I believe the Pokémon Company put out a statement on their Japanese site that said they were going to investigate if their assets were used in the creation of Palworld.

It's especially frustrating when you look at smaller games such as Moonstone Island and Cassette Beasts which feature 100% original designs. The latter even has an artillerex

I genuinely think a generative algorithm would have resulted in more original monster designs. The only way get get designs like this is to just take a bunch of pokemon and change one or two elements. The developers aren't trying to hide what they are - in Japanese interviews, the company head stated plainly that they have no artistic vision, just make twists on games that are already popular, and only care about how many people play their games. Their past roster is a straight board game rip with some AI elements, a breath of the wild ripoff that even copied stuff like UI elements and musical riffs, Palworld, and next up a Hollow Knight clone with a different art style. EDIT: aaaaaand you made the exact same point. Props for due diligence I guess, that's what I get for commenting halfway through

PalWorld lead artist used to be a Fakemon creator who was hired for the job. This explains, at least a bit, why Pal Monsters look so much like Pokémon.

It's annoyingly fitting that I got a Palworld ad at the start of this video.

Personally except for the artstyle I think Palworld is better compared to games such as Ark: Survival Evolved. (Where you also tame creatures- mostly realistic looking dinos- to do work for you and battle) and does not scratch the same itches as it were.

This is the most level headed take on the matter that I’ve heard so far, and most in line with my own thoughts. It’s disappointing most of the discussion has been irrational and dismissive, ripe with trolling and harassment.

You are the first youtuber ive heard bring up SMT when talking about a monster collectors. With that being in my top 5 favorite franchises im happy to hear it being brought up.

It’s just sad to think the Palworld team didn’t expend a little more effort to create unique designs, and still have a creature collecting experience. To closely mimic the design language of an already existing roster of classic characters, shows a lack of confidence to innovate

Thank you so much for covering this. As an artist and diehard childhood Pokémon fan it had been bugging me over the past few days how Palworld’s designs are so similar to Pokémon’s and the company that made Palworld pass it off as original. U have my deepest gratitudes🙏

Just here to say that legally, you can't steal an art style because art style isn't something that can be copyrighted. There's absolutely nothing wrong with designing something that was inspired artistically from another thing

If you're using someone's IP like one of those Avatar creators, mixing and matching parts, it seems like you shouldn't be rewarded for it. Luckily for Palworld they hit the right combination of culture wars and desperate gamers to have a built in defense to keep them from seeing any real damage and likely encouraging them and other people to want to continue on this path. I live with someone who's never played pokemon a day in his life but he got caught up in playing and defending it when someone said Vegans hated it therefore more people should play it to anger vegans. Like there's these two extreme sides lobbing wild accusations like trebuchet ammo and in the middle there's a CEO who's perfectly willing to set art on fire if he can make a dollar not getting hit by any of it.

Didnt Byo come out and say he made that post up and his claim was false.

As a fan of monster taming games like smt and digimon, I'm really happy you made this video. It is great with well thought arguments

What is the title of the music used around 15:00? It's not one of the titles used in the description.

So the tweet of the ai pokemon thing, i honestly thought he was taking the piss cause ive been out of the loop with pokemon for years and i really didnt see the ai generated pokemon as matching the actual pokemon design. If anything they look more similar to pokemon ripoff or wannabe monsters games youd see in an app store or bootleg.

Thank you for summarizing all this! My brain's been fried so I haven't been able to understand stuff lately (like even basic sentences are a struggle for me rn??? It's really annoying). I think it's a fun concept, but I feel like a different art style would have worked wonders for the Pals (something slightly less cartoony, perhaps? Idk I think more monstrous designs could have been cool). Great video, Don't Bless Sell Rubidia!

Whoa, I've never been this early! Thanks for the upload Duchess, something great to kick off my day.

In a way, Palworld is the perfect encapsulation of making something for a starving market. PALworlds art style was designed to be a carbon copy of pokemon in order to fill a gap in the market. Palworld is a ripoff, of many things, but it did something Gamefreak and Nintendo didn’t. I’m an artist too, and one that copies styles for a living, so I get what Palworld was going for. In this instance it did pay off but in my opinion it isn’t a trick others can pull off twice. It feels to me like a one and done, because now anyone else who does this will be labeled a lazier cash grab and “at least Palworld was fun”

