. SwSh was close, but that told me The Pokémon Company will pump out literally any dogshit they want and people will still buy it.

Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 19 Sep 2024 17:38 collapse

ILCA?

TheTechnician27@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:02 next collapse

Developers put in charge of BDSP. Before Pokémon, their work was all extremely minor support for much bigger studios. So for example, if you’re a big AAA studio and you want to save on precious development time, you might contract out a dozen studios to do busywork, and one of those studios might be ILCA. For example, two people from ILCA are credited in Yakuza 0, but this is as “Casting Cooperation”. Their most major game they’d actually worked on themselves before this was Pokémon Home.

So essentially, you’re taking a small company where 95% of their existing work is as a supporting role to do relatively easy work for other major studios, and the other 5% is Pokémon Home, and you’re telling them “Okay, now remake Diamond and Pearl.”

Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 19 Sep 2024 18:50 collapse

Cool. So what is the acronym ILCA?

I feel like there needs to be a bot to generate random sets of words from unexplained acronyms. I’m pretty sure the Google result for ILCA is not in the gaming industry.

Edit: ‘ILCA’ is the full name it looks like, recommend adding ‘studio’ or ‘games’ to that search tho, unless you’re looking for the International Lactation Consultant Association. Stands for “I love computer art”.

Syrc@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:12 collapse

It’s the studio Nintendo chose as lead developer for BDSP.

TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip on 19 Sep 2024 13:13 next collapse

Yeah, waiting for them to put out a few more updates and maybe I’ll try again: they’ve fixed a good chunk of some stuff recently. It’s still not there as a completed game for what it wants to be, but it’s okay as a cooperative PvE survival/monster collector.

Haven’t played since they added the island as more levels, so this may be an old opinion: Theres just no real end game past get a cool base. Dungeons are pretty moot at that point, the raid boss just blows up the whole base for some rewards which isn’t worth it unless you have an empty base to summon shit, and the tower bosses and lvl 50 bosses weren’t a bad challenge but that was about it. After you’ve killed those once there’s not much to do. I guess farm them for very specific drops… to be stronger so you can… idk do nothing else….

But again, I haven’t played since they added the island and higher levels so maybe it’s a bit better in that regard now?

ICastFist@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 23:01 collapse

It’s pretty much the same thing, but with a longer grind towards the final levels. Legendary bosses (jetragon, frostallion, centaur knights) were bumped to lvl 55, there’s a couple of “alien” pals from semi random, timed events (meteorites), and a “final” dungeon as an offshore oil rig, which is filled with max level syndicate goons that can kill you really fast, but there are many places you can stay where their AI will effectively break. The game crashing while you’re there is a much, much worse enemy

thejoker954@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 17:04 next collapse

It’s just like every other ‘sandbox’ game out there.

About the only substance is in the early game. Then there isnt much to do but grind out a checklist to collect everything.

It gets repetitive too fast.

justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io on 19 Sep 2024 13:32 collapse

The core game loop is better than any of the pokemon games though.

I am curious as to why they took so long though. Were they waiting until the hype died down so it didn't look malicious?

aniki@discuss.tchncs.de on 19 Sep 2024 13:17 next collapse

Same. Does any Steamdecker know how well it works?

Daze@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 17:23 collapse

Low-medium settings with 45fps/90hz cap works well enough for me on the oled. Smooth except for in crowded bases

Lautaro@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:57 collapse

Same.

franklin@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 12:35 next collapse

It’s still identifiably distinct, I really hope Nintendo lose because allowing copyright of a concecpt is dystopian especially in the context of our lengthy time frames for copyright.

It reminds me of when Apple wanted to patent the idea of rounded corners.

JoMiran@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 12:41 next collapse

They are being sued for patent infringement not copyright violations, which is extra weird.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 16:21 collapse

What’s weird about it? AFAICT, Palworld doesn’t violate Nintendo copyright in any meaningful sense, though it might violate Nintendo’s patent claims.

That said, this lawsuit seems really late, and I wonder if that’ll factor into the decision at all (i.e. if it was close, the judge/jury might take the lack of action by Nintendo as evidence of them just looking for money).

Grangle1@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 17:38 collapse

Seems even more odd because to my eyes Nintendo probably had a better (but not super-good) chance of winning on copyright for some of the models used on the Pals than anything patent related. Stuff like riding/transforming mount animals and vehicles are basic exploration gaming functions. If they failed to defend the patent on other prior games that used those mechanics, they don’t really stand a chance here.

Telorand@reddthat.com on 19 Sep 2024 12:42 next collapse

It’s not a copyright suit, it’s a patent suit. So it’s indeed just like the Apple suit, though what patents were infringed upon is still unknown as of now.

franklin@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 12:53 collapse

Ah, I just assumed, thanks for the correction.

simple@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 12:47 next collapse

It’s not even copyright, they’re suing for using things they patented, but their patents are extremely general. I kid you not, they have a patent for MOUNTING CREATURES, something hundreds of games have done.

Abstract: In an example of a game program, a ground boarding target object or an air boarding target objects is selected by a selection operation, and a player character is caused to board the selected boarding target object. If the player character aboard the air boarding target object moves toward the ground player character automatically changed to the state where the player character is aboard the ground boarding target object, and brought into the state where the player character can move on the ground.

I’m no lawyer so I can’t tell you how well this would hold up in court but it’s ridiculous. See more: patents.justia.com/assignee/the-pokemon-company

dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 12:55 next collapse

I am positive prior art could be claimed for most if not all of those. Square Enix could cry afoul of the “mounting creatures” one as well as I’m sure many, many other earlier games on a plethora of platforms.

You could mount and ride Chocobos in Final Fantasy 2, i.e. the real “2,” the JDM only one on Famicom, which was released in 1988. The aforementioned patent was only filed on Nintendo’s part in 2024.

They can, to use a technical legal term, get fucked.

pennomi@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:45 next collapse

Yes but it’s fucking expensive to invalidate a patent. Possibly in the millions of dollars. That’s how patent trolls succeed - it’s far cheaper to own a bad patent than to fight one.

empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Sep 2024 15:15 collapse

Well it’s a good thing Palworld was a huge sales success.

Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca on 19 Sep 2024 16:00 collapse

And now more free advertising from the streisand effect

Cypher@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 16:35 collapse

Blizzard should be paying attention to this, as it perfectly describes their flying mounts.

I really hope Nintendo just picked a fight with Blizzard/Microsoft lol

A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com on 19 Sep 2024 22:36 collapse

Bullies tend to pick victims who can’t fight back too effectively, so I doubt they’d go after Microsoft.

All the big tech companies have a bunch of vague patents than in a just world would never exist, and they seldom go after each other, because they know then they’ll be hit with a counter-suit alleging they violate multiple patents too, and in the end everyone except the lawyers will be worse off. It’s sort of like mutually assured destruction. They don’t generally preemptively invalidate each other’s patents, so if Microsoft is not a party to the suit, they’ll likely stay out of it entirely.

However, newer and smaller companies are less likely to be able to counter-sue as effectively, so if they pose a threat of taking revenue from the big companies (e.g. by launching on competitor platforms only), they are ripe targets for patent-based harassment.

ICastFist@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 22:44 collapse

While Microsoft is not a target right now, if that patent for ground-flying mounts is used (which I doubt it will, given it’s too recent and widely used by older games), Palworld can just point at World of Warcraft Burning Crusade as prior art and it suddenly becomes MS vs Nintendo.

Cypher@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 01:25 collapse

Yep, and it would be hilarious to watch Nintendo get smacked down.

yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de on 19 Sep 2024 15:40 next collapse

It’s a little more specific, I think the patent is about:

  • mounting either an air or ground mount
  • when riding the air mount, going close to the ground transforms it into the ground mount and you keep riding it

But that’s still something multiple games have done in some way I think.

peetabix@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 15:47 next collapse

I think Joust did this first. Difference might be that the player is permanently mounted all the time.

FunnyUsername@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 15:55 next collapse

Drakengard comes to mind

zalgotext@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 23:19 collapse

Holy shit I forgot about Drakengard. That’s the one with the giant sky babies right?

FunnyUsername@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 10:10 collapse

Ya!!! The prequel to nier ❤️

samus12345@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 16:20 next collapse

They better sue Microsoft over WoW, then, their IP did that in 2007.

Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:33 collapse

So, just like FFXIV?

troed@fedia.io on 19 Sep 2024 13:04 collapse

IANAL - but I've worked for Big Company and have gone through the patent process a few times. A patent isn't what's written in the supporting text and abstract. It's only the exact thing written out in the claims.

First claim from the patent the abstract is from:

  1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein a game program causing a computer of an information processing apparatus to provide execution comprising:

    controlling a player character in a virtual space based on a first operation input;

    in association with selecting, based on a selection operation, a boarding object that the player character can board and providing a boarding instruction, causing the player character to board the boarding object and bringing the player character into a state where the player character can move, wherein the boarding object is selected among a plurality of types of objects that the player character owns;

    in association with providing a second operation input when the player character is in the air, causing the player character to board an air boarding object and bringing the player character into a state where the player character can move in the air; and

    while the player character is aboard the air boarding object, moving the player character, aboard the air boarding object, in the air based on a third operation input.

Exactly everything described above must be done in that exact same way for there to be an infringement.

Petter1@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:47 next collapse

That seems a bit more easy to get around. It is still crazy to think that you have to check your whole game design against that many patents 😅

drmoose@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 19:57 collapse

it’s stupid. I’m convinced that people who oversee software patents don’t even know what’s a computer.

ICastFist@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 22:45 next collapse

Of course they do! It’s those weird white boxes that nerdy nerds nerd about with numbers and shit

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:16 collapse

More than likely.
And then you have people like Albert Einstein that worked in the patent office.
(Obviously not software)

TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip on 19 Sep 2024 23:37 collapse

Which sounds like mount selection based on if onland==True: landmountlist, else: airmountlist. ??? Can you really patent “I used an if statement to change what the mount button does based on a condition”

Boy, better fucking patent that fucking pure genius there’s no way anyone could program that without having copied us.

Like I fucking hope I misread that.

troed@fedia.io on 20 Sep 2024 06:10 collapse

All of the statements in the claim need to be fulfilled - so while that if looks correct it's only a very small part of the actions described. Example:

in association with selecting, based on a selection operation,[...], wherein the boarding object is selected among a plurality of types of objects that the player character owns;

Speculater@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 16:19 collapse

I mean they successfully defended the motion of swiping up or down as distinctly different than left or right for the purpose of activating a device. Which seems insane to me.

TheRealKuni@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:07 next collapse

That’s a patent, not a copywrite.

Software patents are also terrible, though.

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 03:49 collapse

It is all known as intellectual property. This covers copyright, trademarks, and patents all with the same concept of creating artificial scarcity to ensure profits.

Petter1@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:36 collapse

And now you have to swipe up to activate the iPhone as well 🤭

Telorand@reddthat.com on 19 Sep 2024 12:36 next collapse

Eat shit, Nintendo. I hope you lose and experience the Streisand effect.

[deleted] on 19 Sep 2024 12:51 collapse

.

Dasnap@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 12:43 next collapse

Poor Nintendo really need the win :( /s

sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 12:53 next collapse

Normally I’d say fuck Nintendo but palworld obviously stole the designs and artistic direction for many of their characters.

Most of the pals I saw at first were modified versions of an already existant pokemon with little to seperate it from fan art of that pokemon. This is particularly agregoous as they clashed against the rest of this games aesthetic. Nothing that was original fit with the design of the pokemon rip offs.

Many other games have a pokemon esque aesthetic without direct copying. It looking similar is not my issue. My issue is that while playing I could easily name most pals to a pokemon. Seriously, look up comparisons. It’s blatant.

They’ve moved away from thisbrecently but fuck man if it ain’t obvious. If they did the same to some small project I’d assume people would be much more up in arms, rightfully so.

Still though, I won’t cry if Nintendo loses. I hope they pay an insane amount in lawyers fees either way and never see a dime out of the case

franklin@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 12:59 next collapse

sharing aesthetic shouldn’t be enough to prosecute, especially in the case of patents.

My biggest defense against any claim like that is that they’re identifiably distinct. You put two of them side by side and not a single fan of either will be confused which is which.

