ALBAWABA - Palworld director and Pocket Pair's CEO Takuro Mizobe took to social media platforms in response to the "plagiarism" allegations the company is facing as of late amid being accused of using AI and copying Pokemon characters.
According to Dexerto, Palworld proved to everybody in the gaming community that it's more than a "Pokemon with Guns" gimmick game with over a million units sold and 500,000 concurrent players over the weekend. Despite its successful launch, the game has been facing several "plagiarism accusations" as mentioned above.
Palworld / Pocket Pair
Palworld is currently available on PC and Xbox and can be played on both Steam through purchasing it and Xbox Game Pass for its subscribers. On the other hand, there's still no news about Palworld coming to PS5 and the Nintendo Switch.
The game has been described by many as a "Pokemon knockoff" after several users took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and posted the similarities between Pals and Pokemon.
Palworld CEO: Our artists are receiving death threats
Takuro Mizobe made a post on his official X account in response to the allegations and said:
"Currently, we are receiving slanderous comments against our artists, and we are seeing tweets that appear to be death threats.
I have received a variety of opinions regarding Palworld, but all productions related to Palworld are supervised by multiple people, including myself, and I am responsible for the production.
I would appreciate it if you would refrain from slandering the artists involved in Palworld."
He told the gaming community to refrain from attacking the team of artists behind Palworld and stated that many people worked on and produced the game including himself. Take in mind, Takuro doesn't hide the fact that he uses AI for inspiration and art as it's stated in his X bio.
Several social media users posted multiple screenshots comparing Nintendo and Gamefreak's Pokemon to Palwrold's Pals as seen in the embedded tweet above. The resemblance and proportions are hard to miss which is probably why the game is under so much controversy.
In an article by gaming news outlet VGC (Video Game Chronicles), they reached out to senior AAA game developers for further opinions on the ongoing drama with one saying:
“You cannot, in any way, accidentally get the same proportions on multiple models from another game without ripping the models. I would stand in court to testify as an expert on this.”
On the other hand, another developer opposed the opinion mentioned above and stated:
“When does ‘heavily inspired’ become a blatant copy? It’s much easier to take a successful style and tweak it slightly than it is to come up with a new, cohesive style, right? I wouldn’t be comfortable passing this off as my work; it’s just too close in many places.”
And added “If those are original Pokemon models shown in those videos, then Nintendo should be home and dry in terms of demonstrating copying. That could be a smoking gun.”
