Nintendo shocked the video game industry this week when it announced a lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair for infringing on “multiple patent rights.” While Nintendo hasn’t revealed with patents it believes Pocketpair infringed upon — and Pocketpair has no idea either — one analyst thinks that Nintendo will probably win out in the end.
In an interview with 404 Media, Serkan Toto, the CEO of Japan game industry consulting company Kantan Games, said that the video game conglomerate has a history of suing other companies on patent grounds. While some cases may have been settled out of court, the point is that Nintendo succeeds in some form, whether by getting licensing fees or getting a game, app, or product taken down.
“I think they’re trying to damage them financially as much as they can,” Toto said, adding that he doesn’t believe “Nintendo will even think about filing a lawsuit like this without being as sure as they can that they’re going to win this.”
Before Palworld even entered early access in January 2024, many noted the similarities between it and Pokémon, calling it “Pokémon with guns” in conversation. When the open-world survival game came out, players found Pal (the game’s term for creatures) designs that looked, in some cases, nearly identical to certain Pokémon. However, beyond the idea of catching creatures in the wild, Palworld is more about survival, crafting, and putting your Pals to work building and maintaining your base than it is a Pokémon clone. Still, the question lingered if Nintendo would take legal action.
What patents are involved in the lawsuit hasn’t been confirmed, but many believe it involves one for catching a character in a field with a ball.
Toto believes that Nintendo saw how much money Palworld was possibly making because of its enormous success, and wanted to do something about it. However, it couldn’t get the developer with the creature designs.
“You can bet your life that Nintendo hates this company, and they couldn’t find an angle with the character designs. This is why they are not mentioned in their press release. So they come with these technical peculiarities,” Toto said.
Nintendo is likely suing to get the licensing fees from Pocketpair, and not to shut it down completely, but it could still potentially screw the smaller company over. Toto explains that it might be similar to when Nintendo sued Colopl, a mobile game developer, for copyright infringement based on some technical patents, like a confirmation screen to resume the game after sleep mode. The two parties settled out of court, with Colopl agreeing to pay a 3.3 million yen settlement, according to Siliconera, and paying licensing fees going forward.
“I don’t think that Nintendo will even think about filing a lawsuit like this without being as sure as they can that they’re going to win this,” Toto said.
Nintendo also has a reputation for handing out lawsuits, although over the past few years, it’s mostly been known for suing those who profit off emulation hardware and software. Earlier this year, Switch emulator creator Yuzu settled out of court to the tune of $2.4 million, and ended support “effective immediately.” Nintendo has also issued cease-and-desists to multiple fangames — at one point getting around 379 games removed from Game Jolt in 2021.