_NetNomad@fedia.io on 19 Sep 2024 13:58 collapse

any fan could tell the difference, but i can see parents being confused, and they're the ones footing the bill for the vast majority of pokemon fans. pair that with the guns and back in the day if my parents caught wind of it, Pokémon would be banned in my household no matter how hard i tried to explain Palworld was different

for the record i am very anti-copyright and think Pokémon should be in the public domain by now, and generally hate Nintendo's over-ligitous practices. i also don't understand the patent angle of this action. but i ln this one specific case i can see where they're coming from, as opposed to if they were going after good-faith tributes like Coromon or Cassette Beasts or a ROM hack

franklin@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:22 collapse

This is very fair, but then again, my parents would get confused over the difference between an Xbox and a PlayStation, so take that for what you will.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:03 next collapse

I am typically anti-capitalist and usually root for the underdog. Palworld is a blatant ripoff of Pokemon and those denying it are delusional. Reverse the situation, where Nintendo releases Pokemon after Pocketpair releases Palworld and everyone would be calling it a ripoff.

Yeah, Nintendo’s legal department does some shitty stuff, but their likeness was stolen. Also, they are suing for patents, not copyright. The fact that the monsters are caught in a sphere is damning Pocketpair, while other Pokemon copies like Digimon avoid this.

It’s just my opinion. I’m often wrong.

RampageDon@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:08 next collapse

Just going to share this for all the palworld blatantly ripped off pokemon people<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/comment/12447789"><img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/decd5a3a-a874-4e5a-a449-3d7fc909fe8c.jpeg">

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:13 next collapse

So it was wrong for Nintendo to do that?

Hominine@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:16 collapse

I’m just going to shove these words into your mouth because I cannot grasp the obvious.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:19 collapse

It was wrong for Nintendo to copy someone, but it’s not wrong for Pocketpair to copy someone. That’s what you are saying?

Hominine@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:22 next collapse

You’re so close and yet: Whoosh

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:27 collapse

You can either explain your position, or you can be a pretentious ass. Like I said before, I’m often wrong. I’m willing to hear your point, but you refuse to make it and act pompous.

M0oP0o@mander.xyz on 19 Sep 2024 22:13 collapse

Well they can actually be/do both.

Just sayin.

atocci@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:28 next collapse

More like “it’s not wrong to take inspiration from something else”.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:31 collapse

I don’t disagree with that, but the line that is drawn between inspiration and imitation is blurred and the courts will probably rule in favor of those with the most money, unfortunately.

Womble@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 14:02 next collapse

Nope, because Nintendo arent suing over copyright (like how the pals look) they are suing over patents, so either gameplay mechanics or under the hood processes. They are complete bullshit and involve things like a patent filed in 2024 for riding a mount in a game.

As others have pointed out patents in Japan expire after 20 years so it cant be anything that was in the original pokemon as that has already termed out.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 14:04 collapse

What about the dynamic of capturing wild monsters from all different biomes in a ball? Isn’t that relatively close Pokemon? Game play is different, but the dynamics are similar.

Womble@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 14:05 collapse

Read my edit, anything patented for the original pokemon is past the point of expiry in Japan (where the suit is filed).

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 14:08 collapse

Ah, that makes sense. I wasn’t aware of the 20 year limit.

atocci@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 14:02 collapse

I think Nintendo’s lawyers must have determined it’s inspiration in this case though. Like you said, they’re suing for patent infringement and not copyright, so they must think a legal challenge on their creature designs is a lost cause.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 14:03 collapse

That’s a good point. They want to hurt them however they can.

FaceDeer@fedia.io on 19 Sep 2024 13:38 collapse

It's not wrong for either to draw inspiration from the other. It's the hypocrisy that's wrong.

stormesp@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 13:37 collapse

Cant know if you are for real, most of those designs are barely the same despite being based on the same creatures, against how palworld straight up copied designs with a few changes? Seriously, fuck Nintendo and their shitty and buggy Pokemon games, but the Dragon Quest vs Pokemon designs are not even close to what Pocket Pair, masters of copying games did here.

<img alt="" src="https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/425731fc-d124-452a-88ab-bebaf7699380.jpeg"> <img alt="" src="https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/3b8b0970-d42f-4dca-ad66-b5c5f742e878.jpeg"> <img alt="" src="https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/0ca73ead-28e3-487f-a05e-31f46ed69f54.png">
<img alt="" src="https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/14e58167-0f6f-4e71-8f37-944a06c7c4dd.png"> <img alt="" src="https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/3b1105e0-bf84-487c-aa66-1377102b9fa9.png"> <img alt="" src="https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/43b4c028-9847-4d22-94f5-1b302ab715ee.png"> <img alt="" src="https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/06eb831d-badb-4f39-aee1-f995adf02d81.png">

Bassman1805@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 14:12 collapse

Most of those are just based on the same real-world animal.

How DARE you also put a wolf in your game!

franklin@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:08 next collapse

It might be a ripoff, but my question to you is should that be illegal? The entirety of humanity is monkey see monkey do iteration on our previous ideas. It’s a dubious thing to litigate.

To add to that, no fan of either is going to confuse one for the other, so where’s the issue?

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:18 collapse

Again, this isn’t a copyright lawsuit. Making a game with monsters that look similar to theirs is not what the lawsuit is about. It’s about patents. Likely design patents like I mentioned before. If I made a country song with Eminem’s lyrics, of course you wouldn’t confuse it with Slim’s music, but I would need his permission first.

amelore@slrpnk.net on 19 Sep 2024 14:08 collapse

Marshall has copyright on his lyrics, you just said yourself patents and copyright are different things.

Sufficiently different rip-offs that don’t confuse consumers as being the original should be legal. They already are as far as copyright is concerned.

Many design patents should never have been registered, and should lose when defended in court. Design trademarks are a third similar issue.

TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip on 19 Sep 2024 13:40 collapse

Palworld is a rip off of Ark and BotW with Pokemon aesthetics. It opened early access the same year sword and shield came out. Before that Pokemon was not a big 3D open world type game. It also doesn’t include the survival/base building or FPS features in Pokemon. While palworld may be a derivative game, it is for sure different enough.

There is stuff like the palbox or the pokeball things that I could see them be dinged for though.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 13:49 collapse

I wouldn’t argue that the game play is different.

TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip on 19 Sep 2024 14:58 collapse

… have you played either game? Cuz… how would you not argue that? One is a turn based RPG the other is an FPS.

NineMileTower@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 15:15 collapse

I just said that I would not argue that. That means that I think the game play is different.

TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip on 19 Sep 2024 15:19 collapse

Ah, misunderstood thanks.

ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 13:19 next collapse

Were this to happen with games with an actual aesthetic that actually tried to do their own thing (like, say, Casette Beasts), I’d be upset.

PocketPair though? If they die, they die. They clearly have a pattern of profitting off of other people’s work, just look at their totally not Hollow Knight game

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/09c214da-fe38-4639-85e2-6e169dfb7508.jpeg">

People are treating them like the underdog fighting for the little guy against the scumbag corporations. They’re both scumbag corporations.

PS: Play Casette Beasts. And Monster Sanctuary.

noxy@yiffit.net on 19 Sep 2024 14:53 next collapse

Upvoted for Monster Sanctuary. Outstanding game that deserves so much more recognition!

MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zip on 19 Sep 2024 21:09 collapse

PS: Play Casette Beasts. And Monster Sanctuary.

Yeah, fuck Pocket Pair they can kick rocks. Play Caseette Beasts which made a better pokemon with unique designs and are truly independent, not just some AI grift company locking for a quick buck.

stormesp@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 13:32 next collapse

For real, its fun to see people shitting on Nintendo on this one, i dislike them as the most, but its absurd here. Pocket Pair just releases copies of other games, they also released a Hollow Knight copy just before Palworld, and on Palworld they almost copied the design 1 to 1 in some creatures. There is a reason you dont see Nintendo suing the other million pokemon clones, which is because they dont went of and almost even used the same geometry for some models. They straight up copied Pokemon like Lucario, Luxray, Cinderace, Cobalion and a bunch of others to the point where people showed their triangles and it was pretty certain they used ripped assets as the base for them.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 14:14 collapse

Copied characters is not what the lawsuit is about. It’s like nobody ‘defending’ the lawsuit has read anything about it.

stormesp@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 14:19 next collapse

Im not defending the lawsuit, im talking about what most people is talking about here without knowing shit about the case, the companies or the games. PocketPair whole schtick has been copying other games, from visual aesthethics to mechanics, you can look at their steam. Also, btw. that article doesnt even talk about what Nintendo is suing for or not, eurogamer.net/nintendo-sues-palworld-developer-fo… that article is on the response of PocketPair to this link, and all nintendo has said pretty much is: “Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself,” the company’s statement today concludes, “to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.” Pretty much they broadly have talked about intelectual property and multiple patent infringements.

[deleted] on 19 Sep 2024 16:53 collapse

.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 18:36 collapse

Palworld developer Pocketpair has responded to this morning’s dramatic decision by Nintendo to file a patent infringement lawsuit against the company.

First paragraph of the article, dude. Patent infringement is not IP.

sit_up_straight@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 19 Sep 2024 19:43 collapse

girl, I’m not a lawyer, i don’t know the intricacies of IP vs patent law and whether you can patent a character model/design.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 20:53 collapse

Then why are you trying to say what’s going on?

CosmoNova@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 14:32 collapse

Except they didn’t steal designs and I’m pretty sure art direction can’t be protected. Even if it could, it would be morally questionable at best. The whole lawsuit also isn’t about that but about some really fringe patents on Nintendo’s part. Patents that Nintendo certainly didn’t come up with, shouldn’t have and last but not least threaten smaller studios in the game industry. Since Pocketpal teamed up with Sony, I don’t consider them indie anymore but it’s true that they have to win this lawsuit for indie devs regardless. If Nintendo gets away with this you can say farewell to smaller game studios in Japan.

dan@upvote.au on 19 Sep 2024 16:13 collapse

The fact that Nintendo are going for a patent claim rather than a copyright claim makes me think that they don’t think a copyright claim would be successful.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 23:23 collapse

Nor should it be. The standard for copyright violation is pretty high, things don’t have to just look similar, they need to actually match, so there’s no copyright over the idea of cute, Japanese-themed monsters, especially with other Japanese-themed monster games/shows like Digimon. Even if they matched the art style, you can’t copyright art style, you can only copyright the art itself.

dan@upvote.au on 20 Sep 2024 01:33 collapse

Right. I just feel like they’ll find it even harder to successfully sue over patents, especially if the patents are fairly generic. The defendants just need to find prior art that predates Nintendo’s patents. It’s weird that Nintendo aren’t saying which patents are being violated.

callouscomic@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 13:06 next collapse

Decided to finally go watch gameplay of this game.

It’s definitely a fan ripoff mashing up Breath of the Wild with the newer open world pokemon games.

I’m not saying nobody else is allowed to make these kinds of games. But this absolutely is just trying to rip those off. Looks as unimaginative, boring, and empty as all of Nintendo’s adventure games.

They’ve stolen Nintendos IP of providing half-assed garbage and watching people eat it up.

TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip on 19 Sep 2024 13:30 next collapse

I mean, it also has very distinct gameplay from Pokemon? The newer open world games but like sword and shield released the same year pal world opened it’s early access (2019). Legends, which is the closest, was 3 years later.

Also, definitely adds FPS gameplay, survival gameplay with base building, and etc.

While it’s still not a great game, it’s definitely A: still early access and B: not just a Pokemon game.

Definitely took more than BotW and Ark than it did from anything else.

ABCDE@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 15:35 next collapse

They’ve stolen Nintendos IP

U wot

Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Sep 2024 16:43 next collapse

I wonder if people actually played Palworld here.

It’s an obvious mash-up of existing games, ripping straight from games like Breath of the World, Pokemon and Fortnite, even up to the music chimes.

I don’t think Nintendo should be suing, but people here defending how original the game is should really take a closer look at it.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 23:21 collapse

The original part is the specific formulation. Pretty much all games are mashups of other games anyway. Palworld found a formula among popular games that really struck a chord with people, and they executed on it pretty well.

And yeah, I’ve seen extensive portions of Palworld since my SO is really into it. My SO doesn’t care much at all about Pokemon, Breath of the Wild, or Fortnite, though they really like Palworld. That alone is a pretty good argument for Palworld being distinct.

