A former Capcom designer has commented on the ongoing patent infringement lawsuit, stating that Palworld has “crossed a line.”
For those unfamiliar, Palworld and Pocketpair are facing a patent infringement lawsuit from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. Several developments have taken place in this case over the past year, including the acquisition and modification of patents. Now, a former Capcom designer has provided their views on this lawsuit.
Former Capcom Designer Asks Players Not to Buy Palworld
The ex-Capcom designer in question is Yoshiki Okamoto, who spoke about the Nintendo v Palworld lawsuit in their latest YouTube video, which IGN translated. One of the first comments Okamoto stated was that the game “crossed a line that should not be crossed,” and he doesn’t wish for the world to accept “this kind of thing.”
Okamoto added that Palworld will be “officially fine to play” if they settle with Nintendo. However, it is unacceptable currently as it is being sued. He requested the players, “Please don’t buy it,” as you will be supporting the game by playing it.
Later on, Okamoto went on to speak about Palworld’s developer, Pocketpair, calling it “anti-xxxx”. The kanji character was blurred out in the audio and subtitle; however, it ended up sparking backlash in the comment section. A lot of people in the comments section think that the term could be “hansha” or “anti-social force”.
The ex-Capcom Designer Has Never Played the Game and Has No Intention of Playing It
The former Capcom designer also confirmed that, although many people have recommended Palworld to him, he has never played the game and has “no intention of playing the game or spending money on it.” Okamoto also spoke about how Pocketpair winning this lawsuit could be detrimental to the industry, as copyright infringement could become more acceptable for games with good reviews.
Okamotor also spoke about his prediction that Pocketpair might have figured out a way to settle with Nintendo, as they have announced their version 1.0 release. However, he has no official confirmation about this information. Okamoto has worked on games such as Street Fighter 2 and the original Resident Evil game.
In other news, Palworld has recently announced crossovers with Ultrakill and Once Human. What are your thoughts on the former Capcom designer’s views on the Palword v Nintendo lawsuit? Let us know through the official Insider Gaming forums discussion.
For more information from Insider Gaming, read about Xbox raising Game Pass Ultimate Price by 60% and changing tier features. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Lol ridiculous… I am going to go and buy a few more copies of Palworld… just to support PocketPair… Nintendo is opening doors here that will destroy innovation in the gaming industry, will not support there petty lawsuit. PocketPair just made a better game than Nintendo has in the last many iterations of Pokemon.
I fully support pocketpair, ive played various Pokémon games, and the new one coming out looks so bad. No open world anymore? Stuck in a city? Nah
As a supporter of Pocketpair, imma buy copies for all my friends
“…Has Never Played the Game and Has No Intention of Playing It”
and we should listen to them because?…
Companies like Nintendo are the reason we can’t get the Nemesis system from Shadow of War. I wish Pocketpair all the best in these BS lawsuits..
I was indifferent to the issue until Nintendo started to obtain patents after the lawsuit was filed that are directly targeting Palworld. Trying to own whole mechanics for games is ridiculous, especially since there are already multiple games by different developers with those mechanics. Nintendo needs to lose this.
Jokes on him, software engineer, I have bought 6 copies so far. Nintendo can suck it. Lead through competition, not litigation. If your product sucks, a startup will win. Simple as that. Adapt or die.
SO MANY people are ignoring the fact that Palworld has plagiarised designs from Pokemon. They literally took Pokemon models and edited them slightly.
That’s wrong.
The gameplay might innovate on the Pokemon formula but the way they’ve done it is wrong, they deserve the litigation.
Palworld is a crap and ugly game, but nintendo must be stopped. Capcom not so great also. No one has rights to copyright gameplay mechanics.
They literally ripped off pokeballs. That was the most obvious infringement that can’t even be debated.
And it’s a shitty Ark-like with pokemon mechanics shoehorned in. Made by a developer with a history of abandoning games in early access.
If this is what you call innovation I don’t want to see what you call derivative.
Wonder how much Nintendo paid him to say this. Its obvious he has zero clue what he’s talking about, since 1: he refuses to play it at all, and 2: he says its bad for the industry when in reality, its quite the opposite and Nintendo are the only ones here threatening things.
“Crossed a line,” stfu, Pocketpair didn’t cross any line. Nintendo drew a line behind Palword and then claimed the game crossed the line. But what else should we expect? Capcom is a Japanese company, they probably have the exact same ideas for copyright that Nintendo does
Obtaining patents for things already being used by multiple other games shouldn’t be allowed in the first place, let alone suing over a patent you obtained *after* it was already picked up by someone else. Not to mention parenting entire mechanics is only detrimental to future game development, and the whole reason why we’ve never had a good sanity system outside of eternal darkness, or a nemesis system.
