‘Cold-Blooded Business’: Nintendo Is Patent Trolling Palworld Because It Got Too Big - eviltoast
Japan games industry analyst explains why Nintendo is going after Palworld, and why it’s probably going to win.

So you don’t think these patents are going after any aspect of Palworld that players would recognize as a defining feature of a Pokémon game?

I mean, there’s like a mechanic where you throw the spheres, right? And this is a very obvious, in your face system [that’s very much like Pokémon]. But I think that it will be a lot more technical than this. Nintendo would have dug through every single action inside the game, they would have probably reverse engineered it, and just find ways to sue these guys.

You can bet your life that Nintendo hates this company, and they couldn’t find an angle with the character designs. This is why they are not mentioned in their press release. So they come with these technical peculiarities. So I personally believe, if you act like this, you can sue like 90 percent of the game developers in the world. I’m sure there’s like thousands of games that have a confirmation screen when you go from sleep mode to resuming the game right, but if you basically trigger the wrath of Nintendo, they will come after you.

  • ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
    8·
    2 months ago

    But with Nintendo disappearing, how does that benefit anyone? If you don’t like Nintendo games, you can already just not play them. People buying them buy them because they like them. Them disappearing doesn’t help people who do like Nintendo games, and it doesn’t help people who don’t like Nintendo games.

    They have killed tons of fan games just because they have enough money to throw at lawyers so people won’t even try to fight them.

    They kill competition with these practices.

    They are against emulation and game conservation while actively screwing consumers who try to legally play their games…

    And the list goes on and on. They are a bad company that happens to make some good games. Those few good games are not enough to redeem them for the rest of what they do.

    Edit: typo

    • rbits@lemm.eeEnglish
      22·
      2 months ago

      Emulation still exists though. And the fan games are made by and for Nintendo fans. They usually also want to play the new Nintendo games as well, not just the fan games. And those fan games wouldn’t exist without the Nintendo games they’re inspired by. I mean, I guess if you only play old Nintendo games or fan games based on them, Nintendo disappearing could be good. But I would bet that there are many more people who want to play Nintendo’s new games, and will want to play the ones that are released in the future, than people who only want to play old ones/fan games.

      Edit: Also

      They kill competition with these practices.

      So there should instead be 1 less company in the console space? That will increase competition?

      • ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        Emulation exists despite Nintendo trying their best at every chance they have to destroy it. Not thanks to them.

        And fan games exist only until Nintendo decides they have to be shut down. Which is frequently.

        For the Nintendo future games? Well, what can I say? Again, it’s a video game company. And as Palworld and others are showing, many others can do what Nintendo does in better ways. We won’t have another mario if they close? There will be someone making a new platformer as good. There won’t be a new Pokemon? We already have better alternatives.

        But if they disappear, games like Palworld will have a chance without having to risk being sued over all this crap.

        Edit: Nintendo is the one hoarding these patents that then they can weaponize against competition, so yeah, if they disappear, competition will get better because they won’t have to be worried about being sued for things as dumb as putting a confirmation window after resuming a game from sleep.