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[VGC] Palworld embroiled in AI and Pokémon ‘plagiarism’ controversy
- Thread starter Red Kong XIX
- Start date
Using Pokemon models as references is likely to be enough to justify a copyright infringement case. It would be effectively impossible to come up with the exact same Primarina hair shape, which modulates in the same way and has the same number of cowlicks in the same places, without using the original model as a reference.The closer I look at supposed "smoking gun" asset comparisons, the more I think people are ignoring obvious differences re: the mesh construction (including reporters covering the Tweets making the accusations). In most cases the actual proportions aren't even close despite the overall look being a clear dupe, some of the primitives the Palworld assets are built from are still obvious and are often clipped into the main body geometry for joints/overlaps differently from how they're constructed in Pokemon, and I'm seeing limbs/bodies with different relative axial lengths but the appropriate spheroid proportions (meaning they weren't just taken and then changed with a simple "stretch"). This stuff all-together feels more like someone "copying" in the sense of using tight visual reference but building stuff themselves than an actual copy-paste job on the geometry.
Most of these instances are in this article, which the writer just sort of takes at face value without examining.
Palworld Pokémon plagiarism accusations pile up as CEO responds | VGC
Artists accuse it of copying 3D models; Pocketpair claims it’s received ‘death threats and abuse’…www.videogameschronicle.com
I figure we still have maybe five weeks before a serious investigation by Nintendo and the Pokémon Company's legal departments could pull together details for a court filing, so maybe actual asset duplication was involved, but this isn't as definite as I've seen some people insist.
I'd say that you tried, but even then I think that's not true.
Agreed. I think the quote from the CEO that has been posted several times paints the picture:
His concern isn't necessarily to be original. He's interested in good ideas and will leverage them if it allows the team to be on the pulse of what's current (or trendy in his words). The Hollowknight-like game fits the bill along with their past projects. Far and away Palworld is definitely the ultimate realization of his direction. Craftopia will probably be a good frame of reference on what to expect going forward.
Plagiarism and copyright violation are not the same things. Something can be plagiarism but not copyright infringement and vice versa. One is a legal concept and the other is a moral ethical thing. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it's ok. Most instances of real plagiarism would be very hard to get judgements in court. There's a reason plagiarism is rampant in places like YouTube and it's because it's notoriously difficult to enforce even in cases where it is illegal
I think that's the thing that's caused this to particularly blow up - for one contingent there's a significant *moral* component to this, a deep down feeling that something that skews *so* close to someone else's IP being successful is fundamentally *wrong*. And when you feel in your bones that something is wrong, people celebrating that thing in turn is a betrayal of sorts - and vice-versa, some of the people who feel the need to defend Palworld may have a deep-down need to prove to the world that their reflected morality in itself isn't cast into doubt, belittling the moral aspect to this.
We see similar social mechanics in other forms all the time. Product X has some scandal come to light, Group A speaks out against Product X. Group B wants to enjoy Product X so heavily downplays the scandal, which then leads Group A to see Group B as not caring, and so on and so forth. And I can think of several different Product X's that can be put in that gap.
Ultimately, it's okay to like something problematic, but it's not okay to dismiss the nature of the problem.
I'll engage because I can actually say that I don't like any of that stuff. I'm not sure it should be illegal, but I find it to be creatively uninspired in the best of cases.
There was an X post earlier in this thread from an artist who drew splatoon fan art. He shared a story of a developer who asked if they could use his art in a splatoon-esque game that they were making, to which he said no.
The thing that struck me about that tweet, though, was how he referred to his own derivative splatoon inspired art as "fan art", but called the game that the other party was making a "splatoon ripoff". The lack of self awareness made me laugh.
I'm not filing legislation to change copyright law here, but its easy to see how we have collectively been drinking from a poisoned chalice for ages. And Palworld is sort of a wakeup call.
I promise you, if this was any other company targeted, they would not be this generous or disingenuous. People still bring up Gearbox's plagiarism when it came to Borderlands as a reason not to support that game, and rightfully so.
You may be confusing copyright with trademark law. My understanding of copyright/trademark law is based on undergrad college coursework from more than a decade ago, but there IS a big difference between using reference models in a more general style copy vs. actually including someone else's assets in a product. And if the characters/product isn't confusing for the market, that's generally enough to avoid a trademark conflict.
Being able to recognize elements in something that's derivative isn't generally actionable in the legal sense (which is not to say it's not creatively bankrupt). Like I said in the post, there may be some really obvious stuff found and used for filings, but we're not there yet (and that process takes a lot more time to develop than discussion like these).
I think people are being generous because it's a relatively good game. If it was a bad game, people would be less generous.
If this was any other company people wouldn't even talk about it. Literally. This is big cause it's selling big and cause pokemon fans be angry. Most other knockoffs do not create the fervor which if it was based on principle and not specific IP I feel shouldn't be the case.
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'Crowsworn' Kickstarter Anniversary Trailer Released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OcEQfCABrM&ab_channel=MongooseRodeo New trailer for the 1 year anniversary of the game's Kickstarter campaign. There should also be a boss-fight demo (no embargo on it) sent to backers at the "Curious Bird" tier along with more screenshots coming in a...
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Nah, the amount of "It is nintendo tho so they deserve it" that I have read in twitter and reddit is enough to dismiss this theory
As an aside, I'm fascinated by the chat earlier in the thread indicating that Craftopia had different goblin enemies early in development and then changed them in an update to ones that look like Bokoblins in much the same way that Pals look like Pokemon. They *had* the enemies in place, and then swapped them to closer-to-infringement ones.
I'm struggling to find a reason for that other than 'they wanted the positive implication them looking like Bokoblins would lead to", and that's a sentence I'm uncomfortable with, if it's the core reason at the heart of that.