I think the way I would describe my feelings about Palworld are "it does have the right to exist, but that doesn't make it immune to criticism about its concept".* Heavily derivative works happen all the time, such as the influx of supernatural romance books after the success of Twilight for example. All of those books, legally, having the right to exist and make money from themselves, but you can tell exactly what inspired them and what trend they were chasing. It is also true that these books were/are often seen as cheap money grabs, but that doesn't mean people can't enjoy them and be further inspired. With Palworld, I do not imagine The Pokemon Company has any legal ground to sue Pocketpair or what have you, but I do think that Palworld is intentionally derivative of Pokemon---and, to be clear, I don't mean just because they're the same genre (creature collecting). I think that Palworld is specifically derivative because of the contrast it causes with the fact that there's guns as main weapons, you can butcher pals for their meat, and you can put them to work on (basically) a factory line. Basically, I'm arguing that Palworld uses designs strongly inspired by Pokemon primarily for shock value. You can see exactly where they got their ideas from, though people can still enjoy it. As for my opinion, it's basically what I said before: I think that Palworld should be "allowed" to exist, but I find it to be just kinda...there? I, again, feel this "childhood ruined" sort of shock value from and it doesn't grab me--I feel that there's many ways to do that sort of thing better than Palworld did as well. Frankly though, I have been discouraged from interacting with it because it just seems like a topic that somebody will criticize your stance on, no matter what your stance is, so I've just decided to avoid it mostly. *Also, this doesn't mean The Pokemon Company or franchise is immune to criticism either Edit: clarity/grammar

I've been struggling with my feelings on this one for a while because of how densely packed it is. When I first heard of the game a few months ago and saw the trailer, I legit thought it was a scam, a fake game trailer to trick people into supporting its development. When the game did come put and it was getting traction, I was shocked that the game was actually real, haha. Looking at people playing it and the creature designs has me torn. As a game, it looks really fun, I enjoy creature collection games, mixing Ark:survival evolved with pokemon with a few other elements has me wanting to try the game. I do believe that pokemon having a monopoly over the genre is bad for everyone, including Pokémon. But the creature designs are way too similar, I can respect taking inspiration from pokemon, I've been drawing every pokemon for the past few years as practice because I love the series and when I design my own creatures they definitely take inspiration from pokemon but also other games mainly dragon quest but these designs in Palworld are frustrating because the designs aren't bad, with just a little bit of effort they could have been truly unique. They give me the impression of type swapped pokemon like a water type charmander, and a lot of them are crazy good and creative, but they also tend to have an identity outside of Pokémon, pokemon is just the spring board to get attention on your work. The same goes for Palworld but only either by choice or lack of diversity. The artist didn't separate inspiration from the artist. Which is why we are here discussing it. I'm not a lawyer, so arguing the laws around this would be pointless. That's for the courts to decide if it comes to that. My hope from this is that 1. Pokemon starts giving the pokemon games the time, love, and budget to make them truly shine. 2. This encourages more monster catching games of different genres. 3. Palworld team learns from this and works to separate their game from pokemon.

Even if they did "steal the art style", they're not doing anything illegal. Scummy and lazy for being uncreative sure, but you could say the same with small artists selling fan art in conventions or online stores. Average people don't give a shit, they see a fun game, they play fun game. Can also be said with art, they see cool art, they like cool art. AI image generators get frown upon because it's the best thing for a consumer in this day and age because it can pump out beautiful images via mins. Now apply the art style thief cannot be a thing to AI image generators, the only thing they're doing is taking images, didn't credit anyone, nor compensate anyone financially, but are everyday artists doing that when they take references or especially when they draw and sell fan art? Yes. Those fan artists are not giving money to license their work to sell Ghibli charms or prints, why is it then that people hate on AI image generators? The prompt is "in the style of" for a reason, and the generator is just a advance copy paste of imitation. There are also artists out there that have skills to imitate their idols to the point that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I heard the argument made about how they just referenced pokemon and leaned heavily into the style of Pokémon. While this seems to be the case it’s still odd how Palworld is passing it off as original creations. Aside from the creatures though, the game itself feels like a mix of ARK and Breath of the Wild with some Skyrim influence

It would be cool if they hired people with all the sales they have gotten to do fully original pals to replace the ones they have.

Not really a big fan of Pokemon so I'm staying completely neutral on this. I'm more curious about how all of this will end-up because either situations will have a drastic effect on either Palworld or on the gaming landscape. Clearly the guy for as lazy as he is with his "ideas and inspirations" are, he found a way to grab the market by the balls with his recent game Palworld, so he's clearly onto something. Him pushing the line will determine whether in the coming years we'll have a shit ton more Pokemon clones just to profit off of that new found market.

early! and even if they did copy the art style/game, nintendo is a very litigious company. they probably would have copyrighted/shut down palworld already 😭 the fact they haven’t says a lot!

