Nintendo and The Pokémon Company accuse Palworld game developer of patent infringement

Nintendo and The Pokémon Co. are suing the makers of Palworld, claiming the game infringes on the “Pocket Monster” franchise’s patents, according to a statement from Nintendo on Thursday.

Palworld, which was released earlier this year by Japanese company Pocketpair, has frequently been referred to by users as “Pokémon with guns.” The Pokémon Co. said in January that it would investigate possible infringement of its intellectual property after it “received many inquiries regarding another company’s game.”

The lawsuit, filed in the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday, “seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights,” according to Nintendo’s statement.

NBC News has not reviewed a copy of the lawsuit.

“Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years,” the company wrote.

Pocketpair issued a response to the lawsuit on Thursday, saying it 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,” the company said in its statement.

Representatives for Nintendo, The Pokémon Co. and Pocketpair did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

In Palworld, creatures are caught by a “Palsphere” after being weakened in battle — a mechanic similar to how Pokémon are weakened and then caught with a “Pokéball.” After being caught, creatures in Palworld help the player build structures, farm and engage in shootouts.

Some players said they noticed that the characters in the game appear similar to those in the Pokémon franchise. Many compared Palworld’s Sparkit to Pokémon’s mascot Pikachu, noting that both characters are electricity-based yellow creatures with sharp, pointy ears and large, bushy tails.

Palworld is not the first indie video game to bear comparisons to other wildly popular games made by a major studio (often called triple-A studios).

Last year, an indie zombie survival game from now-defunct developer Fntastic, called The Day Before, was almost instantly compared to triple-A developer Naughty Dog’s classic zombie survival game The Last of Us. The game, which was similar in everything from premise to the fonts used in the game, was a flop upon release, with many citing the game’s broken mechanics, which led Fntastic to quickly fold.

In a 2021 interview about the game published in TheGamer, Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe said he was unaware the internet had been calling Palworld “Pokémon with guns” but that it could be a “lucky thing to have the meme of Pokemon with guns, but we totally didn’t intend it.”

Palworld was an instant hit on the video game distribution platform Steam upon its release earlier this year. It sold approximately 7 million copies in five days, which equates to roughly “$189 million USD in Steam sales,” according to Geoff Keighley, a prominent figure in the video game industry. Steam data shows Palworld is the third-most-played game of all time on the platform.

In its statement, Pocketpair expressed disappointment in having to “allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit,” and apologized to fans for “for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused.”