I’m not defending Nintendo, because they are a shithouse of a company, but I do feel Pocketpair could have avoided all these wasted legal fees by not just blatantly copying a bunch of very recognisable Pokemon, and at best recolouring them, or giving them another Pokemon’s ears.
It does feel a little like going after Al Capone on tax evasion, but here we are.
There’s other games that do the sued for things, and they didn’t get sued. Tem Tem, etc. World of Warcraft’s pet system was very Pokemon-like.
Palworld isn’t even like Pokemon games. It’s Ark Survival Evolved with a Fortnite look and Pokemon instead of dinosaurs, as far as I can tell.
Blatantly swiping the art style and several Pokemon designs, and plastering it all over their marketing clearly pissed somebody at Nintendo off. They decided to sic the lawyers on them for something, even if it wasn’t what they were angry about.
That yellow Gengar with a machine gun on all their advertising for starters.
It’s like when you go to Aldi and see their knock-off products. Although Tunnock’s don’t have a copyright on stripes, diamond shapes, red, gold, chocolate, wafers, or caramel, there’s no accident that their own brand can be mistaken for the real thing if you’re not paying attention.
And sure, it may well hold up in court, but it’s still going to be expensive finding that out.
I’m not defending Nintendo, because they are a shithouse of a company, but I do feel Pocketpair could have avoided all these wasted legal fees by not just blatantly copying a bunch of very recognisable Pokemon, and at best recolouring them, or giving them another Pokemon’s ears.
That’s not why they were sued tho
It does feel a little like going after Al Capone on tax evasion, but here we are.
There’s other games that do the sued for things, and they didn’t get sued. Tem Tem, etc. World of Warcraft’s pet system was very Pokemon-like.
Palworld isn’t even like Pokemon games. It’s Ark Survival Evolved with a Fortnite look and Pokemon instead of dinosaurs, as far as I can tell.
Blatantly swiping the art style and several Pokemon designs, and plastering it all over their marketing clearly pissed somebody at Nintendo off. They decided to sic the lawyers on them for something, even if it wasn’t what they were angry about.
Which pals used Pokemon trademarked material?
That yellow Gengar with a machine gun on all their advertising for starters.
It’s like when you go to Aldi and see their knock-off products. Although Tunnock’s don’t have a copyright on stripes, diamond shapes, red, gold, chocolate, wafers, or caramel, there’s no accident that their own brand can be mistaken for the real thing if you’re not paying attention.
And sure, it may well hold up in court, but it’s still going to be expensive finding that out.