My biggest problems of Palworld designs is that they look so generic that makes the game boring to look at, I don't even like the design philosophy of pokémon since gen 6 and still their designs are miles better because they have purpose, not saying all Pals look bad but many have 0 original thought put into them, and the monsters don't mix well with realistic guns like what it feels like a Newsground joke game made by an edgy teen, they should had gone with Monster Hunter or realistic pokémons designs, but then again this would mean effort and care should be put in the project, meanwhile Palworld just seem like these games that only have a 1 month shelf life

Fantastic breakdown, Celestia, this is the only video on the subject I really appreciate and think discusses the nuance and facts of the matter. My only added note I'd like to point out is both companies are located in Japan, and Japanese law has no "fair use" to their copyright system. There is way less gray area than we as Western audiences are used to, and it's also a strong reason why art theft of Japanese fanartists is not only morally wrong, you're opening them up to criminal liability for your improper way of "reupload" sharing fanart you find. The amount of general awareness of this in Western spaces is tragically low, so any emphasis on this reality is important to spread awareness.

Excellent and well thought out critique, exactly my thoughts on this whole palworld situation

Fun video. A pretty interesting bit of sluthing on the AI concerns. I personally love the game. But if there's some wrong doing here I hope pocket pair would be willing to fix it. Especially with it's success. But I have no idea how copyright laws work here in the USA or in Japan where the game was made. So it'll be interesting to see if anything goes forward on this at all.

ohhhhh this is such a well formatted video, i agree with everything you say !!! i seriously wouldn't have minded palworld if it had it's own style. heck, i would have played it if not the style and design theft. im just tired of everyone saying that it's okay because the gameplay loop is better than pokemon

What do you mean they are not using AI?! So those Pals and NPCs has their own Mind?! 😱

I was slow on catching this vid, but great as always

I watched a video on Harmful Opinion's channel trying to do my own research on this whole thing. cause i frankly love the game but im also an artist...and I try to put myself in everyones shoes. Though i will admit in some situations im just wired differently than most people. and even when i push my own bias out the way and listen to what people have to say; it seems to be double standards in some regard. There are obviously a handful of Mons that are like "yea that is totally a pokemon." but there are plenty of ones that are pretty dang original in my eyes. even though its in the style of pokemon...and some people are literally reaching their hardest to find more and more comparisons. It feels like an older relative that thinks everyone she meets kinda looks or is like some celebrity.

If game is art as a whole and palword was 2 parts that haven't been combined properly before, then would Palword technically still be a new creation due to the novelty of the combination? Like if i made an orange apple drink. I didnt invent orange juice or apple juice but somehow i still made "orapple" it would still be technically new even though the 2 parts that are combined where derivative.

I think it's important to mention that the person who made the thread about the 3D models fabricated that evidence and later said it's not a problem because they believe that Palworld promotes "animal abuse".

There was so much lying on both sides about everything and no one had proof. However, the art designs and naming is lazy but not all of them. It just sucks that we permanently can't have an honest conversation

I don't know anything about the Palworld games, but found this interesting. But (not to change the subject) I moreover loved that art she was working on and looked up what seemed to be a band and man! Glad I did. Some great music there :3 Uh...I don't have much of a point to this comment other than I dig the art and music. I'll go back to being a silent sub now XD

Also about the end I feel like Cassette Beasts is also a good Monster Tamer who can challenge pokemon (I just love Cassette Beasts and want to see it get popular)

I literally thought palworld was some offshoot of pokemon. i thought it was some weird fan redesign, even after quickly looking up the game and the humans look fine but the creature designs really look like pokemon designs. To me, they look like pokemon run though one of those mashup/mixer randomizer things (the generators that combine 2 random pokemon)

A well structured video with good points made and a very level headed take. A lot of the points you raised were very valid and mirrored my own sentiments. Admittedly, I do feel like PalWorld copies a bit of Digimons artstyle too (more of a hunch, really) but I do agree that it definitely copied the artstyle of Pokemon. The current discourse around the game is just absurd, and I hope once things die down, people can ease up around the situation.

Thank you for putting into words most of my feelings with this subject. I'd be a lot more fine with this game were it that they've not just openly plagiarized the franchise, because I think the game has a lot of potential, it's just shot by something as disingenuous as this.

Fun Fact but not fun. The person who accuse Palworld devs using an AI to steal Pokemon designs was a false one. Later they admitted of making a false accusation on purpose. They did it, because, they believed that Palworld was an animal abuse game.

WE HAPPY FEW FAN ART??? anyway, a well-put-together video again from DC as always. To me, it's pretty obvious that Pal World took inspo from Pokemon but just to change some aspects of the design and the overall model design is so scummy to me. A someone who follows a bunch of Blender and or modelling artists, and I have tried it myself, this takes a bit of time to model, render and colour. And I know Pokemon is a big company but to be the creative designer for these designs and being (allegedly) so blatantly ripped-off must've been a little upsetting.

