As the multiplayer game Palworld, a monster-collecting title with an element of survival and firearms continues to achieve remarkable sales figures and surpass its own record for concurrent players, certain Pokémon enthusiasts on social media have expressed their concerns about the game’s perceived similarities to the Pokémon franchise.
Palworld, which entered early access on January 19th and has already sold over 2 million copies, now faces accusations that its resemblance to Pokémon is too substantial to be dismissed as coincidental.
The argument that "there's so many Pokemon you can't design monsters without accidentally copying at least one" could be a valid point, but in this case it's incredibly blatant what they're doing.
I haven't seen a single "pal" I can't tell exactly what Pokemon they took from.
— LuxxArt✨💫 (@LuxxArt) January 19, 2024
On platforms like X/Twitter, discontented users have taken to expressing their discontent, urging others not to support Palworld. One user commented, “Reminder not to support Palworld. It’s not even subtle about its rip-offs; how much else has it stolen?”
Another user created a thread for Palworld design analysis, sharing images that highlight the striking similarities between some of Palworld’s characters and those from the Pokémon universe. The argument is made that while it’s reasonable to assume that designing monsters might inadvertently resemble existing Pokémon due to the vast number of Pokémon designs, the similarities in Palworld appear too conspicuous.
Artist LuxxArt expressed a similar sentiment, stating, “The argument that ‘there’s so many Pokemon you can’t design monsters without accidentally copying at least one’ could be a valid point, but in this case, it’s incredibly blatant what they’re doing. I haven’t seen a single ‘pal’ I can’t tell exactly what Pokemon they took from.”
here's the CEO of Pocketpair talking about using AI to bypass copyright, generating fakemons with it, calling AI: Art Imposter a real-time image generation game, and being excited for games powered by GPT-4 pic.twitter.com/79xwZr0yEI
— Zaytri 🍉 #StrikeForPalestine (@imZaytri) January 19, 2024
LuxxArt also suggested that Palworld’s approach might be more about drawing attention through controversy rather than attempting to deceive players into believing Pals are Pokémon. The notion of laziness is introduced, questioning the motivation behind borrowing designs from successful intellectual property instead of creating original ones.
Additionally, a tweet from Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe surfaced, where he discussed the use of AI to manipulate copyrighted images, potentially to avoid copyright issues. Another tweet showed Mizobe using images of original Pokémon to demonstrate how AI could generate equivalent characters.
As of now, neither developer Pocketpair nor The Pokémon Company has publicly commented on the alleged similarities. Despite the controversy, Palworld holds the tenth position on Steam’s “most played games” chart, boasting 855,706 concurrent players on Steam alone, surpassing well-known titles like Apex Legends, Among Us, and Valheim.
The developers recently announced an emergency meeting with Epic Games to address the surge in players, exceeding 700,000 concurrent users. For those interested in firsthand experience, a comprehensive early access review is available for viewing.
