We hadden het eigenlijk al veel eerder verwacht, maar blijkbaar had Nintendo even de tijd nodig om alle feiten op een rij te krijgen. Pocketpair, de ontwikkelaar van Palworld, zal zich moeten gaan verantwoorden in een gerechtelijke procedure over patentinbreuken die zijn gemaakt met Palworld. Veel van de designs in de game doen namelijk wel héél erg denken aan Pokémon, iets waar Nintendo en The Pokémon Company zeggenschap over hebben.

Inhoudelijk is er nog weinig bekend waarvan Pocketpair precies wordt beschuldigd, desalniettemin geeft de ontwikkelaar in een verklaring aan dat ze het jammer vinden dat het zover moet komen. Ze zullen nu minder tijd in de verdere ontwikkeling van Palworld kunnen steken, die zich nog in early access bevindt, gezien ze zich zullen moeten gaan verweren. Indien er nieuwe ontwikkelingen zijn lees je dat hier op PlaySense.

“Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed against our company for patent infringement.

We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement.

At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details.

Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo. Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games. We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of.

It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit. However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.

We apologize to our fans and supporters for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Palworld and Pocketpair.”