You explaining that most monster collector games have their own artstyle that make them all stand out in some way made me realize why I felt so turned off by Palworld back when I saw the trailer. I'm not going to point any fingers and say that Palworld did anything awful, but if the game had a more original artstyle, there's a chance that I would've bought the game (the style can still be based on Pokemon, just add something else to it that makes it stand on it's own). No hate to anyone that likes the game though!

@CourtneySNT Can Sylveon troll Palworld?

As a non pokemon player, I did take a double look at Palworld on steam. It looks unreally like Pokemon (for me, as a newbie)

4:28 First time I hear about this cr*pto stuff. Then CEO was already sketchy before even Palworld... 13:46 Is this quote real? Way to shoot yourself in the foot. "While Nintendo makes unique and high quality games, I am just here for a quick cash grab lol" Dam... As a 3D artist, I cannot look at these meshes and not see them as theft. A lot of places just feel like a quick retopology on stolen models.

what kinda bothers me aswell about this is everyone treating Pocketpair as this underdog and hero who is here to challange pokemon to be the next big monster catching franchice and "save us" from the big evil company when in actuallity they wouldent save us but jsut replace one bad company for aother knowing the CEO of Pocketpair who have zero intrest in original work and just wants to take trendy things from other games and then mash them togther and sell them to get himself rich

good video!

I thought it was a pokemon game :0

I feel like it's less important that they "stole an art style" considering... Pokemon has had several art styles. Even Gen 1 & 2 feel subtley different, and very few Pokemon have the sensation of "Oh I thought they were from a different generation!". And the subtle differences between generations compound. It's just that certain actual elements of Pokemon are taken and a lot of the designs either don't feel fresh or feel wonky and hard to discern. 4:39 Oh dear the ones on the left really DO like they'd be in Palworld, huh? (Yes not all of the designs look AI Generated or look like this, but they've been making designs over time to my knowledge and one that isn't actually available in-game yet looks overwhelmingly similar to Luxray, which supports the idea that the less original and more wonky looking designs are later additions). Actually, you mentioning the whole art style thing and other creature collector games made me look at another "Pokemon Clone" in Temtem, and I found like, 4 Temtems that I was like "Yeah that's sorta like a Pokemon I know", one of which's Pokemon look-alike (Hattrem) came out a few months before Temtem's release and thus I highly doubt was a copy. Though to be fair I think Temtem was also purposefully avoiding Pokemon designs to a certain extent which made the designs more out there. But it definitely helps make Temtem's designs feel more fresh. 9:42 This is a much better example than that awful Dragon Quest image. Though this is still very, very distinct in both style AND design lol, as you said.

Omg I can't believe my favorite KZfaqr is covering this.. My parents were talking about this!!!

I'm also someone who believes that art style theft doesn't exist on most cases, and I also (even as a die hard Pokemon fan) want to see more original monster catchers, and to see them NOT be met with "Pokemon clone" criticism, but the blatant idea, and style theft of palworld, and the obvious lack of creativity or passion from the CEO makes me sick

0:06 real

Cassette Beasts being one of the best games I've ever played, challenging the monster catcher monopoly and having amazing and original monster designs, still no one seems to talk about it lol If Palworld had an ounce of originality in its designs I would maybe consider playing it.

as far as i see it palworld is a parody of pokemon like how would people really treat creatures they capture

I think for palworld, one of the most glaring points giving rise to the raised eyebrows on infringement is less about the art style and more about the suspiciously close similarity in terms of colour palette usage for certain creatures and anatomical features. The common trend I see is that the body looks like 1 pokemon while the colour palette looks like it's from another pokemon. In the cases where the Pal and the Pokemon are of a similar creature type, using the same colour palette just makes the resemblance even more uncanny especially when the base foundation (i.e. the artstyle) is already the same. Nitewing/Starraptor, Robinquill/Decidueye, Fenglope/Cobalion, Lyleen/Lilligant are just some examples.

I don't think that copying a style is plagiarism. Especially considering Palworld has been marketed as "Pokemon with guns" from the very beginning. It's clear they're going for "legally distinct from Pokemon" so it doesn't seem weird at all to copy the style of Pokemon. And even if it wasn't marketed this way, I really think it's kinda silly to say that copying another artist's style is something morally negative. If anything, it's bad for the copier. They'll always just be an imitation of the thing they're copying. They're not putting their unique personality into their work, and it's kinda sad.