Nintendo is mad that Palworld did a great job with some of their ideas, and I think they want a piece of the action. I don’t think they’re concerned that anyone would mistake Palworld for any of their IPs, they just want some cash. I’m interested to know which patents they claim Palworld violated, because it’s honestly really rare in video games for patents to actually be enforceable because there’s so much prior art and a lot of variations in how mechanics can be used.

Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 19 Sep 2024 17:31 collapse

More like a (much more polished) ripoff of a game that came out a couple years before Breath of the Wild.

Ark with pokemon and fortnite graphics.

lowleveldata@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 13:21 next collapse

Is Pocketpair Indie? Didn’t they just make a new company with Sony Music and Aniplex?

Rob200@lemmy.autism.place on 19 Sep 2024 14:18 next collapse

You know Nintendo is just weird.

They file a patent lawsuit against an indie game, just because someone finally got popular. But why don’t thay sue digimon or blue dragon, and while their at it, howtotrain a dragon while their at it.

This whole thing is just weird.

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.autism.place/pictrs/image/4b2608ee-5a29-439a-bb85-1df196d07fa4.png">

Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 19 Sep 2024 14:42 next collapse

The really odd but is being unaware of which patents they’re allegedly infringing on

That should be part of the filing shouldn’t it?

Also are they going to sue Square Enix for Dragon Quest Monsters while they’re at it?

KellysNokia@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 16:33 next collapse

“I’m suing you!”

“What for?”

“It’s a surprise 🎉🥳🎊”

SkyezOpen@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 17:05 next collapse

Maybe.

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e89faa67-4638-4008-ad2b-b8c28f03dde7.jpeg">

Petter1@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:50 collapse

😂👌🏻

Petter1@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:54 collapse

Those are too old, I guess. The lots of Pokemon patents started about 2020.

Scrollone@feddit.it on 19 Sep 2024 20:34 collapse

Well, they waited for Pocketpair to become big enough to give them money, and not too big to risk losing against them.

[deleted] on 19 Sep 2024 14:51 next collapse

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noxy@yiffit.net on 19 Sep 2024 14:56 next collapse

Please hurt them.

Nintendo is straight up evil.

ozoned@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 15:35 next collapse

Welp, I had no plans of buying Palworld. I’ve been playing Enshrouded instead. But I’ll be picking it up now. Screw you Nintendo and your anticompetitive ways.

FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 15:47 next collapse

If I didn’t have friends who need so much financial help, I’d buy it too.

zalgotext@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 23:13 next collapse

Thank you for reminding me about Enshrouded. I started playing that a few months ago, but a week into it my gamer friends wanted to start a new Valheim playthrough, and that was that. I should revisit it though

arefx@lemmy.ml on 20 Sep 2024 10:34 next collapse

Palworld is a lot of fun you won’t regret it

Corno@lemm.ee on 21 Sep 2024 07:16 collapse

Palworld has to be the most addicted I’ve ever been to a game in years, and that was back at launch in January. I’m not going to spoil anything, but they’ve added a ton of new things since!

FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 15:47 next collapse

Good. Kick Nintendo in the dick.

PenisDuckCuck9001@lemmynsfw.com on 19 Sep 2024 15:56 next collapse

Fuck Nintendo. I think Palworld is a stupid game that I wouldn’t ever bother to play but Nintendo is pure evil and they NEED to lose. They do not deserve a monopoly on whatever type of genre that is.

derpgon@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 18:17 collapse

While I think it is a great spin on the genre of collecting monsters to enslave them so they craft bullets for you, I agree with you on Nintendo.

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 21:54 collapse

Oh that sounds cool actually

blazera@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 16:51 next collapse

Copyright only exists for the wealthy to own even more.

Ragincloo@lemmy.one on 19 Sep 2024 17:51 next collapse

Idk about that, maybe indefinite copyrights would be but limited term is entirely fair. Like imagine you spend 5 years and $50M to develop something (random numbers here), then the next day someone just copies it and sells it cheaper since they had no overhead in copying your product. There’s no incentive to create if all it does is put you in debt, so we do need copyrights if we want things. However Pokemon came out in 96, that’s 28 years. There’s been very little innovation in their games since. And seeing as Digimon wasn’t sued it’s not about the monsters, it’s about the balls. But those balls haven’t changed in almost three decades so I don’t think the really have a case to complain

BaldManGoomba@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:07 next collapse

How about no. Let people create if your only incentive is money fuck you. If someone spent $50 million to develop something the labor has been paid. You will be first to the market and you can make money if your invention isn’t that unique oh well.

Womble@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:15 collapse

Thats a great way to make companies spend 0 on r&d that has longterm benefits and instead focus on squeezing out every penny from current assets.

interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 18:33 next collapse

Want to make something, the people eho want it pay to make it happen, once it’s done and paid for, it belongs to everyone. I rather live in the star citizen dystopia than the Disney vampire dystopia.

Making an unlimited reproducible resource artificially scarce for 160 years is really fucking evil parasiticism.

Womble@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 07:10 collapse

I dont think anyone here thinks that the ridiculous terms on current IP laws make sense (at least I havent seen anyone defending them), but there is a big difference between a short term of 5-10 years for you to get the earned benefits of an innovation you created and zero protection where a larger more well funded company can swoop in copy your invention and bury you in marketing so they get the reward.

interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml on 20 Sep 2024 11:52 collapse

Intellectual property has been abused beyond recovery, we need an entirely new paradigm. Duration of right is just a tiny part of it. Any system that turns the infinite resource into an artificial scarcity is fundamentally evil.

Badeendje@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:36 collapse

So you tax the fuck out of them and fund invention though schools and unis. But the fact companies won’t is not a sure thing… it just means they will be more pickey.

Syrc@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:32 next collapse

However Pokemon came out in 96, that’s 28 years. There’s been very little innovation in their games since.

First, not really, there’s been a LOT of innovation in Pokémon, as much as people want to deny it.

And second, 28 years is really not that much. We’re not in the Disney realm of copyright-hogging, I think 50 years is a fair amount of time. The issue is that it’s often way too broad: it should protect only extremely blatant copies (i.e. the guy who literally rereleased Pokémon Yellow as a mobile game), not concepts or general mechanics. Palworld has a completely different gameplay from any Pokémon game so far, and (most of) the creatures are distinct enough. That should suffice to make it rightfully exist (maybe removing the 4/5 Pals that are absolute ripoffs, sure).

Badeendje@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 18:38 next collapse

50 years… 5 maybe. If you have not earned back your investment by then you are just squatting on it.

Petter1@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:32 next collapse

I think 50 is generally too much, but I think it should depend on categories, so that it is based upon the efforts put into an idea to create and how much it value (like in expected ROI).

I fear, that is hard to define

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:13 collapse

As an artist 20-50 depending on context is where I’m hovering. It is very hard to define.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 19:36 next collapse

I agree with you almost entirely, but if we’re being honest, there really hasn’t been a lot of innovation in their games since Gen 4, and that was almost 20 years ago. Once they figured out the physical/special split, nothing really changed in the major mechanics. They have a new gimmick mechanic every game, like Z-Moves or Dynamax, but they’re always dropped by the next game. I guess camping/picnics are evolving into a new feature, but that’s about it.

Syrc@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:32 collapse

If we’re talking PvP, battling has constantly evolved through new abilities, even without gimmicks the way the game is played changed a lot through the years.

In single player they also changed a lot of stuff since gen 4, although the positive changes were mostly in gen 5/6 and the later ones like wild areas and the switch to “””open world””” were… not as well received.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 03:36 collapse

Well, I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. To me, most of the updates have been set dressing, not significant changes to the formula or gameplay. But I guess that’s a matter of opinion, not fact.

Teils13@lemmy.eco.br on 19 Sep 2024 20:20 collapse

50 years is already excessive, dude or dudette. The north american law originally gave 14 years, plus another 14 years if the creators actively sought after and were approved (most did not even ask, and approval was not guaranteed). This is comparable time to patents, which serve the exact same function, but without the absurd time scales (Imagine if Computers were still a private tech of IBM … those sweet mainframes the size of a room). 28 years, or lets put 30 years fixed at once, is more than sufficient time for making profit for the quasi totality of IPs that would make a profit (and creators can invest the money received to gain more, or have 30 years to think of something else). 30 years ago was 1994, think of everything the Star Wars prequels have sold, now remeber the 1st film was from 1999, would star wars prequels ventures really suffer if they started losing the IP from 2029 onwards ?

Syrc@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:51 collapse

I still think if copyright laws weren’t so oppressive, 50 years would be fair (And still a huge improvement from the current situation).

Maybe have it in tiers or something? First 10 years: full copyright - until 30: similar products allowed, but no blatant reproduction - until 50: reproduction allowed as long as it’s not for-profit - post 50: public domain?

Teils13@lemmy.eco.br on 20 Sep 2024 21:30 collapse

Humm…, i don’t think this scheme would work out in practice. The definitions of several concepts are fuzzy, and therefore can be circumvented or challenged or abused by all sides of the equation. What is a ‘similar product’ that is allowed after 30 years (and therefore what is a ‘dissimilar product’ that would be forbidden before), how would a non-profit that just pays high salaries to its managers fare between the marks of 30 and 50 years (and just gives some little money to research or charity). And again, why give artists and creative companies so much more time of IP protection than we give STEM inventors and companies time in patents (this random site claims patents last 15 to 20 years only) ?

Syrc@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 22:42 collapse

The definitions of several concepts are fuzzy, and therefore can be circumvented or challenged or abused by all sides of the equation.

They are, but it’s not like they’re very definite nowadays either.

What is a ‘similar product’ that is allowed after 30 years (and therefore what is a ‘dissimilar product’ that would be forbidden before),

I’d say “similar product” is anything that doesn’t try to pass off as the original one, and is mechanically different enough. Palworld for example, or all the other Pokéclones that popped up in recent years.

how would a non-profit that just pays high salaries to its managers fare between the marks of 30 and 50 years (and just gives some little money to research or charity).

They wouldn’t, in that period I’d allow stuff like piracy or free cultural events, stuff like that. Obviously the copyright holder would still be able to profit off of their own products, but everyone else would have to ask them to do so.

And again, why give artists and creative companies so much more time of IP protection than we give STEM inventors and companies time in patents (this random site claims patents last 15 to 20 years only) ?

Because those are things that humanity needs to progress. I do think they could be longer in a different way, like “they can be used by anyone without consent from the inventor, but they need to pay a small percentage in royalties” or something like that, just to ensure they have a permanent source of income that’s enough to live off. I’m not knowledgeable enough about that to talk though, so I can’t really answer that question without going into baseless speculations.

TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:04 next collapse

The problem is that IP laws eventually are lobbied by the big copyright holders into being excessively long. How long did Steamboat Willie really have to be copyrighted for, and has their release into the public domain really affected Disney?

Eventually after you get back the money you invested, it’s just free money, and people like free money so much they pay lawyers and lobbyists that free money so that they can keep it coming.

blazera@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 20:08 next collapse

The people spending 5 years to develop something arent the ones that own the rights to the end product. Like I said, copyright exists so rich people can own more. The people that own the rights to pokemon are not game developers, artists, writers, anyone that put actual work into creating the games and other media. Its people that had a lot of money, shareholders and executives. And then they receive the biggest share of the profits off others work and the feedback loop continues.

dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:34 next collapse

Pokemon: The innovative RPG where you couldn’t even walk diagonally until generation 6…

Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 16:25 collapse

I can see the opposite argument made for copyright that if someone can coast off the success of their first work that in and of itself can de-incentivize them from making anything new, this is why movie companies just remake the same movies and stories every few years, it’s to coast on the success of the old one, and this is even a problem with shorter term copyrights. Their limiting factor is with the technology of the time making the old ones look dated, not so much the copyright expiring. If it didn’t look dated, they would just re-release the same ones over and over and over again.

Copyright was made for Joe, or a small business, but applying that to a big business doesn’t work, and is in fact a bad-faith argument, trying to tug at our heart-strings to make us feel bad for someone that we shouldn’t feel bad for. If Disney couldn’t sue people for copyright infringement they’d still find a way to go after them, they have more than enough money to hire a PI to ruin the person’s life, or you know just hire a hitman. It doesn’t do anyone any favors to Compare Disney, Paramount, Amazon, Facebook, or Google to a small business who needs our help to not be screwed over.

