this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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[–] franklin@lemmy.world 313 points 1 month ago (8 children)

It's still identifiably distinct, I really hope Nintendo lose because allowing copyright of a concecpt is dystopian especially in the context of our lengthy time frames for copyright.

It reminds me of when Apple wanted to patent the idea of rounded corners.

[–] simple@lemm.ee 178 points 1 month ago (9 children)

It's not even copyright, they're suing for using things they patented, but their patents are extremely general. I kid you not, they have a patent for MOUNTING CREATURES, something hundreds of games have done.

Abstract: In an example of a game program, a ground boarding target object or an air boarding target objects is selected by a selection operation, and a player character is caused to board the selected boarding target object. If the player character aboard the air boarding target object moves toward the ground player character automatically changed to the state where the player character is aboard the ground boarding target object, and brought into the state where the player character can move on the ground.

I'm no lawyer so I can't tell you how well this would hold up in court but it's ridiculous. See more: https://patents.justia.com/assignee/the-pokemon-company

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 98 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

I am positive prior art could be claimed for most if not all of those. Square Enix could cry afoul of the "mounting creatures" one as well as I'm sure many, many other earlier games on a plethora of platforms.

You could mount and ride Chocobos in Final Fantasy 2, i.e. the real "2," the JDM only one on Famicom, which was released in 1988. The aforementioned patent was only filed on Nintendo's part in 2024.

They can, to use a technical legal term, get fucked.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 53 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes but it’s fucking expensive to invalidate a patent. Possibly in the millions of dollars. That’s how patent trolls succeed - it’s far cheaper to own a bad patent than to fight one.

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well it's a good thing Palworld was a huge sales success.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 month ago

And now more free advertising from the streisand effect

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[–] yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 37 points 1 month ago (6 children)

It's a little more specific, I think the patent is about:

  • mounting either an air or ground mount
  • when riding the air mount, going close to the ground transforms it into the ground mount and you keep riding it

But that's still something multiple games have done in some way I think.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They better sue Microsoft over WoW, then, their IP did that in 2007.

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 42 points 1 month ago (2 children)

They are being sued for patent infringement not copyright violations, which is extra weird.

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[–] rocci@lemmy.ml 185 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I've never been interested in Palworld, and I certainly don't intend to play it, but I'll probably buy it today.

Because fuck Nintendo.

[–] NineMileTower@lemmy.world 80 points 1 month ago (5 children)

It's clunky and the novelty wears off quickly, but it was worth a play.

[–] callouscomic@lemm.ee 23 points 1 month ago (8 children)

It's clunky and the novelty wears off quickly

Referring to all Nintendo games.

[–] leekleak@lemmy.world 75 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Dunno man, it is possible to accept they make good games while still condemning their corporate bs...

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Yeah, games like Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion, etc. are fun as hell and very polished. I can't think of a single first-party Nintendo game that's released riddled with bugs in recent memory, whereas the rest of the industry can't say the same, excepting Sony's first-party games.

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[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 37 points 1 month ago

Same wasn't even thinking about this game. But now I got to have it. Fuck Nintendo. Never buying a new game from them every again. They should be sued into bankruptcy.

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[–] Buttons@programming.dev 177 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (51 children)

Patents and video games huh? We can't ignore what John Carmack had to say about this:

The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.

--John Carmack

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[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 98 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Eat shit, Nintendo. I hope you lose and experience the Streisand effect.

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[–] ozoned@lemmy.world 89 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Welp, I had no plans of buying Palworld. I've been playing Enshrouded instead. But I'll be picking it up now. Screw you Nintendo and your anticompetitive ways.

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[–] noxy@yiffit.net 66 points 1 month ago

Please hurt them.

Nintendo is straight up evil.

[–] PenisDuckCuck9001@lemmynsfw.com 59 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Fuck Nintendo. I think Palworld is a stupid game that I wouldn't ever bother to play but Nintendo is pure evil and they NEED to lose. They do not deserve a monopoly on whatever type of genre that is.

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 55 points 1 month ago (10 children)

"Multiple patents"

Specifies none

Off to a great start, I see. I know that actual game mechanics cannot be patented or copyrighted (the same principle applies to non digital games), so I'm really curious to what these patents are.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Someone linked a list of all the patents Pokemon Company specifically holds and the very first one was "creature breeding based on good sleep habits."

  1. How does that even get a patent?
  2. What the fuck iteration of Pokemon requires you to have good sleep habits to breed your pokemon? 🤨
  3. Does it actually help you sleep? 🤔 I might need to start breeding pokemon...
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[–] blazera@lemmy.world 51 points 1 month ago (26 children)

Copyright only exists for the wealthy to own even more.

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is a patent lawsuit, not copyright

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago (3 children)

even worse. software patents are just more idiotic copyrights.

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[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (21 children)

No, Copyright exists to protect creators. It's just been perverted and abused by the wealthy so that they can indefinitely retain IP. Disney holding on to an IP for 70 years after an author dies is messed up, but Disney taking your art and selling it to a mass audience without giving you a dime is worse.

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[–] Summzashi@lemmy.one 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This isn't about copyright. Is there anybody here that has actually read the article? It's absolutely insane how everyone just opens their mouths without understanding anything.

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[–] Harvey656@lemmy.world 46 points 1 month ago

Pocketpair is a Japanese company too right? That doesn't bode well, Japan has some shit laws for defending these sorts of lawsuits. I really like palworld, and don't want it to go away. Fuck Nintendo.

[–] Prethoryn@lemmy.world 41 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Seeing a lot of comments on here and it just reminds me of what I have been telling my friends since day one.

