Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In 2024, Nintendo sued the developers of Palworld, a game that had already been labeled “Pokémon with guns” because of its very obvious similarities to the franchise. At first, the lawsuit seemed pretty straightforward. Palworld had creature catching, monster battles, sphere-based capture mechanics, and designs that looked suspiciously familiar. But Nintendo didn’t sue over the character designs. Instead, the case focused on patents covering gameplay mechanics. And that’s where things started getting messy. Palworld became one of the biggest games on Steam while Nintendo faced growing backlash from players who felt the company was trying to own basic ideas used across gaming. PocketPair fought back with examples from older games. Patent offices in both Japan and the US then started rejecting or questioning some of Nintendo’s claims. At the same time, Palworld kept growing. It changed some mechanics because of the lawsuit, launched its full 1.0 release, and continued pulling in huge numbers of players. What started as Nintendo protecting Pokémon slowly turned into a much bigger fight over patents, competition, and how much control one company should have over the basic rules of a video game.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Nintendo Gets Sued
0:45 - The Lawsuit
6:49 - Legal Tyrant
11:07 - Turn Of The Tide
Sources: pastebin.com/ut1JERBy
In 2024, Nintendo sued the developers of Palworld, a game that had already been labeled “Pokémon with guns” because of its very obvious similarities to the franchise. At first, the lawsuit seemed pretty straightforward. Palworld had creature catching, monster battles, sphere-based capture mechanics, and designs that looked suspiciously familiar. But Nintendo didn’t sue over the character designs. Instead, the case focused on patents covering gameplay mechanics. And that’s where things started getting messy. Palworld became one of the biggest games on Steam while Nintendo faced growing backlash from players who felt the company was trying to own basic ideas used across gaming. PocketPair fought back with examples from older games. Patent offices in both Japan and the US then started rejecting or questioning some of Nintendo’s claims. At the same time, Palworld kept growing. It changed some mechanics because of the lawsuit, launched its full 1.0 release, and continued pulling in huge numbers of players. What started as Nintendo protecting Pokémon slowly turned into a much bigger fight over patents, competition, and how much control one company should have over the basic rules of a video game.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Nintendo Gets Sued
0:45 - The Lawsuit
6:49 - Legal Tyrant
11:07 - Turn Of The Tide
Sources: pastebin.com/ut1JERBy