On the topic of you saying “there’s only so many ways you could draw a cartoon version of a real life animal” doesn’t have weight because others like Digimon, Yokai Watch and more don’t have that same issue, here’s a good example. In 1997, one of the first Digimon that Bandai made for their gross tamagotchi toy that can fight was Garurumon. While it’s obvious a wolf, it’s a wolf design you can’t find outside of Digimon with its tiger like stripes, slinky like tail and fur almost shaped like bird feathers. And they made Garurumon on a tamagotchi toy, with its sprite being ONLY 16x16 BIG, BACK IN 1997! If that’s not good enough, in 2010, Digimon later gave us a Digimon called Dorulumon. Which despite of also being a cartoon wolf, looks like nothing like Garurumon at all and still have a unique design with the focus of it having armor and a drill on its helmet and on the end of its tail. If Digimon can make iconic designs like that, even with those limitations they had with Tamagotchi toys in the 90s, Palworld have no excuse for being so creatively bankrupt, even for a indie studio. (Nexomon, Coromon and Cassette Beast are indie too and they don’t have the same issues as Palworld have with their monster designs)

Pal world is *obviously* copying Pokémon. Is that okay? Technically yes, you can’t really own a style but I still don’t like it purely because I think Pal world would have been a 300 percent more appealing game to me if they had actually tried to deviate from the Pokémon art style even a tiny bit. I think it devalues the game and doesn’t bring anything new that I give a damn about. The designs are seriously so boring they had the opportunity to be better than Pokémon and they chose to closely replicate it instead, it’s lame and it makes the game feel like a Pokémon mod or a parody at times rather than its own unique thing.

I've been playing Pokemon games for over a decade on various consoles. I've seen and played fan games (still love infinite fusion). I've experienced many of the spinoffs. I know pokemon pretty well. Which is why its always a little confusing to me when people talk about THE pokemon art style. In the 2D media theres already five to eight different similar styles. Cards, anime and official art for the pokemon have different art style based on the generation. The origins anime is different from ash's journey through kanto, ash's journey through alola and the new series which doesn't have ash in it at all (the Scarlet and Violet era). The cards had very different art styles in its early days compared to the current day. And then theres spinoffs like Pokemon Cafe Remix, pokemon sleep, pokemon mystery dungeon and pokemon ranger. And then theres the 3D medium like pokemon concierge (which is a very distinct style from the other styles the brand has used and looks incredibly soft, fluffy and cozy), pokemon quest (which absolutely lifted inspiration from the Minecraft craze), pokemon legends Arceus (which looks absolutely gorgeous and has a feeling of those Japanese ink paintings coming to life. Idk if its just me, but it is definitely a different style from the mainline games), the lets go games, scarlet and violet, x and y, pokemon mystery dungeon DX, pokemon Bank, etc etc etc. Some of those styles are pretty similar, especially in the mainline games. But that style is still different between consoles and even generations. Thats one thing I've really discovered during my process of learning how to draw pokemon (specifically eevee). There is no singular pokemon art style. And that goes for any franchise of games that has been around for as long as pokemon has. I see the same thing with Mario and the Legend of Zelda games. Especially the legend of Zelda games. Each game in the pokemon franchise has its own style. And even within the same generation of pokemon, theres vastly different art styles depending on the medium. This has some big consequences for accusations of plagerism. "It's copying Pokemon's art style" okay, which of the dozens of styles? Palworld seems to take most inspiration from legends Arceus in my experience, both art and gameplay wise. But I've also heard from a Zelda fan that they seemed to have used the same lighting engine from breath of the wild. Some of the pal designs also remind me of things you could find in Yokai Watch (specifically the Cheshire cat one). And other designs remind me of games like raft (specifically that of the player character, but also some of the environment). When i look at the pals, theres definitely some that are extremely similar to Pokemons. But some of those like Anubis or the sheep are a bit silly as examples of plagerism. Anubis is based on the same thing Lucario is based on, just more direct. And the sheep? Wooloo was never really that unique of a design and the pal design seems to have thrown out the things that really made it uniquely pokemon (lets face it, a lot of us draw sheep as a fluffy cloud with legs and a head). Other pal designs fall into what i like to call the "fakemon trap". They're the type of designs i would think of when trying to make fakemons. They have aspects of already existing pokemon, but try to change those aspects and put them on a creature. Like using shaymins flower as the ears of a flowery fox creature or using phantump's wispy body as the tail for a ghost type eeveelution. Designs like this are definitely really similar to Pokemon ones and while it's fun to poke fun of how similar these are, i think it's also important to not reach for nonsense. The twitter account you mentioned does indeed point out similarities, but some of those comparison posts feel like they're grasping at straws. "Depresso is a ripoff of espurr because the cheek tufts are the same". No buddy, they're not. They just both have cheek tufts and a similar body shape. They're still pretty distinct from each other. I mean, Depresso is an emo that could really use some coffee and espurr is a "no brain found" thousand yard stare. Similar, yes. Copy? No. But the annoying part is that not enough people talk about the designs that do look original and more importantly, absolutely gorgeous or badass. Theres this gigantic deer with big purple antlers and it's so fabulous. And a grassy mammoth. Theres various gigantic birds that have varying degrees of awesome. And I can hear people complaining about how they're just ripoffs of the legendary deer from x/y, how thats just braviary with a new coat of paint, how thats just donphan/great tusk. I feel like the bird ones are the closest match out of them, but those pals are based on the same animals that the similar pokemon are based on. Especially the deer and the mammoth ones are distinct designs from their pokemon counterparts. I've also heard that the palworld game is drawing heavily from norse mythology and thats pretty clearly seen in some of the designs, like a serpent creature that looks extremely badass and the gigantic deer i mentioned earlier that's connected to the world tree (im so bad at remembering the names from norse mythology). Several of the concepts that palworld draw from in norse mythology have already been done in Pokemon, so it's inevitable that there will be similarities. It's absolutely clear that palworld took heavy inspiration from pokemon, but I also see a lot of aspects that are more similar to other games and it's reductive to simply call it a pokemon ripoff. Yes some of the pal desings seem extremely similar to Pokemons. But theres a lot more to the game and inspiration/aspects of other games are clear when you look at it. And I feel like people are missing out on a lot of cool stuff by constantly comparing it to Pokemon. I do pokemon and art streams and am fully planning on playing palworld on streams too. Its just such an intriguing game. Yes, there's a lot of pokemon similarities. But theres also a lot of other cool stuff and its like various games i like being blendered together. A lot of the designs are really wacky and wonkey and others are so gorgeous or badass and its fascinating me. The debate around it is equally fascinating and raises the big questions that fakemon artists are familiar with: where does inspiration end and plagerism begin? Where does it stop being your art style and when is it "the" pokemon art style? I've seen several pokemon youtubers make their own fakemons and even fakemon region. I've seen them program those regions into actual games. Are those original games? Or just a pokemon ripoff? Where is the line between fangame and ripoff? Palworld is seemingly testing the waters as to where those lines are. It reminds me a bit of games like pokemon Infinite Fusion, pokemon uranium, pokemon sweet and the various fakemon regions people have made. Hell, it reminds me of the region based on the Netherlands i started work on years ago. Palworld feels a lot like a fakemon region, just with a lot of mechanics you wouldn't expect in a fakemon game. And if the developers had called it a fakemon game that brings survival mechanics in the mix, would there have been the same amount of outrage?

