What The Hell Is Going On With PALWORLD?

[Music] first unveiled back in 2021 immediately upon its announcement pal world was dubbed Pokemon with Guns by the online community and it was easy to see why it was very much intended on developer pocket pair's part the open world survival titles world is filled with monsters whose designs are instantly and abundantly reminiscent of the monster design style that the Pokemon franchise is associated with and the fact that you could catch and battle with these monsters known as Pals in pal world only added to the list of similarities the Pokemon with guns elevator pitch even though it's an unofficial one has clearly worked pal World launched in Early Access just a few days ago and the success it has enjoyed right out of the gate has been startling to see the game sold over a million units within its first 8 hours alone and it's knocked down multiple sales miles Stone since then at alarming rates at last count pocket pair had announced that the game had sold over 7 million units within just 5 days while on Steam it also had a hit concurrent player count peak of over 1.86 million players which is the second highest ever in Steam history above the likes of Hogwarts Legacy Elden ring and many many other games it's hit one Milestone after another at such a rapid Pace that by the time this feature goes live those numbers mentioned above may already be outdated to give you an idea of how well pal world is selling it's outpacing and outselling the sales of some of the biggest names in the gaming industry it will soon have overtaken Final Fantasy 7 remake and it's selling faster than even the likes of Marvel Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok which are the two fastest selling games in PlayStation Studios history and those are just a few examples out of many that we could talk about for hours sure as a $30 Early Access game there is a caveat attached to those comparisons but it does paint an interesting picture nonetheless not least because the game has sold as well as it has in spite of also being available on Game Pass pal world's outward similarities to Pokémon have clearly helped its sales in significant fashion but there's no doubt that the quality of the game itself has massively helped things as well even in its Early Access form it's an addictive game with a strong core Loop and whether you're exploring the world and catching or battling Pals battling bosses or building bases with your friends it's hard not to be enjoying yourself and yet all of the success that the game has enjoyed has come with a few caveats most prominent among them being the very clear similarities it has to Pokémon similarities that are clear enough for the game to even have drawn vociferous allegations of plagiarism and theft as a gameplay experience po world and Pokemon are quite different and anyone who's played both will tell you as much rather than Pokemon with guns po world is more Arc survival evolved with Pokemon with the emphasis very much being on the survival side of things on Gathering resources and building bases on co-oping with your friends but the titular pal are undeniably a central part of the experience and many have pointed out just how close their designs are to Pokémon designs close enough that even their legality is being questioned for instance over on Twitter user biofog has pointed out several similarities between even the meshes for designs in po world and those in Pokemon scarlet and violet suggesting that pocket pair took assets from Pokemon and ran them through an AI generator to develop different variations of plagiarized work it doesn't help that pocket pair also has a history of using AI generative tools and has been accused of plagiarism with its past games as well craftopia for instance copies The Legend of Zelda breath of the Wild's opening almost shot forsh shot the company CEO takuro mizobe himself has spoken in the past about using AI to bypass copyright laws given the nature of this discussion though nuan is obviously required for starters though pocket pair's pass stance on AI can certainly raise suspicions so far there's been little to no concrete evidence that generative AI tools were indeed used for pal World it also goes without saying that if po world's monster designs are simply inspired from Pokémon but not outright stolen that's not copyright violation there's no shortage of Pokémon imitators that pop up pretty much every week call it parody call it inspiration Call It Whatever you will but simply making monsters that are distinctly Pokémon like may not be classified as plagiarism in and of itself of course if it emerges that pocket pair did steal Pokemon scarlet and violet assets that would be a completely different story in that scenario there'd be little doubt in anyone's mind that were looking at outright theft and plagiarism and the Pokemon company and Nintendo would have solid grounds to pursue legal action right now however when the majority of the evidence on hand is circumstantial at best it wouldn't exactly be fair to concretely say that pocket pair has ripped Pokémon assets and passed them off as its own work is it suspicious evidently so is it worth keeping an eye on most definitely but is it plagiarism maybe we don't know for sure yet pal world is of course out now and i' bet you everything I own that the Pokemon company and Nintendo are digging into the game files to try and figure out if there's any plagiarism in play and if there is how flagrant it is in the 3 years in the leadup to its launch the buzz that PO World generated especially with its unofficial Pokemon with guns moniker there's no doubt that the legal teams working with the Pokemon IP would have flagged the game and now that it's actually out there's nothing stopping them from doing their own research and digging to see how much of a case they have the Pokemon company is of course no stranger to dealing with imitators and ripoffs so the whole pal World situation isn't going to throw any new challenges its way that it hasn't seen before hundreds of times in fact speaking with game file Steven totillo about poor Don McGowan who was the head of the Pokemon company's legal team for about a dozen years recently said this looks like the usual ripoff nonsense that I would see a thousand times a year when I was Chief legal officer of Pokemon I'm just surprised it got this far clearly this is a situation that's going to continue developing in the weeks and months ahead and watching it unfold in the immediate aftermath of power world's launch has been fascinating to say the very least whether it's the game startling success we're talking about or all of the discussions surrounding whether or not it's plagiarized Pokémon or if it has somehow managed to tow the line in a manner that doesn't violate legality the question now is at whatever point in the future after it becomes clear just what exactly has gone on with power world's monster designs under the hood when we look back at the game will we look back at it and be impressed with what it's accomplished or with a sour taste in our mouth Ms that much remains to be seen hey did you know that we at gaming bolt upload new videos every day stick around drop a like subscribe and hit that Bell and let us know what kind of content you'd like to see in the future with a comment below

Channel: GamingBolt

Views: 31,403

Keywords: palworld, pokemon, what is going on with palworld, palworld pokemon, gamingbolt, palworld controversy

Id: 1XKU_wVtl04

Length: 8min 2sec (482 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 25 2024