Ironically in this day and age it doesn’t do as much for those small businesses anymore because they don’t have the money needed to fight those claims, you know who does though, the big ones, the ones who don’t need protection at all. They’re free to predate on these smaller people if they choose, and those smaller people will be otherwise powerless to fight back, and even if by some stroke of luck they do, it’ll likely bankrupt them because of it.

TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 18:58 next collapse

Even when it doesn’t, it becomes its eventual outcome.

chuckleslord@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 19:22 next collapse

This is a patent lawsuit, not copyright

drmoose@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 19:53 collapse

even worse. software patents are just more idiotic copyrights.

SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:15 next collapse

Might be about a design patent

leopold@lemmy.kde.social on 21 Sep 2024 00:27 collapse

Dunno, I think I prefer patents. Unlike copyright, patents usually last a flat twenty years. Copyright expires either after 95 years or 70 years after the death of the author, which is ludicrous. Both are constantly abused, but at least patents expire in a reasonable amount of time.

drmoose@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 02:09 collapse

patents and copyright are pretty different though. IMO both are bad but you can at least make a case for protecting intelectual work from copying. Patents protect replication of ideas and ideas don’t have to be unique at all. If I say it was my idea to call variables a,b,c,d,e in that order that means anyone who wants to do that in their creations needs my permission which is fucking bonkers.

I’m convinced that software patents exist purely for regulatory capture.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 19:53 next collapse

No, Copyright exists to protect creators. It’s just been perverted and abused by the wealthy so that they can indefinitely retain IP. Disney holding on to an IP for 70 years after an author dies is messed up, but Disney taking your art and selling it to a mass audience without giving you a dime is worse.

blazera@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 20:11 next collapse

What creator has been protected by copyright?

ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 20:19 next collapse

Anyone who creates anything? If not for copyright Steam would be a sea of games named Undertale Stardew Valley Elsa Spider-Man

Shapillon@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 20:45 next collapse

lmao

blazera@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 00:53 next collapse

Youre thinking of the google play store

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 03:41 collapse

You would deprive everyone of the joy of playing this game mashup!?

I know you are joking, but honestly we would have a lot better games if we were allowed to openly borrow and build off of other concepts including characters and storylines.

Simply put commercial interests don’t produce the best games. Instead of innovative gameplay we get loot boxes and micro transactions.

A great example of this is Pokemon. You know damn well that fans could make a better Pokemon game than Nintendo ever could.

nomous@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 20:26 next collapse

Holy fuck I see some stupid takes posted here but this might be the stupidest.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 20:30 next collapse

Literally everyone who’s ever written a book, recorded a song, painted a painting, or created any other artwork.

blazera@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 01:14 collapse

Books and song rights go to the publisher. Graphic artists generally dont own their art they make money from, I.E. illustrations or concept art for various things like shows, movies, games.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 03:17 collapse

First of all, no, publishers don’t necessarily own the copyright. Most authors do a licensing deal with a publisher, but they retain the copyright to their work. My understanding is that music industry contracts vary a lot more, since music is usually more collaborative, but lots of artists still own the rights to their songs. But even if that were true, artists being forced to sell their rights to cooperations isn’t an issue with copyright, it’s an issue with capitalism. It’s like blaming America’s shitty healthcare on doctors instead of a for-profit system controlled by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

blazera@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 16:09 collapse

A licensing deal for rights to make money off an intellectual property. I.E. a way to use their wealth to profit even more off something they didnt make. Music industry has fun examples of musicians having to rerecord songs because an ex-record label still owned rights to the original. So there’s situations where a musician entirely created and recorded a song and isnt allowed to sell that recording. And authors and musicians are the closest to owning their work they make a living off of. Any kind of industry visual artist has no ownership of anything.

Copyright is an issue with capitalism. It only exists for wealthy to profit off of.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 21:02 collapse

I’ve run out of ways to tell you that’s not correct. The explicit purpose of the copyright law in the constitution is to allow creators to profit from their work. If you’re arguing that we should live in a pure communist society, where the products of all labor, including intellectual property, belong to community, fine, but we don’t live in a communist utopia. We live in a capitalist hellscape, and you’re looking at one of the only protections artists have, seeing how it’s been exploited by capitalism, and claiming the protection is the problem. It’s like looking at the minimum wage, seeing how cooperations have lobbied Congress to keep it so low it’s now starvation wage, and coming to the conclusion that the minimum wage needs to be abolished.

[deleted] on 19 Sep 2024 20:41 collapse

.

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 03:35 collapse

Copyright cannot protect 99% of creators because enforcing it takes enormous amounts of time and money. This isn’t really a big deal though because 99% of people who create don’t need these supposed protections.

That’s right, the amount of writing, art, and music that is created for non-commercial purposes dwarfs what is created for profit.

Your last tidbit is highly accurate. Big business almost exclusively uses copyright to control others work to the detriment of society.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 20:35 collapse

Right, but as I said to someone else in this thread, the fact thar copyright can’t protect 99% of creators is a problem with capitalism, not copyright. The fact that our courts favor the wealthy isn’t the fault of copyright law itself.

Also, you’re correct that most art is created for pleasure, not profit, but that doesn’t mean the need to protect artists’ rights to their creations isn’t necessary, even beyond capitalistic reasons. Bill Waterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes, refused to merchandise his art simply because he didn’t want to ruin the image of his characters for a licensing deal. Without copyright law, any company could have slapped his characters on t-shirts and coffee mugs to make a quick buck off of his labor. But because of copyright law, he was able to refuse his publisher’s attempts to franchise his characters (reportedly, he even turned down Spielberg and Lucas’ pitch for an animated series based on the strip).

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 01:11 collapse

I think you have bought into the lie about copyright that has been fed to us. It is really hard to look at something objectively when you have been propagandized about it your entire life.

Currently copyright and the bigger category of intellectual property only exist to benefit commercial interests, this is self-evident. It is not a natural right by any means and is a perversion of the way art and science has existed for all of human history.

We have to face the reality that in a world of billions of people nothing is really unique. If you are anything like me you would have had many great thoughts, ideas, and projects and seen many other people throughout your life with similar or sometimes identical concepts.

Who should get to rent seek for these? If I create a very similar painting or song without ever seeing or hearing of another similar one who is the first? Well the current system is first come first serve, but is that really right?

What about teachers. Should not your teacher get a portion of your creation since they inspired you? What about exposure to other art, should you pay a portion of your earnings if you were inspired by other artist?

Even when looking at case law with derivative works, what is or is not okay is hardly settled and constantly changes based on the whims of ill-informed judges.

These questions only begin to scratch the complexity of the situation because of the artificial constraints put on us by intellectual property. I don’t pretend to have the answers except to say there really is no need for any of this.

Even when looking at something you may think is relatively simple like putting a characters likeness on merchandise it is never cut and dry. I have often wondered if Tigger inspired Hobbes. The likeness including even behavior is rather startling.

Who has the rights is sometimes not even the person that created it originally. This is especially evident in productions that require lots of people like movies. This leads to interesting facts like most major recording artist don’t even own their own songs.

Commercial interests love to have it both ways as well. Microsoft used piracy to its advantage to spread its OS across the globe and only cracked down on it after becoming a monopoly.

I am not trying to muddy the waters here but I want to make it clear that intellectual property, including copyright was created by and for monied interests. It was ill-conceived from the start, based on false premises, and has been pushed to the breaking point from years of coordinated legal tactics.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 17:24 collapse

intellectual property, including copyright was created by and for monied interests.

It’s literally the opposite. The first copyright law was passed in 1709 in England to give authors rights to their works instead of publishing companies. The Stationers’ Company, a guild of publishers, had a monopoly over the printing industry, and they we’re deciding amongst themselves who would get to reproduce and publish books. They took the labor of authors, changed it however they saw fit, and reproduced them for profit. Authors never saw a dime, and instead had to find wealthy patrons to subsidize their work.

Yes, for the majority of human history, people used to create art with no expectation of ownership, but for the majority of human history, there weren’t methods to mass reproduce art. Owning the rights to your books didn’t matter when the only way a second could get made is if a monk decided to hand copy it and bind it himself. When the only way to reproduce your painting was to have someone create a forgery, ownership of the physical copy was all that really mattered. If the only way you could get paid for a song was to sing it at the local tavern, it didn’t really matter if you got writing credits.

We’ve already seen a world where the cooperations that control media production can use any work they want. They carved up artists’ works like mobsters dividing up a town and kept all the profits for themselves. Maybe if we lived in a post need, post currency society, you could make an argument for abolishing copyright, but in the system we have, copyright is the only protection artists have against cooperations.

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 19:06 collapse

The commoner could not read or write in 1709. Even back then the law was meant for the upper class hence monied interests. So not the opposite at all. Wealthy using the law to protect their profits seems to be what has always happened. Hard to look at this as a some sort of positive for people like you and me.

What you describe is exactly what is happening in the majority of commercial writing nowadays. The corporations still have complete control. Strange how the law didn’t change the status quo rather just carved out an exception for wealthy writers to be rent seekers. Once again, anyone without the means would have their work copied with no recourse.

Copying is not a bad thing as it is the foundation of all human culture. Trying to create a artificial system of scarcity perhaps made some sense to commercial interests when publishing cost so much. With the Internet though and our fast past culture it really is a ridiculous concept nowadays.

Once again owning the rights to your work doesn’t matter unless a corporation wants to reprint, distribute your material, or in modern times allow you on their platform. Copyright would never stop this.

Even to this day the majority of those who create art don’t expect compensation. Most do it for fun as a creative outlet. This obsession with trying to conflate art with profit has always been a lie. Only an extreme minority of people will ever make money from their art. So we are all to bow down to them copying our culture?

They did not create anything in a vacuum and they refuse to recognize this. This is what I mean when I say it is a flawed premise. We don’t need to commercialize art to promote it.

We don’t need to concentrate wealth for rent seekers and lawyers by creating a system of artificial scarcity. This does not promote the arts or protect them in any meaningful way.

Copyright does not protect the vast majority of artists because they don’t need it and if they did would not have the resources or time to access our dubious legal frameworks in a court of law. It is a broken idea turned into a broken system.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 22 Sep 2024 00:53 collapse

First of all, literacy rates were about 70% in 1710, so the average commoner could absolutely read (at least among men, but copyright law isn’t to blame for patriarchy). This is about 300 years after the printing press, literacy had gone up.

Second…I just don’t know what to say to this anymore. You’ve created a strawman artist who believes their work is entirely original, even though no artist would claim they had no influences. You’re pretending that copyright is an edict that says ideas can never be shared, as though the Public Domain, Creative Commons, and fair use didn’t exist, or Substantial Similarity didn’t have to be proved (which, by the way, is the reason that Hobbes isn’t infringing on Tigger). And worst of all, you’re acting like artists who want to be paid for their art are greedy capitalists, not artists that live under capitalism. How is an artist who wants make a living by creating art all day, every day, somehow less worthy than an artist who works 9 to 5 at a crappy job and then does art when they have free time?

You seem to think abolishing copyright will lead to some sort of artists’ uptopia, but it’s pretty much the opposite. Let’s say copyright disappeared tomorrow. First, anyone making a living on Patreon will basically be done. If their videos or podcasts are now public property, there’s nothing to stop anyone from uploading their Premium Content to YouTube within minutes of publishing, so no one’s going to subscribe. Some of them will keep producing things, but since they’ll need a new source of income, they’ll definitely produce less.

Then there’s the cooperations. They’ll gobble up everything they can. Sure, you’ll be able to make your own Spider-Man comics, but if any publisher likes them, they’ll just sell them, along with any original IP you have. Of course you’ll be able to sell them too, but since they can afford more advertising, higher quality printing, and merchandising, they’ll out-sell you easily. You’ll be lucky it anyone’s even seen or heard of your version, even though you’re the author. It’d be like trying to compete with Coca-Cola by opening a lemonade stand, and Coke is allowed to use your lemonade recipe.

I’m not saying copyright is being done well now; cooperations have an outsized ability to enforce copyright claims, they’ve manipulated the law to retain IP for an insane amount of time, and they have far more power in negotiations over licensing and rights than artists do. But your solution to that is, “What if artists had no rights? That would be better!” and I’ve just…I’ve run out of ways to react to that. It’s truly insane to me.

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 22 Sep 2024 05:18 collapse

I am not going to split hairs about whether the commoner would use copyright back in 1710. You know they would not.

For the privilege of copyright your idea must be truly unique to deprive others the right to use it. Perhaps you have never thought through the reality of creating artificial scarcity.