thank you. it's one thing to be inspired by pokemon and make your own monster catching game, it's another to 1:1 take both their designs and styles and Frankenstein it just cause you know pokemon sells and it'll get you money. "there's only so many ways one can draw an animal" does not apply here when it's literally mix-matched parts of existing pokemon put together in their same style, most of which aren't animals either. Doesn't help that all their previous games already copied popular games of the time too.

Oh also the 3D models being stolen was admitted to being faked last I heard because the person was protesting the "animal abuse" in Palworld.

Thank you for your thoughts on the matter! Online discourse about this topic has ben HELL. Everytime I try to say that the style too similar from Pokémon turns me off people only answer with that damn Dragon Quest image and the "leave the multibillion company alone" meme. GOD!

Doesn’t matter. You can’t copyright an art style. If you could, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network would have been in all sorts of lawsuits over the similar art styles used in a wide variety of their cartoons. Not to mention that it would render most anime and manga infringing.

My parents have been playing this game since it came out. They call it pokemon, they're completely aware. They're just having fun before it inevitably gets taken away lol

The Palmon called Cawgnito is literally just ripped off from fan-made spritzee evolutions that make them look more like their plague doctor roots. That thing is just way too similar.

I'm just here enjoying the fact that furries got another popular sauce of creatures to make fanart of

People are not entitled to art styles. If that were true, then all manga and by extension anime would not exist because those creators were riffing off Osamu Tezuka's art style and comics. Hell, Osamu Tezuka's comics wouldn't exist either because he was riffing off Walt Disney's art style. Stealing, copying or plagiarizing other peoples art styles is not a moral dilemma, it is how the art world has operated since the beginning of time.

Based.

i once saw a game dev on youtube (patch quest look it up) say that "pokemon are like onions", palword misunderstood that statement and thought that means it has to color a rock to look like a onion. The thing is this game would have been better if the designs were more original, the way they did things it kinda comes off soulless, and kinda lacks its own character and style and it would have given its own legs to stand on (talking about the designs)

Palworld seems like a boring edgy cashgrab, at least its got more effort put in than the average league of legends patch, AI or no

I'm glad you're saying this. As a creative person, I really don't like Palworld. It's an insult to game design and creativity. It does nothing original at all. Even the elements that are nothing like Pokémon are "borrowed" from other video games.