  1. PalWorld is a threat to Pokemon. It has potential to crown Pokemon in a different way and really compete. Nintendo will 100% find a way. I told them and told them. I said the same thing on Reddit. Sure enough, downvoted.

  2. I love Pokemon, I love Zelda, and Mario but I absolutely love competition. There is no way a billion dollar franchise, multi level marketing, insanept popular game series is going to let something come along and compete against it. If you haven't watched The Boys on Amazon you are missing out. One of the most redeeming characters, IMO, says it best in two sentences in the boys in one whole episode and it is the premise of everything. "You don't get it do you? You don't mess with the money.

  3. I love seeing games come along and bring something new to the table because it should drive Nintendo to do better for GameFreak to do better. I liked PalWorld and welcomed it as someone who loves Pokemon. While PalWorld didn't maintain my interest its because Pokemon just does something for me PalWorld doesn't. However, that being said I have found my self turned away from Pokemon since Gen 7 and 8 semi redeemed 7 and 9 is just sad (performance wise). I have found my self playing the hell out of tjr classic Pokémon games. Point being I welcomed PalWorld in hopes that it would light a fire under Nintendo's ass to develop a really good next gen Pokemon game. It was wishful thinking though. Nintendo is a "don't mess with the money" company and that is all it is. Fuck Nintendo. PalWorld was good for the game industry. What Nintendo is going to try to set precedence on is that you can own an idea a simple concept.

I have been telling my friends for literal fucking years and for some reason they just swing the bat for Nintendo. Nintendo makes some great games but holy fuck they are a shit company. They just are. I told them over and over this was coming Nintendo would find something and now here we are.

I sent this too them and they all got silent. They genuinely believed Nintendo couldn't and wouldn't.

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[–] Rob200@lemmy.autism.place 41 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You know Nintendo is just weird.

They file a patent lawsuit against an indie game, just because someone finally got popular. But why don't thay sue digimon or blue dragon, and while their at it, howtotrain a dragon while their at it.

This whole thing is just weird.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The really odd but is being unaware of which patents they're allegedly infringing on

That should be part of the filing shouldn't it?

Also are they going to sue Square Enix for Dragon Quest Monsters while they're at it?

[–] KellysNokia@lemmy.world 38 points 1 month ago

"I'm suing you!"

"What for?"

"It's a surprise 🎉🥳🎊"

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[–] mlg@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I'd support anything to see NIntendo get kicked in the nuts for shutting down yuzu, which could have easily continued legally by removing like 2 paragraphs and probably a few lines of code.

Also Citra which was 100% legal.

EDIT:

I also wanna mention that current Pokemon gameplay sucks, and would also kill to see GameFreak's billion dollar franchising burn. Maybe ~~15~~ 20 years ago when hardware was "limited", a low asset turn based RPG focused around pocket monsters was a fun game. Ain't no way a PS1 graphics looking game with practically zero changes to the formula can be considered AAA title in 2024. And even then they've somehow made it into an A button press simulator by nuking the difficulty.

Being completely honest, the DS hardware was not that limited (had 2 generations on it with significant upgrades despite being the same console). BW2 was probably the golden era with very well done animated sprites, overworld, features, etc. The moment it hit the 3DS, it started showing its cracks with GF continuing to develop the game without expanding the team to meet development demand.

Palworld isn't even the first challenger. TemTem gained some popularity purely for showing how much of an upgrade it was from Pokemon only a few years ago.

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 32 points 1 month ago

Good. Kick Nintendo in the dick.

[–] Jeanschyso@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They're gonna fight it, but not for the fans. They're doing it for themselves. They're a company too.

[–] omarfw@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago

All the same, I'm glad someone is standing up to those litigious fuckwagons.

[–] Egg_Egg@lemm.ee 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

Half of Pokémon are heavily inspired by artist's (who are not affiliated with Nintendo) illustrations of popular Yokai (Japanese mythological creatures). The rest are simply animals with very generic additions. "It's a cow but bipedal" "It's a kangaroo but with horns" "It's a pigeon but... actually yeah it's just a pigeon. No difference."

How can you copyright/patent that? It's hardly original.

I say this as someone who grew up loving Pokémon.

[–] jeff@programming.dev 23 points 1 month ago (8 children)

It's a patent case. It has nothing to do with the creative design of the games.

But yes. Every pokemon is copyrighted. Every pal is copyrighted. (In the US) All creative work is automatically copyrighted to the creator.

You can't copyright "a standing lizard with a small flame on its tail" but you can copyright Charmander. If you copy enough elements that a lay person can't distinguish the original and the copy then it opens it up for a copyright claim.

None of that is relevant in this case.

A patent is to protect a specific invention from being copied. In this case, there is an innovative game mechanic that Nintendo patented has that Palworld copied. The speculation is with throwing an item that captures a character that fights other characters in a 3d space.

The patent is dumb. Personally I don't think it is innovative or special enough to be patented. Patenting software or game mechanic are dumb anyway.

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[–] Corno@lemm.ee 24 points 1 month ago

Patenting vague game mechanics is egregious. This would be like Insomniac patenting "character runs around with a big gun" and subsequently filing a lawsuit against Nintendo for Splatoon, because both Ratchet and the Inklings run around with big guns.

[–] demizerone@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't play this game, but would love to donate to help the fight. Nintendo is out of control with their bullshit.

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[–] obbeel@lemmy.eco.br 21 points 1 month ago

I stand by the indie studios. We have proof again and again that indies just want to reach their public.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 20 points 1 month ago

Kick his ass Pocketpair

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