Your elaborate strawman is apparently copyright is needed for the arts which I have pointed out is not true and I had thought you agreed with.

We will never know if the creator of Calvin and Hobbes choose not license merchandising for the reality they could have been hit with trademark infringement.

Certainly if Nintendo can go after Palworld, Disney could have come after Calvin and Hobbes. This is all I was alluding to.

pjwestin@lemmy.world on 22 Sep 2024 12:22 collapse

Almost everything you’ve said is just factually incorrect. We know why Calvin and Hobbes wasn’t franchised; in Bill Waterson’s own words, he wanted to, “write every word, draw every line, color every Sunday strip, and paint every book illustration,” not, “run a corporate empire.” His publisher had no worries about copyright infringement though, and pressured him to franchise.

Also, there was no chance he would have run into trademark issues because that’s not what trademark means. Trademark is a name, copyright is the content. Trademark is why I can open a restaurant called Spider-Man, copyright is why I can’t publish my own Spider-Man comics. While we’re at it, Nintendo is suing Palworld for Patent violations, not copyright, so this has nothing to do with the similarity of the characters, it has to do with some game mechanic that Nintendo believes is proprietary technology.

Finally, the average working class person wasn’t writing, but they were consuming printed media, and that’s why publishers were making so much money off of authors. That’s why copyright mattered. Copyright only lasted 14 years, with the option to renew it for another 14, and its sole purpose was to break up the publishers’ monopoly. The idea that it was designed to create an artificial scarcity of ideas is an ahistorical conspiracy theory that you’ve dreamed up.

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 22 Sep 2024 15:24 collapse

Looks like you are just spinning your wheels at this point. No, trademark is not just name. I suggest looking it up if you are not sure about it.

The fact that you can’t accept that copyright creates artificial scarcity just shows that you don’t really understand what it means. That is okay, it is clear you have not put a lot of thought into it.

Nice talking with you.

Summzashi@lemmy.one on 19 Sep 2024 20:54 collapse

This isn’t about copyright. Is there anybody here that has actually read the article? It’s absolutely insane how everyone just opens their mouths without understanding anything.

blazera@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 00:57 collapse

Consider it a catch all term for “copying intellectual property”. Patents, copyrights, trademarks, its different words for the same idea.

Harvey656@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 19:12 next collapse

Pocketpair is a Japanese company too right? That doesn’t bode well, Japan has some shit laws for defending these sorts of lawsuits. I really like palworld, and don’t want it to go away. Fuck Nintendo.

littlecolt@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:22 next collapse

I can read the room here. I know this will be an unpopular opinion, and I want to preface this with a big “fuck Nintendo” and particularly their legal team.

That said, fuck Palworld, too. They are absolutely just straight up copying Nintendo/The Pokemon Company’s designs. It’s blatant. It’s AI bros making money by copying Pokemon designs, plain and simple. Palworld would not have caused the stir it did if not for the blatant “It’s Pokemon with guns!” angle.

So, while Nintendo can normally go suck the biggest of dicks when they swing around their lawsuit arms, this time I think they fully have every right to go after these guys, I don’t care how much they say they’re gonna fight the big bad mega company “for the fans and for indie devs everywhere” lol man, great statement. Guaranteed to get the base riled up.

Thank you for reading, you may downvote.

daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Sep 2024 19:29 next collapse

I just don’t believe in copyright, IP patents or having fences on human culture.

So even if they straight up put Pikachu in their game I think they have the moral right to do so. If they can make a good game with Pikachu in it, who is Nintendo to private humanity from that piece of culture?

My statement is about morality. What’s legal or not is another matter.

TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 19:58 next collapse

I’m not extremely against all of copyright because I believe artists should have some protections (though the law sucks at this), but I also believe that once something becomes a decades-old billion-dollar franchise, non-identical imitation should be fair game. Can you imagine what would happen if companies could simply say that they own whole genres?

kyle@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 19:59 collapse

I mean…artists should be paid for their work right? Fuck Nintendo, but that same logic could be applied to anyone. I’d be pissed if someone just straight up lifted my designs and resold it.

littlecolt@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 20:31 next collapse

Absolutely. I don’t get how someone can say stealing the work of others is morally correct.

desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 19 Sep 2024 20:56 next collapse

because work should provide limited profit

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 24 Sep 2024 03:55 collapse

Are you talking about some heist on Nintendo’s blueprint vaults?

Because IP infringement is never theft.

daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 20 Sep 2024 05:46 collapse

I does not conflict with people being paid for doing something. If I’m a carpenter and I’m hired and paid to make a bench. No one is stealing me if, once the bench is done, I don’t have a said in who sits on that bench. Or if I don’t get paid every time a person sits on that bench.

Like any other job you should be paid for doing work. Not for owning a property.

ZeroHora@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 19:39 next collapse

They are also making a copycat game “inspired” by hollow knight, obviously doing for the indie devs out there.

Buttons@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 20:26 next collapse

If we allow this to continue, we will end up with more content for players to enjoy.

ZeroHora@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 20:40 next collapse

Yeah of course, they are only going to ripoff others indie devs out there for the players to enjoy.

Buttons@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 20:46 collapse

Name a game you have enjoyed that isn’t a ripoff.

ZeroHora@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 21:34 collapse

Tetris.

[deleted] on 19 Sep 2024 21:35 next collapse

.

M0oP0o@mander.xyz on 19 Sep 2024 21:37 collapse

Tetris.

pentomino Would like a word…

Buttons@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 21:53 next collapse

Good call, the shape arranging mechanic existing in board game form before Tetris, and the “challenge approaching from the top of the screen” thing was a staple of many many Atari and arcade games.

M0oP0o@mander.xyz on 19 Sep 2024 22:10 collapse

Nothing is ever completely new and that should not stop people making things.

ZeroHora@lemmy.ml on 19 Sep 2024 22:57 collapse

Or jigsaw puzzle, the thing is there’s nothing 100% original and people always get inspired by others.

Things is starting to get strange when a company only makes games there have the same aesthetic of a more famous game.

<img alt="Craftopia" src="https://shared.akamai.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/1307550/ss_8028a8992642674cc3fc233a4f9987c48bb81454.1920x1080.jpg"> This isn’t Genshin is Craftopia

<img alt="Never Grave" src="https://shared.akamai.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/2395770/ss_c4e61aad5335b3631d42519c4283f12a100f5696.1920x1080.jpg?t=1709294509"> This isn’t Hollow Knight is Never Grave

Metroidvania and the Open World of Genshin is nothing new, Genshin share a lot of similarities with BOTW and have the combat animation similar to Nier:Automata but this company tried a lot to differentiate only in the mechanics of the game while coping the aesthetics.

Fuck Nintendo and miHoYo but come on don’t go and tried to emulate the aesthetic of a indie developer and than say “fight Nintendo lawsuit on behalf of fans and indie developers”.

M0oP0o@mander.xyz on 20 Sep 2024 00:08 collapse

Nintendo are not suing over the aesthetic but the mechanics of Palworld. You are really bending over back wards to prove a point that is not being argued.

ZeroHora@lemmy.ml on 20 Sep 2024 00:47 collapse

I never said anything about the lawsuit, Nintendo shouldn’t win that one.

My commentary was always mocking the “behalf of fans and indie developers” angle of them. My original comment itself was never about Palworld, was about the copycat of hollow knight.

MoogleMaestro@lemmy.zip on 19 Sep 2024 21:01 collapse

If we allow this to continue, we will end up with more content for players to enjoy.

More slop that’s copy and pasted from other games?

No, I don’t think I want that, thanks though.

littlecolt@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 20:27 next collapse

Of course. For the culture! Lol

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:22 collapse

That’s called a metroidvania

racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 19 Sep 2024 20:07 next collapse

I love how you wrote all this, and are completely missing the mark. Nintendo is filing a lawsuit claiming that the palworld devs violated their patents, not their copyrights.

Anything palworld ‘copied’ from pokémon is either japanese lore, or from older games. This is not a copyright suit. If a copyright suit were possible, Nintendo would have brought it waaaay earlier. I’m wondering which patents Nintendo has that were supposedly violated.

I love how there’s this entire discussion here about copyright etc… while that’s not even what this is about.

littlecolt@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 20:30 next collapse

It’s a gift.

CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 19 Sep 2024 21:14 collapse

I bet Nintendo has a lot of patent violations to choose from. They have a patent on such bangers as, rephrased from legal speech to human speech: “An air mount automatically turning into a ground mount upon landing” Source

According to Nintendo, if I understand this correctly, they have the sole legal right to make a bird mount that can also sprint on the ground if needed, because that sure was a special idea.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 22 Sep 2024 03:43 collapse

About as special as an arrow on the screen that points towards your destination (Sega, Crazy Taxi ). Not saying that’s particularly special either. The US Patent Office has allowed for some pretty broad-reaching patents, which fuels our patent-troll problem, as well as giving large companies legal grounds to interfere with each other’s innovation.

IP law has become so far removed from serving its original intent (according to the Constitution of the United States) we’d be bette4 off with no IP protections rather than the licensing system we have. Not that anyone is near doing something to fix it, or unfuck the courts that are unable to rule consistently about it.

Buttons@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 20:25 next collapse

They didn’t copy Pokemon, they created new content that is similar to Pokemon.

Do you believe it is wrong to create new content that is very similar to existing content that people enjoy?

Is it wrong for Pocket Pair (Palworld’s creator) to create new content that is similar to existing Pokemon? Is it wrong for GameFreak to create new content that is similar to existing Pokemon? Morally speaking, why are the answers to those questions different?

littlecolt@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 20:30 next collapse

If you can’t see how blatant it is, I don’t know what to tell you. You can be all “it’s just SIMILAR wink wink” all you want. Similar is a fucking understatement.

[deleted] on 19 Sep 2024 20:43 next collapse

.

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 03:55 next collapse

Pokemon concept and ideas are heavily borrowed already. It is pretty idiotic to pretend they created anything. Instead they copied a bunch of Japanese culture and now want to prevent others from doing the same.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 22 Sep 2024 03:49 collapse

Have you played Pokémon and PalWorld? One is a pit-fighter-trainer where the other is a base-builder. Or does the capturing of creatures and the similar art style make them too much alike?

In a truly competitive capitalist market there should be room enough for both. But Nintendo wants their players to be obligated to own only Nintendo approved products.

littlecolt@lemm.ee on 23 Sep 2024 07:39 collapse

Have you? The monster designs, some of them are straight up copycats and pallette swaps and such. Others are basically that “ok copy my homework, but don’t make it identical so we don’t get in trouble.”. It is absolutely pushing the limits. To say you do not see that is willful. It has to be.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 24 Sep 2024 03:52 collapse

So Nintendo is suing them over the monster design similarities? I thought it was a patent suit, not copyright.

littlecolt@lemm.ee on 24 Sep 2024 07:04 collapse

Whatever. I can talk about whatever I want.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 24 Sep 2024 19:27 collapse

Yes, but I’m curious what Nintendo is talking to the courts about, or if this is merely a weaponization of litigation.

moonleay@feddit.org on 20 Sep 2024 01:12 collapse

I really recommend this set of posts from byofrog from the hellsite:

x.com/byofrog/status/1749198773295743156

x.com/byofrog/status/1748943929184035098

x.com/byofrog/status/1749188773127016772

x.com/byofrog/status/1749193341932020097

x.com/RoseBursyoji/status/1750585839913255386 (This one is not from byofrog, but rather his comment section)

I think they make the copying obvious

TwitchingCheese@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:57 collapse

Ah, I remember this controversy when the game launched. That person later admitted to modifying the meshes to make them fit better because they hated Palworld for “glorifying animal abuse”.

dsogaming.com/…/modder-who-accussed-palworld-of-u…

moonleay@feddit.org on 20 Sep 2024 09:23 collapse

The article, which you provided does not make sense.

They quote the user in question, with text and link to their tweet and then have the link to the “confession” as just text, not clickable. Opening the link results in an error. Looking at the link though, you can see, that this was not even posted by the user in question.

You can see, who posted the post, which you are linking, in the url. This is a post from the user in question for example.

<img alt="" src="https://feddit.org/pictrs/image/070e9a6f-71ae-4222-a412-3db063e2da42.png">

The provided evidence links to a (now apparently deleted) tweet from another user instead.