What frustrated me about this whole thing, is how everyone who doesnt see it just sees it as a strong competitor to Pokemon and dont see why I think this is a bad thing. Palsworld is not just getting from pokemon but also ghilbli (thr electebuzz knock looks more like totoro) cassette bears (AN INDIE GAME) Digimon etc Like Pokemon isn't the one victim. And if we let this continue it could have dire consequences in the artist field.

@Everyone who is angry because Palworld made knockoffs in Sugimori-style: Are you feeling the same way for every other Fakemon (which would be genuine dislike) or are you only caring in this very case because the clone-designs make real money?

i think palworld will help people understand how copyright works.

Ok, so I decided to rewrite this a bit to make more sense. I have always disliked the idea that people try to say that you can steal an art style. In the case of say pokemon they do not own the art style they use but the specific designs they have such as pikachu or say lucario. This is because art is by concept is a collection of years of work built up from one person to another with small adjustments that others end up using. Anime for example while some look different you can still see some that use similar eyes or motions that if art style theft would be applied would get them taken down because of the similarity. In fact many famous anime like pokemon or dbz would of been sued due to series before them doing something similar. I could technically make a game in the same style and it not be considered illegal. In palworlds case they use a similar art style which due to that aspects of the monsters end up looking similar like eyes or feet but are far enough away from each other that they can not by any legal means be considered copies. While I do agree that they should have done the games in their own style I am not going to say that what they did was illegal by any means.

Random comment for algorithm

I... Disagree. Yeah. Hbomb comment aside. Art style theft might actually faulter here too. Let me use moble games here. Mobile monster collector games actually use similar design philosophy in their creature design. Sure. Plenty go for original looks. But a snake is a snake. A dragon will be a freaking dragon. Aside that. I can confidently look at the two sheep monsters and say. One is pokemon. The other is pal world. I have been looking forward to palworld. The developers might not like this comment. But pokemon with guns sounds mega funny. And mega fun. But if the monsters don't have that pokemon feel. I won't be able to call it pokemon with guns. I would call it ark survival evolved clone number who knows. All of this to say. The designs while yes. Heavily lift. That's part of the point. Still look. Like palworlds monsters. Heck. Game freak was not the first company to think of fire breathing lizard. Does this make them plagerist? I will admit. Being a little reductive here. And while palworld does bring up important discussion. I will not be the first nor last to say... The plagiarism argument is so weak here. Its as strong as a single piece of spaghetti. And I will boil this noodle to eat it. The question though for how far does one game have to go to be considered not pokemon have to be in order for it to not have a stigma. Because lets be honest here. Yokai watch, and digimon games and franchises i do know personally. Still get called pokemon clones. Despite tomogatchi being older. And yokai and stories about them existing for centuries. Its in the end rather silly, and monster collector genre enjoyers like me have a variety of thoughts. But i can read the exhaustion in this fight. Gym Trainer Ed sounded so exhausted and annoyed in his video about monster collectors being called Pokemon clones. I have been in this song and dance. And have seen this song and dance. Welcome to a long. Long battle, that this genre will face forever at this rate.

14:27 Except Palworld is a new and unique game. People are playing palworld because it is unique in premise and practice. I myself, as an avid fan of all three games (them being Pokemon, ARK, and Palworld) am playing Palworld quite a bit because I cant get the collective aspect of what is in Palworld from either Pokemon or ARK. Sure, I can collect anime-type monsters in Pokemon, but at no point can I interact with them to the level of detail that I do in Palworld. And sure, I can build bases and tame dinosaurs in Ark, but those dinosaurs cannot micromanage the base-building experience for me as done in Palworld. Originality and uniqueness are not inherently one in the same. Something can be an original idea or concept but lack uniqueness in it's approach or actuality. Whereas something can be unique in its practice and execution but was not born from an original theory or idea. Tem Tem and it's lack of insane popularity that Palworld has and its relative falloff are great examples of this. People touted it as the "pokemon killer" or "the game that will wake up game freak." When that couldn't be further from the truth, because while it presented original concepts to the design of it's mons and what have you, it lacked uniqueness and didn't do enough to stand out. There was no reason to play tem tem when you could just play pokemon. But while Palworld lacks originality, it's uniqueness shines greatly. Because as I stated earlier, I cant do in Pokemon to even a fraction of what I can do in Palworld. Palwold gives me a unique experience and reason to play it and as such, it is a new and unique game.

6:51 these twitter users admitted that those screenshots were made up

Ok but what is wrong with copying someone’s style? Like, as long as you aren’t just drawing the exact thing, what’s the problem?

