“Palworld” has sold millions, and that just makes me sad.
I was half tempted to not do this article since so much of the discourse has appeared online in such a short space of time already and a lot of it is devolving into childlike arguments and name calling. I suppose the benefit of my little website is having a space that most people aren’t going to read, but still lets me get my voice out there.
For those not in the know, Palworld is a game that was announced two or so years ago with the assumed premise of “It’s Pokémon with guns”. Myself like many others wrote it off as cheap knock off taff – even from the first trailer, it looked like a fake Chinese mobile game with genuinely ripped off designs. Fast forward to the past few days and the game has released on PC and Xbox Game Pass and is doing absolute numbers, unheard of for most games let alone games from small unheard of studios. Issues have come to light of the games Pals (the name for the monsters) range from similar to colour pallete swap copies. One or two might have been acceptable as coincidence, but the longer you look the more you see and the lazier you get.
People have gone online to voice their concerns, but have been drowned out by supporters of the game. There’s no real way of saying this without sounding like an elitist asshole, but it’s reached the wider gaming crowd, the consumers and the Gamers who don’t care an ounce for any circumstance regarding a game that is outside of the game. It could be made by literal Nazis, but if it’s fun they’ll drown out the criticism with their cries. It reminds me in no small way of controversies surrounding The Last of Us Part II and Hogwarts Legacy, both of which at the centre of Trans right dramas. Thankfully this time the issue isn’t so serious, but still morally bankrupt – the field of plagiarism and the two favourite toys of the plagiarist – NFT’s and AI.
Just so everyone is on the same page, here are some examples of copies from the game:
There’s so much going around in the way of bad faith arguments, including the ones where you get accused of being a bootlicker for defending the Pokémon Company. It’s undeniable that the quality of Pokémon games have gone down a little over the years due to shortened development time – as a huge Pokémon fan I can admit that. Its exclusivity also does not help when new kid on the block Pal World comes along on Xbox and PC (the former of which really needing a boost in the arm as of late), is apparently really fun (I have no intention to play) and is absolutely going to bring Pokémon to heel. An indie game, no matter how quickly it sells, is going to do anything to make Nintendo and the Pokémon Company to change. Change will come from the powers that be. It’s not the big N that the game is stealing from, it’s the artists that pour their creativity into the designs they make.
The other argument I’m seeing is “XYZ game also copied Pokémon, where’s the uproar about that?!” Sure the monster tamer genre isn’t unique by now but fan games or inspired games like Yokai Watch and Cassette Beasts take from different sources. Palworld is a generic open world crafting title that is using ‘Pals’ to provide a spin. If you really want to shoot at and enslave cute pokemon esque monsters, fill your boots. Personally I find the idea trite and in the same vein of “Pokemon should KILL EACH OTHER” and other posts about “Pokémon games for ADULTS”. I keep seeing an image comparing Dragon Quest monsters to Pokemon, which I really don’t get because if anything it shows how to take inspiration properly. Sure both Dragon Quest and Pokémon have crabs and bats, but why does Palworld have a rabbit designed like a football player, if not because it’s a copy of Pokemon’s football playing rabbit from the region based on England.
Even if I was willing to accept that I’m fighting a big companies battle against “Le small rebellious studio”, how quickly will attitudes change when it begins to pick up steam that Palworld developer’s next game is a Hollow Knight clone, extra emphasis on clone. The head of the studio has said they don’t really care for creativity or uniqueness, and are more than happy to dabble in AI. Team Cherry are just two people, how are they going to react to this? You reap what you sow, enjoy your new Silksong you ignorant bastards.
This is all just shouting into the void anyways, there’s more than a slim chance that this is just the latest fad in gaming and streaming and it will fade away into nothingness when the next game comes along and we repeat this whole cycle again. It’s hard being a fan of video games, sometimes. Not as games, but the whole medium. I’m tired boss.