<img alt="" src="https://feddit.org/pictrs/image/9b182f76-6cd5-4cd7-a97c-d40bd386c24e.png">

You are right about the user speaking out because of the animal abuse though. (source)

And they did scale the mashes (source), but only to make them comparable, because the different engines of these games work differently and have different scales. They did not edit them in other ways.

SSJMarx@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 20:38 next collapse

I think you could be right, but it depends on the details Nintendo comes out with. I remember people were saying that they thought certain Palworld monsters had been ripped from the Pokemon games and recolored - if Nintendo can demonstrate that, then that’s a slam dunk for them.

But if it’s just creature designs and collecting them, then I just don’t think that “a cute monkey with green fur” is a novel enough concept to be defensible against someone else doing something similar.

Furbag@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:07 next collapse

I’m not going to downvote you, but, I disagree. Nintendo might have had a leg to stand on if they tried to say Palworld infringed on their Pokemon intellectual property and/or copyright, especially after the mesh controversy, but they didn’t attack them on that. They’re going after Pocketpair for patent infringement on a so-far undisclosed patent. Probably a game mechanic of some sort. Pokemon did not invent the monster collecting and/or battling genre. Dragon Quest predates it by a good margin.

I’d like to see the patent they claim to have. In what way might Palworld be infringing upon their patent that another similar game, like say TemTem for instance, is not? I hate the idea that a fun game mechanic can be patented and locked down by one company for up to 20 years.

Palworld would not have caused the stir it did if not for the blatant “It’s Pokemon with guns!” angle.

This was 100% a fan reaction to the trailer, and not an official stance by the developers at all. That’s obviously what they were going for, but they stopped long before outright saying it out loud and let the consumer make their own inferences.

They have every right to go after them, but I really hope they lose this one. Nintendo doesn’t deserve to have a monopoly on fun creature collecting games.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:30 next collapse

Man… Reading is great when I decide to actually do that.

aight. Ima piss off, Apologies for my Prozax induced rantings.

littlecolt@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 22:46 next collapse

Absolutely. I’m looking at getting Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince soon. I doubt anyone calls it a Pokemon copycat, too.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 00:15 collapse

I still really hate Palworld.

It reminds me of that PETA parody I played a long time ago called Pokemon Black and Blue. It was pokemon but they were abused or some shit.

Thats what Palworld reminds me of, Its pokemon but I can abuse them if I want to and thats just kinda fucked up IMO… Not something id wanna play :/ It all reminds me of those fangames people would make where Mario has a gun or a car or some other wacky ass Item that’d only exist IRL. the fucking pink Meowth with an AK-47 makes me ponder why this even got as popular as it did. but whatever- this is all still my opinion.

This game also reminds me of that one Steam game thats basically Animal crossing (But you can kill people with guns) I think its called Virst Winter??? I cant remember… It just looks mega silly to me- I dont like having to look at a fake-Lucario with human hands holdin a glock. Its goofy- I cant take it seriously 😭😭😭

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 00:29 collapse

Palworld is just one of them Newgrounds games where its Mario but he’s got a Bazooka or some crazy shit.

Whenever I run into someone with a Palworld Oc and their telling me about it, I cant help but feel like their offering me some kinda fake/knockoff Balenciaga; for lack of a better comparison. Like it looks like Lugia, flaps like Lugia, but this “thing” aint Lugia. Its- I dunno its just weird as shit.

Its an uncanniness for me, that’s why I hate it and it feels wrong. My mind sees Jigglypuff with a pistol and I’m violently taken out of the scenario. Its just so- Fuckin weird man I cant describe it. It aint natural 😭😭

The best way I describe it is that Palworld is the Alternate Universe version of Pokemom, only it exists in this universe and in this timeline and it weirds me out.

Buttons@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 20:35 next collapse

Patents and video games huh? We can’t ignore what John Carmack had to say about this:

The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.

–John Carmack

[deleted] on 19 Sep 2024 21:10 next collapse

.

Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:27 collapse

You are conflating copyright and patents. Copyright is protection for the expression of an idea, like the art design. This is a patent issue, which is a protection of how something works.

If somehow I patent a vague mechanic like “a method of selecting weapons with the directions of an analogue stick or mouse, presented as an 8 direction on screen circle.” Then I could sue Red Dead Redemption and Batman Arkham, despite there being no copyright infringement with whatever game I made with that feature.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:19 collapse

Aren’t they suing because of the 3d models?? not the design of them but the fact they took Nintendo models and tweaked them???

If im deadass wrong I will 100% shut tf up and delete my rants.

dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:27 next collapse

Aren’t they suing because of the 3d models??

No, they’re not. The word “patent” is used in every single article about this repeatedly. Patents are not the same as copyrights.

A copyright protects a creative work: A work of fiction, a movie, a character.

A patent protects the method in which the way a thing functions: A machine, a chip, an algorithm, or in Nintendo’s assertion certain vague gameplay concepts.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:47 collapse

I said this many times before. I was assuming the PATENT they are suing was the base model. Not the design, the base model.

Cypher@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:02 collapse

Read the article you fucking spanner

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 06:41 next collapse

I FUCKIN DIDDDDDD

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 06:45 collapse

Also wtf is a Spanner???

Cypher@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 07:47 collapse

spanner – a derogatory remark similar to tool; for example, “That bloke’s an absolute spanner.”; from spanner, a tool used for adjusting bolts

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 09:00 collapse

OOOHHH your british.

haha- I Prefer the term SPAZ, fits me better tbh.

rain_worl@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:31 collapse

according to first sentence of article, it was a patent infringement lawsuit, so you are deadass wrong.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:35 collapse

i already admitted to being wrong. Name calling isnt needed anymore

edit: I LOVE HAVING READING COMPREHENSION ISSUES!!!🩷🩵🩷🩵

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:11 collapse

Being called wrong is not the same as being called a name.

But respect for admitting being wrong.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 06:42 collapse

I once again am here to admit a loss.

I missread “Deadass” as “Dipshit”

In conclusion I AM WAY TOO FUCKING AUTISTIC FOR THIS POST RN. Reading comprehension got me at an all time low 😭😭😭

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:11 next collapse

More like he wouldn’t be able to sell his solution to others, but yeah I think Patents on simple processes and mechanisms are dumb, especially certain software and firmware.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:28 next collapse

Is this lawsuit deadass about the game mechanics???

I need to out my fucking reading glasses on.

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:32 collapse

idk, but the user above me made a general statement about patent laws and I responded in kind.

BigPotato@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 01:03 collapse

Imagine if you had a hammer and decided to use it to hit a nail and then someone came along and said “I see you’re using my method to build a house! Pay up!”

Well, you can’t patent something like that!

Imagine you open up a game engine, any engine, and decide you need to point to an objective so you decide to use an arrow. A game company says “You’re using our method to identify objectives! Pay up!” and that one is a unique mechanic?

How long has humanity been using arrows to point to things? How can you patent it just because it’s a digital arrow?

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 01:38 collapse

Jfc this guy

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:09 next collapse

He’s right.

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:22 collapse

No, the very premise of that user’s analogy is that he isn’t profiting from it. If somebody invented hammering nails literally this year and a company came in selling it as a product without permission, then it would be comparable. It reads as if he failed to read my comment entirely but still replied with multiple paragraphs.

The game development analogy is better, floating arrows about characters heads was actually patented, but it was widely criticized and it expired in 2019. Plus I already took offense to simple mechanisms and especially certain software and firmware solutions.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:27 collapse

A patient on hitting a nail with hammer is ridiculous if it’s your framing or theirs.

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:30 collapse

Countless buildings would never be built if you didnt invent hammer and nails, being paid royalties for a few years by large businesses who make use of it seems pretty fair.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:41 collapse

You have absolutely zero knowledge of history, I’m embarrassed for you.

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:48 collapse

We’re very clearly not talking about history, we’re talking about the ridiculous hypothetical of if Hammering Nails to build Houses was patented today.

I can understand why you’d think that was fucking silly, my original response to it was “jfc this guy”

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:56 collapse

Yeah pretty much, that comment set the mood. I’m cool, I hope you are too.

It is interesting as a thought experiment if very basic human improvements could have been shut out from other people using them.

What if, for example, Plato was able to “copy right” his ideas. Or if any of the ideas from the Renaissance where prevented from being iterated on. Would we have the scientific method today?

Edit: Electricity? Pfft have fun with only one person owning the right to use it for 175 years. Next to no improvements for almost two centuries.

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 03:39 collapse

Again, people are not shut out from patented ideas. Tbey’re shut out from selling them to third parties. And Electricity WAS patented in the USA, they lasted 17 years from the date of issue.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 04:30 collapse

We’re making two different points.
It’s fine.

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 04:55 collapse

My point is that ya’ll lie every time your moutha open.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 15:48 collapse

Are you mental? Where did that come from?

Snowpix@lemmy.ca on 20 Sep 2024 16:53 collapse

I think someone just pissed in his Cheerios this morning.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 16:56 collapse

Thank you. I thought we were discussing things. Apparently not lol

BigPotato@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 12:07 next collapse

The ludicrousness is the point. “Capture a creature in a ball”… How close is that to Red Dead’s lasso? Could Nintendo patent capturing a creature with a rope? Does anyone hold that patent yet? No, it would be silly to try to patent something like that - yet at one point I’m certain it was someone’s “technique” while everyone else was jumping on the horses back like Breath of the Wild.

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 12:15 collapse

  1. This thread started with a general statement about patent laws with a glaring innacuracy that it applied to noncommercial applications and in perpetuity. That is what I argued against. I fully support PalWorld.

  2. If that were Nintendo’s justification they would lose instantly. You can patent and/or claim intellectual property for very specific named designs, but you cannot do so for vague narrative concepts. Example: PokeBalls in various colorschemes is a go, but “a ball that capture creatures” is not good enough to patent.

john89@lemmy.ca on 20 Sep 2024 15:06 next collapse

🪞

webadict@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 17:15 collapse

Hey man, I’m future you. I here to give past me a warning. You keep looking like a complete fool and when you look for evidence to support your false claims, it turns out you were wrong the whole time, so you built a time machine to stop yourself. Anyway, the warning is to only use 1.11 Jiggawatts, as you miss the return time to stop yourself from looking foolish by about a day. Good luck!

finitebanjo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 20:46 collapse

Hey, further future you, due to the nature of paradoxes your specific version doesn’t exist as a result of this timeline; and thank fuck for that because you’re a total loser.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:13 collapse

> The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.

Thats essentially what both an AI does and what ChatGBT does. Are you gonna defend that to?? Just dont take credit for shit someone else made, who cares if its Nintendo. I don’t want my game sprites altered and then sold as though whoever altered them made them by hand

I was mislead about what the lawsuit was about and Im retracting all my statements thank you :’ )

Veneroso@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:29 next collapse

My cock is not inspired after reading this bad take.

John Carmack is human intelligence and therefore more valuable than artificially generated drivel.

-edit- I mistook inspecting for inspiring for your name. I’m leaving it.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:16 next collapse

I never said John is an AI. But there are steps Palworld coulda taken to avoid the inevitable. If anything its just sad they did nothing to prevent this. I can see why thousands of people like it a fuckton. But they did nothing to actually avoid this from happening.

skulblaka@sh.itjust.works on 20 Sep 2024 00:31 collapse

The whole game was intended from the very beginning to thumb their nose at Nintendo, just so happens that it got really popular and sold a ton of copies because it isn’t difficult to make a better Pokémon game than The Pokémon Company does, even when the entire game in question is a shitpost.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 01:04 collapse

Im not about to sit here and tout the game that gives Lugia a gun as a game better than Pokemon, fuck no 😭😭😭

I’ve changed my statements (see above) about the lawsuit but this game is DEADASS just a higher quality newgrounds game similar to “Mario with a gun/bazooka/truck”

A shitpost is a better way to describe this. I simply refuse to look past the quirky, cartoony, 3d monsters HOLDING WHOLE ASS GLOCKS n RIFLES, to suspend my disbelief just enough to enjoy whatever this game has to offer. It hits these levels of Uncanniness with me that I severely dont like and bothers me for whatever reason.

skulblaka@sh.itjust.works on 20 Sep 2024 02:05 collapse

And that’s fine, different strokes and all. I personally find it highly goddamn hilarious and enjoy playing it with my gaming group. I just think it’s a little disingenuous to say “palworld devs did nothing to prevent this, sad” when the whole original concept was basically designed around parodying Pokémon. They knew what they were doing.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 06:47 collapse

Why didnt they just file under Parody law then??