Good development thrives on competition, as without it there is no reason to get better, that’s why we end up with the dross that Pokémon is currently throwing at us, because they believe they don’t have competition and they’re the only ones to get a good monster capturing game from.
Nintendo crossed a line by filing targeted patents after starting their lawsuit. They are setting a terrible precedent and further proves big companies can easily get away with patent trolling to stamp out competition from smaller studios.
The fact they managed to land their most recent US patent on controlling NPCs in combat thanks to incredibly vague wording is a testament to their scummy behavior.
So a 64 year old man who was a producer on more thing’s in the game industry than as a designer; is to old to understand or look into the difference between copyright and patent infringement. It is a relief that such an opinion isn’t held by someone with any current ability in the industry.
Imagine saying all this when one of your own flagship series, Megaman, has pretty much has the same premise as Astro Boy. But PalWorld crosses the line.
I guess he’s still salty that they lost their own lawsuit in the 90s trying to patent fighting game mechanics when another company did it.
“What Nintendo is doing is fine.”
-Someone who doesn’t have to worry about losing their livelihood to anti-competitive litigation
Excuse me? You mean the parents they filed for AFTER Palworld became successful? This is the biggest abuse of parent law to attack and shut down a legitimate competitor in years.
I don’t care what he thinks, he stands behind a bunch of bullies who didn’t even have patents for these mechanics until after Palworld was made.
You mean the patents they didn’t file until after Palworld became popular? Total abuse of the law, not surprised Capcom is shady too.
What i think is hilarious is Nintendo didn’t get a patent until AFTER the game was already in beta. Palworld was gaining huge momentum and Nintendo claimed it to be their idea well after the first update of palworld.
@Lauren No one “forgot” Palworld “literally took models and just edited them,” it was disproven and the person of Twitter who created and circulated the model “comparisons” literally admitted to editing and faking them ages ago.
I love Pokemon, but Nintendo doesn’t own concepts like “dog but elemental” or “magic lady in dress.” Not that it’s going to stop them from trying.
Pokemon is one of the highest grossing media franchises in the world. The $103.6 billion dollar brand does not need you to defend it. It’s perfectly capable of harrassing small indie studios and fan projects all on its own.
Let them try hehehe trying to say they can’t do collaboration with anything since pokemon is so butt hurt only money they make is the cards now capcon only dose fighting games so that designer needs to be quiet
For those tallking Copyright infringement, it’s telling that Nintendo hasn’t even gone after them for Copyright, only Patent on mechanics. Pocket Pair has not infringed on their Copyright enough for Nintendo to have any grounds to hit them for that, otherwise they would have.
And a shitty Ark-like? Palworld plays a million times better than the bullcrap that is Ark. Ark is so confusing and overwhelming to try to learn, with systems upon systems that aren’t well explained and an overly-hostile world that gives a new player very little room to experiment and learn. Some may claim that’s a hardcore appeal but I just think it’s bad design. It’s not the challenge I have an issue with, it’s how unfun it is.
Pokemon has been languishing and getting fat and lazy. They deserve to lose this lawsuit.
No what’s funny is how Nintendo talks about their game being copied, they copied from Dragon quest to make their game pokemon and quest has been around way before pokemon was, so Nintendo can suck it, Ill keep playing palworld
@Lauren There was a game on the SNES called Robotrek made by Enix in 1994 were the player could summon his own custom monsters from balls. Red and white balls the inverse of the pokeball.
Those balls are based on gatchapon balls, made over 50 years ago and popularized by Ultraman, who had monsters or the week appear in those balls. Every child in the USA should know of them, they could be brought in grocery store vending machines by the entrance which would contain candy, or toys inside, often monsters.
But you think Pokemon invented those. Are you kidding me.
Palworld is definitely infringing in my book.
However, how Nintendo is addressing this infringement dangers the entire industry and all small developers.
Patenting the idea of summoning in RPGs is unacceptable. Patenting the idea that you catch an animal by throwing anything, not just a ball, ANYTHING, is cronyism.
Nintendo can go kick rocks.
I would have defended them before, but how they chose to address it. No. Palworld does what Nintendon’t.
This guy doesn’t even know what is going on do your research dude before coming on here and telling us to not support Palworld.
GO PALWORLD HOPE THEY WIN THIS LAW SUIT BUYING THEIR NEXT GAME TOO