‘Palworld’ breaks records and is accused of plagiarizing Pokémon – 01/31/2024 – Tech

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It’s difficult to escape the simplest definition of “Palworld”: a game heavily inspired by Pokémon, but with firearms. The game mixes elements of survival, exploration, monster capture and shooting games, and has broken sales and player records — in addition to triggering a wave of fifth grade jokes in Brazil, since the monsters to be collected are the friendly ones. Pals.

In addition to the many posts on X about linguistic coincidence, the strength of “Palworld”, developed by the Japanese studio Pocketpair, is impressive. One day after its early access launch, on January 18th, the game was the most played by influencers and streamers on the Twitch platform. Pocketpair sold more than six million copies in the first four days and became the second most played simultaneously in Steam history, with 2 million players — behind only PUBG.

Pokémon and weapons

“Palworld” takes place in the Palpagos Islands, where the player controls a character who needs to survive in an open world by collecting monsters, the Pals, using the animals to fight against opponents and also forcing them to work — they build your base for you and manufacture items.

It has a satirical aspect, investing in the old joke that Pokémon battles are nothing more than cockfights: part of the game’s description, for example, says that the player can “create factories and assign Pals to take care of the tasks. As long as they have feed, they can work without ever resting — until the end of their lives.” Furthermore, one of the game’s main enemies is an extremist group fighting to free the Pals from forced labor. Nothing subtle.

But the mix of several genres, which takes heavy inspiration not only from Pokémon but also from established survival games such as “Ark”, has won over hundreds of thousands of people in a very short time. “Palworld” can be played alone or on a server with up to 32 people, but only in the PC version.

The controversies of “Palworld”

The resounding success isn’t the only reason why there’s only been talk about “Palworld” in recent days. The very close similarities of some of the Pals to Pokémon led to accusations of plagiarism — and a specific post on

The Pokémon Company, which owns the rights to the franchise along with other companies, including Nintendo, spoke out last Wednesday (24). Without mentioning “Palworld”, the Japanese company said that it “did not allow” any use of the brand, and that it intends to “investigate and take appropriate measures to deal with any action that violates copyright”.

Be that as it may, it certainly doesn’t help that the “pal” who most frequently illustrates the game’s promotional art, always armed with a machine gun, appears to be a yellow version of the forest spirit from Studio’s film “My Friend Totoro.” Ghibli, added to the malevolent smile of Gengar, one of the best-known Pokémon.

There is also a suspicion that “Palworld” used artificial intelligence to some degree in its development, an accusation that has been made without evidence by critics of the game. The reason is Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe’s enthusiasm for the new technology. Pocketpair even launched a low-profile game in 2022 called “AI: Art Impostor”, in which players use artificial intelligence to generate art.

The presence of “Palworld” on Steam seems to indicate that there is no AI in the game. This is because Valve, the company that controls the digital store, stated on the 10th that it will ask studios to reveal whether or not they used the technology, and to promise that they did not break any laws. There is no mention of artificial intelligence on the game’s page on the platform.

Everything Pokémon doesn’t want to be

Despite the controversies, “Palworld” is an absolute success with the public — and some specialized critics have suggested that this may be because of the stagnation of the “Pokémon” franchise, whose recent games have taken few risks. The latest release, “Pokémon Scarlet/Violet”, accumulates an average score on the Metacritic website, with 72 points out of 100, and went through a turbulent launch, criticized for several bugs and performance problems.

Cass Marshall, a journalist for Polygon, wrote in an opinion piece that “‘Palworld’ feels like an alternate reality in which the Pokémon franchise has had the opportunity to be strange, experimental, and unafraid to release games whose target audience is just of adults.” It remains to be seen whether those responsible for one of the most successful franchises in gaming history will respond to the provocation of “Palworld” on consoles — or in court.

In Brazil, “Palworld” costs R$89.90 on Steam and R$112 on the Xbox Store, and is included in Xbox Game Pass.

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PLAY

game tip, new or old, for you to try

Pentiment
(PC, Xbox One/X/S)

Released at the end of 2022, the game flew under the radar of most of the industry’s big awards, but it is one of the most fascinating titles I’ve played in recent times. In “Pentiment”, you are Andreas Maler, an apprentice artist who becomes the equivalent of a medieval detective in 16th century Germany when a nobleman is murdered in the abbey where he works. The story takes place over 25 years, and Andreas pieces together clues over two generations to solve the mystery. A very careful game with the story, the social relationships of the characters and the art represented, “Pentiment” is relatively short, very well written, has an innovative design and deals with issues that remained in my memory long after completing it.

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UPDATE

news, launches, business and what matters most

After the purchase of the giant Activision Blizzard by the even larger Microsoft, completed in October last year, the first announcements of mass layoffs arrived. On Thursday (25), the American press reported that the company laid off 1,900 workers from Blizzard, Xbox and ZeniMax, the company that controls Bethesda. Before the cuts, Microsoft Gaming employed 22 thousand people.

– In addition to the layoffs, Microsoft also canceled the development of a survival game that had been produced by Blizzard for six years, the group’s first new intellectual property since the launch of “Overwatch” in 2016. Blizzard President Mike Ybarra also left the position, which he had held since 2021.

On Monday (22), Riot Games announced that it had laid off 530 workers, or 11% of the company. The studio responsible for “League of Legends” said in a statement that it is “readjusting our focus on fewer projects, which will have high impact.” CEO Dylan Jadeja stated in an internal statement that “investments we made did not have the expected return”, which would help explain the decision.

Combined, the layoffs at Riot, Microsoft and other companies eliminated 6,000 jobs — throughout 2023, around 10,000 people lost their jobs in the sector.

Last Thursday (25), Apple announced that it will allow game streaming applications to work on the App Store. This includes services like GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming, which allow heavy games to run on any system.

Nintendo intends to launch a new console in 2024, according to a report from the Japanese company Omdia, which analyzes the technology market in the country. The Switch’s successor would have an 8-inch screen, considerably larger than the standard version of the current console, which is 6.2 inches. Until now, Nintendo has denied any information regarding a new console.

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DOWNLOAD

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*Available on Xbox Game Pass
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