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:44 next collapse

Well I admit im wrong about everything so, may your cock be inspired by that(?)

Veneroso@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:56 collapse

I present semi-chub. Carry on fellow meme warrior.

skulblaka@sh.itjust.works on 20 Sep 2024 00:29 collapse

John Carmack is human intelligence

[X] Doubt

John Carmack is many things, but I have my doubts about whether human is one of them. At minimum, he’s some kind of alien. Most days I lean more toward incognito archdevil of the plane of knowledge. I’ve heard someone accuse him of being God, or at least standing in for him on Wednesdays.

Veneroso@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:55 collapse

At least on Wednesdays.

TachyonTele@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:50 collapse

I respect your taking action on your comments admitting you were mistaken.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 06:43 collapse

Yea I dont wanna double down on some goofy shit if im wrong. Im a bit of a diagnosed spaz🥴 So being wrong about an opinion for me is a 50/50 and im not afraid to admit that

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:18 next collapse

It shocks me just the amount of people rallying behind Palworld SOLEY just to “stick it to the big corp”

At worse its blind rage and ignorance

edit: watch me get pelted with downvotes.

I was wrong and I will take my L for it✌

dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:32 next collapse

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

IDGAF about Palworld as a game, personally. I’ve never played it and I don’t plan to. But that doesn’t make Nintendo’s behavior not bullshit, and I still hope the Palworld developers win this battle.

[deleted] on 19 Sep 2024 22:01 collapse

.

dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:22 collapse

Yeah, you did not read any of the articles about this or understand the suit.

Nintendo is putting this forth as a patent issue, not a copyright issue. I presume this is because even they are smart enough to realize that they would probably lose a copyright challenge. However, the patents they are attempting to claim are clearly bullshit. They’re just doing this as a bludgeon to bully a company they don’t like, most likely in the hopes that the sheer cost of litigation will break them.

If they were going to propose that some of the monster models from Palworld originated as Pokemon model rips, they could arguably have a leg to stand on. But that’s not what they’re saying. The outcome of this case is not going to have any impact on copyright issues. Rather, the potential result is much more dangerous – it would confirm that a big company can just come in late and retroactively lay claim to large swathes of mechanical concepts that have already widely in use in a particular industry for decades.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:27 collapse

Wait.

so this whole situation isnt about Model rips???

I will respectfully shit the fuck up then and delete my comments. Im compulsive, and judging by what everyone else was saying read all if this as

A. Fuck nintendo cus they bad

B. The patent is that they ripped their models.

dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:28 collapse

It is not about model rips. Check your inbox to my other reply to another of your comments.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:37 collapse

I did, I deleted/edited my comments (◍•ᴗ•◍)👍🏾

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 21:34 collapse

im a stinky dumb dumb who didnt read the lawsuit. Forgive me im impulsive (u-u)✌

salmoura@lemmy.eco.br on 19 Sep 2024 21:36 next collapse

Good, then. Fuck IP laws.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:02 collapse

Why tf would you even say that, everybody deserve the right to own some shit bruh. I fuck with fangames n all that but stealing assets and profiting from them with no consent is fucked.

Croquette@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 21:43 next collapse

How much is Nintendo paying you to be their mouth piece?

Have you seen the kind of patents Nintendo are trying to get?

Here is an example :

Publication number: 20240286040 Abstract: In an example of a game program, a ground boarding target object or an air boarding target object is selected by a selection operation, and a player character is caused to board the selected boarding target object. If the player character aboard the air boarding target object moves toward the ground, the player character is automatically changed to the state where the player character is aboard the ground boarding target object, and brought into the state where the player character can move on the ground.

You can check them out for yourself

patents assigned to the pokemon company

So calm the fuck down with your chatGPT which is a whole different situation.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:07 collapse

Bitch I pirate all my nintendo games wtf are you on 😭😭😭

Their sueing in Patents. Not how similar it looks.

I dont see this as any different than ChatGBT generating me an essay similar to one that already exists, the only difference is it changed some of it. Thats plagiarism(if not then its just wrong).

Theres even proof of them using THEIR MODELS and altering them. You cant do that shit without being transparent about it. How hard is that to grasp

Ignore this and read the edited post. thank you.

Croquette@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 22:48 collapse

What do you think I linked dipshit?

With ridiculous patent like that, Nintendo could sue pretty much any companies.

ChatGPT is scraping copyrighted material, not patents.

Nintendo is suing for patent infringement.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 23:54 collapse

Read the edited post 😭 I was mislead.

pkmkdz@sh.itjust.works on 19 Sep 2024 23:21 collapse

Your wall of text doesn’t make sense, contradicts itself and mixes up cases. PocketPair was sued for patent infringement, not intelectual property. If they did commit intelectual property / copyright infringement, you bet they’d be sued before even releasing the game.

That being said, this angry wall of text implies that you might need help with mental health. I’m sure there is a beautiful human being underneath all that, so please, consider talking to therapist.

Cock_Inspecting_Asexual@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 23:51 collapse

Did I not already just say that I admitted to being wrong beforehand???

And of course I got mental health issues you dipstick IM AUTISTIC lmfao. I’m not finna hide that fact either. I’ll admit when I’m wrong and be done with it! Id appreciate you not bringing my mental health into this shit thanks✌ I cant always control what I do but owning up to my mistakes is the best I can do. You playing me off like I need therapy is a shit move.

ICastFist@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 22:34 next collapse

“Multiple patents”

Specifies none

Off to a great start, I see. I know that actual game mechanics cannot be patented or copyrighted (the same principle applies to non digital games), so I’m really curious to what these patents are.

dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 22:41 next collapse

“Method for releasing 927 iterations of the same stale game across multiple platform generations.”

It can’t possibly be for “Method of splitting one complete game into two mutually exclusive cartridges with separate rosters to entice whales to buy two copies,” because if it were they’d have already sued Capcom 15 years ago.

Charzard4261@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 23:17 next collapse

Game mechanics can be patented. It’s stupid, but things such as “loading screen mini games” and “overhead arrows pointing to your objective” have been patented. The second I believe even got enforced once.

I think these kind of things have been getting approved less and less, but I wouldn’t be surprised if “balls that contain monsters” was patented back in the early days too.

ICastFist@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 23:28 collapse

The game during loading screen isn’t a “game mechanic” per se, which is why I think it was patented back then. Completely ass backwards that it could be patented, but there’s that.

As for the overhead arrow for navigation, I wasn’t aware of that one. Was that from EA? I think it can be argued that’s not a “game mechanic” either, because it’s not “an essential component of the game”

greenskye@lemm.ee on 19 Sep 2024 23:55 collapse

It was crazy taxi and no other game could use the mechanic. And telling you where to go is pretty darn important to a lot of games

skulblaka@sh.itjust.works on 20 Sep 2024 00:23 collapse

Interesting… The Wikipedia page for Crazy Taxi talks about their lawsuit with Simpsons Road Rage in 2001, for using the overhead arrow among other complaints. But makes no mention at all of Midnight Club, who by 2005 when I got Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition was using that same overhead arrow for in-race directions. I don’t see screenshots of Midnight Club 1 or 2 having the arrow but I can guarantee from personal experience that MC3:DUB did have them. I wonder what happened in those four years that made Rockstar not afraid to use that mechanic, especially as this section on the Crazy Taxi page states

The case, Sega of America, Inc. v. Fox Interactive, et al., was settled in private for an unknown amount. The 138 patent is considered to be one of the most important patents in video game development.

Kolanaki@yiffit.net on 19 Sep 2024 23:22 next collapse

Someone linked a list of all the patents Pokemon Company specifically holds and the very first one was "creature breeding based on good sleep habits."

  1. How does that even get a patent?
  2. What the fuck iteration of Pokemon requires you to have good sleep habits to breed your pokemon? 🤨
  3. Does it actually help you sleep? 🤔 I might need to start breeding pokemon…
ICastFist@programming.dev on 19 Sep 2024 23:34 next collapse

I know for sure that palworld does not promote good sleeping habits in any shape or form, at least not to my addicted ass

rislim@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 00:21 next collapse

Pokemon Sleep, sleep tracking app

gallopingsnail@lemmy.sdf.org on 20 Sep 2024 00:32 collapse

It’s real, folks.

ikidd@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 01:22 collapse

Breed me, daddy.

sandbox@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 01:17 next collapse

You’ve mixed copyright and patents together and confused yourself a bit. Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted, but they can be patented. Some game component designs can be copyrighted as well, and even trademarked.

There are many, many, many game mechanics and features which have been patented, such as in-game chat, minigames on loading screens, arrow pointing to destination, and so on. Game studios have to license those features from the patent holders if they wish to use them.

Some random company even owns a patent for the concept of sending and receiving email on a mobile device. The entire system is a fucking joke.

FatCrab@lemmy.one on 20 Sep 2024 17:15 collapse

There is an era of patents from the late 90s through the early-mid-00s that were insanely vague and rarely stand up to scrutiny, but most are expiring at this point, if they haven’t already. Generally, though, patents are not granted on “concepts” but on implementations. That’s a sometimes ambiguous line, but that’s a fundamental principle of modern patents.

todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 01:52 collapse

I know that actual game mechanics cannot be patented or copyrighted

In America, sure. But these are two Japanese companies…

I’m not an expert on Japanese copyright and patent law, but I don’t have a great outlook for Palworld.

[deleted] on 20 Sep 2024 11:33 collapse

.

Maggoty@lemmy.world on 19 Sep 2024 23:12 next collapse

Oh shit here we go again with your rectangle looks too much like my rectangle.

BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 10:18 collapse

Oh no, they actually made a good rectangle, our rectangle is cheap and boring. Instead of making an effort, we sue their rectangle

irotsoma@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 00:48 next collapse

Patenting things like this that are obviously unpatentable ideas rather than actual inventions is unfortunately a necessity for defensive purposes in a world where companies will do anything in order to kill competition except risk competing with them since that isn’t guaranteed by throwing money at it. Enforcing a bunch of patents against a company with fewer liquid assets is a guaranteed way to beat a competitor with money alone since winning the suit isn’t the goal, only draining the assets of the competitor. Sucks that this is considered a valid business practice now.

Prethoryn@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 01:51 next collapse

Seeing a lot of comments on here and it just reminds me of what I have been telling my friends since day one.

  1. PalWorld is a threat to Pokemon. It has potential to crown Pokemon in a different way and really compete. Nintendo will 100% find a way. I told them and told them. I said the same thing on Reddit. Sure enough, downvoted.

  2. I love Pokemon, I love Zelda, and Mario but I absolutely love competition. There is no way a billion dollar franchise, multi level marketing, insanept popular game series is going to let something come along and compete against it. If you haven’t watched The Boys on Amazon you are missing out. One of the most redeeming characters, IMO, says it best in two sentences in the boys in one whole episode and it is the premise of everything. "You don’t get it do you? You don’t mess with the money.

  3. I love seeing games come along and bring something new to the table because it should drive Nintendo to do better for GameFreak to do better. I liked PalWorld and welcomed it as someone who loves Pokemon. While PalWorld didn’t maintain my interest its because Pokemon just does something for me PalWorld doesn’t. However, that being said I have found my self turned away from Pokemon since Gen 7 and 8 semi redeemed 7 and 9 is just sad (performance wise). I have found my self playing the hell out of tjr classic Pokémon games. Point being I welcomed PalWorld in hopes that it would light a fire under Nintendo’s ass to develop a really good next gen Pokemon game. It was wishful thinking though. Nintendo is a “don’t mess with the money” company and that is all it is. Fuck Nintendo. PalWorld was good for the game industry. What Nintendo is going to try to set precedence on is that you can own an idea a simple concept.

I have been telling my friends for literal fucking years and for some reason they just swing the bat for Nintendo. Nintendo makes some great games but holy fuck they are a shit company. They just are. I told them over and over this was coming Nintendo would find something and now here we are.

I sent this too them and they all got silent. They genuinely believed Nintendo couldn’t and wouldn’t.

kaffiene@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 05:44 collapse

Well arguably they can’t legally but… Bludgeoning people with lawyers regardless of legality is pretty standard big business behaviour

moonleay@feddit.org on 20 Sep 2024 01:51 next collapse

>Open Thread
>People shitting on Nintendo, because fuck Nintendo
>Nobody actually looked at the 1:1 model comparisons
>Nobody actually looked into PocketPair as a company

Jeez. I thought we were better then Reddit. 