Hi hi

there's no such thing as art style theft

While Palworld is an interesting concept, I don't want to touch it with a 20 foot pole solely because of it's fanbase and creators. They just annoy me LOL. The ceo sounds like a smug ai dudebro who thinks he's so cool and gods gift to mankind...while the fanbase is either making fun of people for liking pokemon or being ready to jump in front of a bullet to defend the game, insisting that there's NO POSSIBLE WAY they took ANY inspiration from pokemon and you're a r slur if you think they did. So I want nothing to do with this game based completely off of the fact that "Y'all are annoying as hell" lol

Palworld is just... it makes my teeth itch. There is no love there.

Byofrog admitted he tampered with the meshes so palworlds meshes fit the pokemons

Thief: idc, as long as I get famous and money ☝️

16:59 The problem is that once you say "this is a derivative", you've legally forefeited any right to exist. e.g. A lot of the artists praying for AI to be killed by copyright law are also making fanart, which is illegal, and either have Patreon campaigns or outright sell the fanart in ways that would piss off original creators. *None* of the fan culture we like is legal, and it will never be made legal without a radical reinterpretation of copyright law. Are AI bros cringe? Hell yes. Are AI companies trying to build a new artistic monopoly by violating the old one? Absolutely. But at the same time, we're also blowing the opportunity to punch new holes in copyright by cheering for it to eat AI. Related: part of the reason why I'm hesitant to criticize Palworld is specifically because of how much of the controversy started from an ex-TPC exec basically begging for it to be shut down. This guy used to work in their IP enforcement division so he almost certainly signed off on shutting down at least one fan game. While it's true that Palworld isn't adding much to what it took, what it took also shouldn't be protected as much, specifically because of the age and popularity of Pokemon. If it's morally OK to make and sell Pokemon fanart then what makes Palworld different?

Anyone complaining about "art style theft" is crazy because by their logic nobody could ever create anything new because you bet corporations would shut everyone down to keep their monopoly. Most 3d video games developed for a specific game system have a similar art style. Most animated shows have a similar art style. Most books have a similar story with similar premise. To me anyone that treats "art style theft" as an actual thing does not want to protect artist, they just want to kill art. Why they want to kill art, I don't know: My best guess is that they are sad and bitter people who angry other people are popular while they aren't.

Still a far better game than anything game freak has vomited out.

pokemon : uses a basic anime style. A new game uses the mon genre and basic anime art style with cell shading. Pokemon fan community: you bloody theify stop your game . Does the pokemon community forget pokemon didnt start the mon genre. It just popularized it when the gaming tech was still fairly in its early years. Kinda like how Resident evil didnt create survival horror. When alone in the dark inspired capcom. Pokemon has an always been based on gambling and collecting. Something most games have done for a long time.

its also important to remember that Pokémon is a multi billion dollar industry and I could care less if they get their sub par ideas stolen 😭

I would characterize it as character design theft, not art style theft. Either way, it will be terrible for everyone who enjoys non-soulless video games if this kind of behavior becomes normalized thanks to Palworld's shocking and disturbing success.

Simple fact pokemon are generally based on real life animals . Of which most pokemon can not be copyrighted. Being some pokemon like Lucario are losely based on Anubis. An palworld is more accurate to anubis than lucario. An being works can pay image to a product is well within the copyright law. Due, do parody and other laws. In this case the pokemon fans are salty a indie game is doing what game-freak has failed to do for well over 2 decades. If pal world did violate copyright of pokemon Nintendo would have shut down the the game advertisements years ago. Like they do to fan games.

"They _did_ improve on Pokemon's game mechanics." I wouldn't know, however they did add slave labor. I've seen videos of the "pals" working on behalf of the player. They look _miserable_ which tells me Pocket Pal went out of their way to make it look like sweatshop labor. On top of that, the ability to capture _humans_ and force _them_ into labor isssss questionable at best and horrific at worst. And, yeah, the bulk of the game was absolutely plagiarized. I doubt there is a single original asset in that entire dumpster fire. The environments and guns look like they were likely purchased from Unity or Epic. Yes, I understand asset purchase is a common and pretty valid part of game dev, but when every single asset is purchased or plagiarized, you don't deserve to make money on that. It's like trying to sell AI-generated images. You didn't put in any work, you deserve no pay. Simple as that. The fact this creatively bankrupt horror show is making as much money as it is, imho, is the most vile, disgusting, and upsetting part of this. It's setting a new standard for video game development. And, tho I'm aware the following is a slippery slope fallacy, we already have industry leaders considering replacing all humans in their employ with AI; it's only a matter of time before they start doing exactly the same kind of rip-off bullshittery Palworld is the result of.

They didn't steal designs they took the models right from pokemon and edited them.