Ever since Palworld was released earlier this year, it seemed inevitable that Nintendo would eventually go after the game for its similarities to Pokemon. The Pokemon Company even announced its intention to investigate Palworld back in January. This week, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company finally went ahead and sued Palworld developer Pocketpair for patent infringement instead of copyright infringement. And according to one analyst, this is a strategy that Nintendo has successfully used against rivals in the past.
Kantan Games CEO and video game analyst Serkan Toto spoke to 404 Media and noted that Nintendo used the same patent infringement tactics against Japanese mobile game developer Colopl in 2018. That eventually led to a $30 million settlement in Nintendo’s favor. Colopl now pays licensing fees to Nintendo to use some specific patents, and Toto believes that Pocketpair may eventually have to make its own deal with Nintendo.
“I think that the profit margin is probably sky high for Palworld and I think that Nintendo didn’t like that one bit and said, ‘Look, they’re basically stealing our character designs,'” said Toto. “‘We cannot do anything about this. So let’s screw them with other things, like… patents that are very, very technical. The patents are not listed yet, so we don’t know which patents. We don’t know which patents Nintendo is actually talking about, but I bet with you already today that it’s going to be highly, highly technical things.”
Toto also predicts that Palworld will not be shut down by any future settlement, but he contends that the lawsuit was Nintendo’s way of punishing Pocketpair for its success with its Pokemon-adjacent game.
“I think that Nintendo just saw these guys are getting too aggressive,” added Toto. “Nintendo thinks Pocketpair is copying what they are doing, and before they even start distributing the PlayStation version or executing these IP expansion plans, Nintendo is going to spit in their bowl. I don’t think that Nintendo looks at these things through an idealistic lens at all. This is just a pure, cold-blooded business.”
Pocketpair recently disclosed that it will not switch Palworld to a free-to-play or live-service model. As Toto alluded to above, it’s believed that Pocketpair will soon announce Palworld’s PlayStation 5 port. Sony and Pocketpair have already teamed up for a Palworld merchandise deal with an eye towards expanding the franchise beyond games.
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