That being said, I don’t like Nintendo & their Ninjas, but PocketPair is not innocent here.

This is not their only ripoff. For their next project, they choose to ripoff Hollow Knight. (At least they are consistent I guess?).

They also abandoned an unfinished early access game (This game is 4 years into Early Access).

Their CEO is also a crypto bro and said himself that he does not necessarily care about originality, if it means, that he can reach more people (and by extension earn more money).

Just to name a few.

Spaceballstheusername@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:10 next collapse

My opinion for what it’s worth is generally no one is going to not play hollow knight because they are playing the ripoff. You can’t own a style or game genre if someone has a similar look and feel there’s not much you can do about it than have a better game.

IzzyScissor@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 02:30 collapse

Didn’t the guy who originally posted the “1:1 model comparisons” later admit that he stretched and scaled the models to fit better?

It’s derivative, but not a ripoff.

moonleay@feddit.org on 20 Sep 2024 02:42 collapse

Scaling? Yes. Streching? No.

The models had to be scaled, so that they are the same size, because models in different engines are differently scaled and a propper comparison could not be made otherwise.

HawlSera@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 02:31 next collapse

Kick his ass Pocketpair

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 20 Sep 2024 05:03 next collapse

For everyone’s edification, Geigner’s take on Techdirt. I suspect this won’t be the last TD article on this trainwreck-in-the-making.

FatCrab@lemmy.one on 20 Sep 2024 17:21 collapse

Oh wow, this suit is shaping up to be silly. I didn’t realize it was filed in Japan, too. That makes the patent aspect even shakier. Japan has no discovery process like in the US, which is generally very necessary for many software-related patents as, assuming they have a strong likelihood of surviving challenge, they are typically drawn to processes that are completely obfuscated from the user and outside observes.

Snapz@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 06:14 next collapse

I mean, Nintendo isn’t typically the bad guy though, right? And palworld is a pretty clear like 1:1 rip, so…

I mean, good to challenge the “big” guy generally, but wrong target here specifically and weak case, right?

Traister101@lemmy.today on 20 Sep 2024 06:29 next collapse

What parallel universe did you come from? Nintendo is like the company known to be a bad guy when it comes to IP lawsuits. They went after a Smash Bros tournament for emulating a game they literally don’t sell anymore for a console they also no longer produce.

Snapz@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 16:01 collapse

Wasn’t talking IP, meant more generally like how orgs like EA and Activision are the go to assholes in gaming, generally. Feel like I don’t hear about Nintendo in the more meaningful (In my opinion) microtransactions, mass layoffs, ridiculous price increases, attempts to kill physical media optionality, etc conversations…

As long as IP is the law we live under, I don’t really mind them enforcing that part. I think it was a bit lazy for palworld to blatantly ripoff Pokemon when they could be creative and make their own character universe. If you’re mad at IP law, go after your reps in government.

rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de on 20 Sep 2024 10:39 collapse

I think this is sarcasm, right? They are literally the bad guy. Nintendo does not hesitate to destroy people’s life if they can. Just one example: pcgamer.com/gary-bowser-charged-with-paying-ninte…

flashgnash@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 15:31 next collapse

As much as I don’t like Nintendo’s business practises to be fair in this case many of the pals are straight up copies of Pokémon with one thing changed

Definitely a good case for Nintendo here, not sure this is a winnable battle even without the overwhelming force of Nintendo’s ninjas

DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 20 Sep 2024 15:57 collapse

This is

PATENT INFRINGEMENT

Not COPYRIGHT

This is patent trolling because Nintendo knows they don’t have a case elsewhere

flashgnash@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 17:07 collapse

Ah, had thought the obvious thing for them to go for was copyright because of the obvious similarities

No reasonable person looks at palworld pals and doesn’t see the heavy similarities with pokemon

yamanii@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 15:58 next collapse

Nintendo filled some vague ass patents after the game launched, they are a disgusting company that already did the same to white cat project because of some virtual analogue because they were releasing their own Dragalia Lost.

demizerone@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 16:39 next collapse

I don’t play this game, but would love to donate to help the fight. Nintendo is out of control with their bullshit.

Sculptor9157@sh.itjust.works on 20 Sep 2024 21:13 collapse

Buy the game.

Egg_Egg@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 17:07 next collapse

Half of Pokémon are heavily inspired by artist’s (who are not affiliated with Nintendo) illustrations of popular Yokai (Japanese mythological creatures). The rest are simply animals with very generic additions. “It’s a cow but bipedal” “It’s a kangaroo but with horns” “It’s a pigeon but… actually yeah it’s just a pigeon. No difference.”

How can you copyright/patent that? It’s hardly original.

I say this as someone who grew up loving Pokémon.

jeff@programming.dev on 20 Sep 2024 17:44 next collapse

It’s a patent case. It has nothing to do with the creative design of the games.

But yes. Every pokemon is copyrighted. Every pal is copyrighted. (In the US) All creative work is automatically copyrighted to the creator.

You can’t copyright “a standing lizard with a small flame on its tail” but you can copyright Charmander. If you copy enough elements that a lay person can’t distinguish the original and the copy then it opens it up for a copyright claim.

None of that is relevant in this case.

A patent is to protect a specific invention from being copied. In this case, there is an innovative game mechanic that Nintendo patented has that Palworld copied. The speculation is with throwing an item that captures a character that fights other characters in a 3d space.

The patent is dumb. Personally I don’t think it is innovative or special enough to be patented. Patenting software or game mechanic are dumb anyway.

phx@lemmy.ca on 20 Sep 2024 20:44 next collapse

And hopefully something that they’ll be able to find reams of prior art that precede the patent

jeff@programming.dev on 20 Sep 2024 23:28 next collapse

Once again. Patents have nothing to do with art. And even if they had proof they worked on those mechanics before Nintendo patented them doesn’t mean they have the right to use it. Yes, it’s kinda a dumb system. But there is a lot of effort to get a patent, and once you have one you have a lot of protection because of it.

Disregard. :) see comment below

Warl0k3@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 23:45 next collapse

(Not sure if I’m being whoosh’d, but just in case: “Prior art” is the legal term for a precedent that something was in use prior to being patented, and is the primary means of fighting software patent troll shit like nintendo is trying to pull here)

jeff@programming.dev on 20 Sep 2024 23:59 collapse

Nope, my bad. Im far from an expert but know enough to differential between copyright and parent. I didn’t know that prior art had that meaning.

phx@lemmy.ca on 23 Sep 2024 22:42 collapse

Roger, disregarding :-)

Egg_Egg@lemm.ee on 21 Sep 2024 00:19 collapse

Not sure how it works in Japan, but in many nations you have to file for a patent before or pretty soon after you release your product / service. In the US I think there’s a 1 year grace period. It’s a pretty common sense thing that stops whole businesses springing up and then being shut down by patent creation just like we are seeing here.

There are many games out there now that involve catching monsters and making them fight for you, Nintendo would be shutting down 100s, if not 1000s of developers if they wanted to go ahead with this and have it be taken seriously.

Anyone that has played Palworld will tell you that it much more resembles ARK than it does any Pokémon game or experience anyway.

MisterFrog@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 14:32 collapse

How long do patents last for anyway? Pokemon being caught in balls must be many, many decades old by this point.

jeff@programming.dev on 21 Sep 2024 14:39 collapse

20 years.

But it isn’t the original system. It’s the implementation done is Legends Arceus.

AdmiralRob@lemmy.zip on 20 Sep 2024 23:37 next collapse

It’s not for copyright infringement, it’s for patent infringement. Apparently when they made Legends Arceus, Nintendo patented the idea of pointing the camera at a monster and throwing stuff at it.

fishbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 21 Sep 2024 00:55 next collapse

That’d be pretty funny if that was the case, because Craftopia (Pocketpair’s first game, released before Legends Arceus was announced) also did the monster collection mechanic in the exact same way as Palworld.

Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 07:21 collapse

Wasn’t there a N64 Pokemon game (Pokemon Safari?) Where you take photos of pokemon?

I guess Nintendo quashed its own patent.

Mwa@lemm.ee on 21 Sep 2024 06:53 collapse

Oh yeah yokai I seen that in touhou

Cyberjin@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 17:25 next collapse

Hope Nintendo lose. I don’t understand why they are always the bad guy

FrostyTheDoo@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 21:19 collapse

The answer is money and eliminating competition for money

Mwa@lemm.ee on 20 Sep 2024 20:48 next collapse

They would prob do smth like this to tux kart

Jeanschyso@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 20:51 next collapse

They’re gonna fight it, but not for the fans. They’re doing it for themselves. They’re a company too.

omarfw@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 22:21 collapse

All the same, I’m glad someone is standing up to those litigious fuckwagons.

obbeel@lemmy.eco.br on 20 Sep 2024 21:58 next collapse

I stand by the indie studios. We have proof again and again that indies just want to reach their public.

mlg@lemmy.world on 20 Sep 2024 23:10 next collapse

I’d support anything to see NIntendo get kicked in the nuts for shutting down yuzu, which could have easily continued legally by removing like 2 paragraphs and probably a few lines of code.

Also Citra which was 100% legal.

EDIT:

I also wanna mention that current Pokemon gameplay sucks, and would also kill to see GameFreak’s billion dollar franchising burn. Maybe 15 20 years ago when hardware was “limited”, a low asset turn based RPG focused around pocket monsters was a fun game. Ain’t no way a PS1 graphics looking game with practically zero changes to the formula can be considered AAA title in 2024. And even then they’ve somehow made it into an A button press simulator by nuking the difficulty.

Being completely honest, the DS hardware was not that limited (had 2 generations on it with significant upgrades despite being the same console). BW2 was probably the golden era with very well done animated sprites, overworld, features, etc. The moment it hit the 3DS, it started showing its cracks with GF continuing to develop the game without expanding the team to meet development demand.

Palworld isn’t even the first challenger. TemTem gained some popularity purely for showing how much of an upgrade it was from Pokemon only a few years ago.

Creosm@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 07:02 next collapse

I agree bw/bw2 were the best games

Valmond@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 08:55 next collapse

3D was the bane of good gameplay IMO. Tech over fun. “It’s so realustic!” If I want realistic I’d go outside.

The DS (lite) screen was also so good compared to its ancestors.

Maybe it’s time to fire up some DS and GBA games again :-)

mint_tamas@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 09:18 collapse

No, they could’t just remove a few lines of code and text - if they could, they would have done exactly that. Yuzu was fucked because they sold early access to day one compat with new games. That’s clearly illegal and scummy, even if it’s big bad corporation on the losing end of it. If they hadn’t complied they likely would have lost any litigation and might also get into other legal troubles because of likely pre-release access to games. No judge would have taken any of it lightly.

OutrageousUmpire@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 00:08 next collapse

Rooting for Nintendo on this one. Palworld was dumb, you can’t just steal others’ IP without consequences. They could have made things just different enough… But they didn’t, they were dumb.

Pika@sh.itjust.works on 21 Sep 2024 00:31 next collapse

it’s not a copyright/dmca claim, they are claiming they are violating a patent of some kind, so it’s not visuals or names, I’m curious if it will be a ball object that captures them, cause like if so that’s so broad that it shouldn’t be able to be patented

TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works on 21 Sep 2024 00:46 next collapse

It’s weird to root for a multi billion dollar corporation, especially Nintendo, even if you think Palworld is in the wrong.

I can agree that IP theft can be dumb in some cases, and Palworld is cutting it pretty close there. Nintendo sues everyone, though, even for the pettiest of reasons, and this kind of behavior shouldn’t be encouraged.

Palworld isn’t actually putting a dent in Nintendo’s bottom line. Nintendo is just litigious against everybody, including their own fans, so of course they are going to sue a competitor.

HKayn@dormi.zone on 21 Sep 2024 08:12 next collapse

What exactly did Palworld steal? Surely you have sources for your claims

Killer@lemmy.world on 21 Sep 2024 09:31 collapse

Sure except they aren’t being sued for IP infringement. They’re getting sued for Patent infrigement.

Corno@lemm.ee on 21 Sep 2024 07:04 collapse

Patenting vague game mechanics is egregious. This would be like Insomniac patenting “character runs around with a big gun” and subsequently filing a lawsuit against Nintendo for Splatoon, because both Ratchet and the Inklings run around with big guns.