The thing is that fan artists are generally aware of and acknowledge that their work is by definition derivative, and acknowledge that they have no ownership over anything but the specific piece of art they create, because they're drawing their version of someone else's work.
That's a fundamental understanding at the core of fan art, and it's why there's a difference between "selling a picture I drew of Pikachu" and "selling this cool picture I drew of an electric mouse with red cheeks and a lightning bolt tail I just made up." That artist presumably understood the source of their own work, and rightly passed from the "intermediary" (themselves) to the "source" of the style being employed when determining who the other party was really trying to imitate.
There are multiple people in this thread (and way more in the sales and OT) that will unironically argue they did not rip off pokemon directly. That TPC doesn't "own" the concept of monsters that you can collect and thus any similarities in design are just down to coincidence. Like, the sentiment that Palworld is both satire of Pokemon AND also isn't actually ripping it off in any way is the prevalent sentiment amongst people who want to dismiss even the idea of plagiarism.
If they were using publicly accessible art, such as images that could be found on say Google Images, as references that would be one thing. But Pokemon models are not publicly accessible. They cannot be viewed in the way in which they must have in order to be used as a reference. They have to be ripped from the games to do that and thus constitute a trade secret. Things like the Primarina hair could not be so closely replicated unless they were using the Pokemon model as viewed in Blender or the like as a reference.
Copyright law does not require that an entire product has to be clearly distinct. A portion of something, such as Primarina's hair component, can be an example of copyright infringement even if the whole creature it is a part of would not otherwise.
well, that's exactly why Palworld is the way it is. so it's not a stretch to say they did the same thing with Craftopia.
grow up, this is about much more than fanbases
It's not argument it's an empirical observation.
Thanks for the insult. Your assertion without evidence has been noted.
Okay well that's just dumb because it's obvious that they did and that the whole schtick of the game is "Pokemon with huns".
The whole design style is deliberately Pokemon like.
If this was any other company people wouldn't even talk about it. Literally. This is big cause it's selling big and cause pokemon fans be angry. Most other knockoffs do not create the fervor which if it was based on principle and not specific IP I feel shouldn't be the case.
'Crowsworn' Kickstarter Anniversary Trailer Released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OcEQfCABrM&ab_channel=MongooseRodeo New trailer for the 1 year anniversary of the game's Kickstarter campaign. There should also be a boss-fight demo (no embargo on it) sent to backers at the "Curious Bird" tier along with more screenshots coming in a...
Crowsworn was honest day one where its inspiration came from and Team Cherry themselves voiced their support.
Honestly, whilst I'm sure some small part of the debate against Palworld is pure tribalism, the vast majority of arguments I've seen are based in ethical concerns, and/or concerns over how this might affect art in the future. Plagiarism is almost always being used in the academic sense, and not the copyright law one, and very few seem to be hating on Palworld just because it's a competitor to Pokemon. Meanwhile, I have seen so - so many arguments for Palworld that basically just boil down to some weird crusade people have against Nintendo, Game Freak, Games Journalists, AAA developers, or whoever else they want to shit on that moment. Ones that are inherently disingenious in nature and can be completely broken down with even the slightest, slightest glance.
This whole thing reminds me of the BG3 'developers are panicking' controversy last year. Albeit, in that one, the game itself had really nothing to do with it. One side was making clear, concise arguments that - whilst requiring some level of knowledge of stuff like 'the difference between private and public companies' - were fairly easy to understand. The other side, because the situation had been deemed as an attack against 'them', completely blew the whole argument up, to a degree where IGN itself was collating arguments made by tiny indie dev Xalavier Nelson Jr., with actions made by EA and Activision. That's not to mention the continued weirdness that is the whole "too much water," thing lol.
Any which way, the only group that will genuinely be hurt by any of this isn't Nintendo, or TPC, or PocketPair... it's artists. Massive gaming companies aren't going to suddenly bring in a new gaming renaissance because of this; they'll be seeing the gaming community's widespread mass-approval of incredibly derivative art, and see that as market proof that they should be pursuing such ventures as well.
Whatever you say about how tribalistic or whatever this whole argument is, this is just another example of gamers keep trying to beat capitalism at its own game. Something which - time after time - has been proven to never, ever work. Not like other methods work either since we live in a hellhole where nothing ever gets better, but that's beside the point.
Yep. It's been a while since hbomberguy's video on plagiarism on Youtube - one that did all the possible work a lawyer could want to confirm direct plagiarism - and no lawsuits have been filed, judgements made, or people indicted. Even when one of the people involved within the video was plagiarising Netflix of all companies. The only direct action taken has been the action taken by hbomerguy himself by donating ad revenue to the creators affected. If "it's legal so it doesn't matter," was a genuine argument, instead of simply a lazy first line of defence, then there would be literally no point to his video.
that artist has a bigger point that you missed. Art comes in different mediums.
Inspired art of a thing can be fan art, its dubious but generally fine since fan art leads to more fan interaction of a show/game/media and is on a small scale (digital or physical one offs not mass produced)
A game inspired from another game doing the same thing is a ripoff or copy right infringement because its the copy of something in the same medium and scale of the original and meant to make a profit/become a business
If this was any other company people wouldn't even talk about it. Literally. This is big cause it's selling big and cause pokemon fans be angry. Most other knockoffs do not create the fervor which if it was based on principle and not specific IP I feel shouldn't be the case.
'Crowsworn' Kickstarter Anniversary Trailer Released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OcEQfCABrM&ab_channel=MongooseRodeo New trailer for the 1 year anniversary of the game's Kickstarter campaign. There should also be a boss-fight demo (no embargo on it) sent to backers at the "Curious Bird" tier along with more screenshots coming in a...
There's not as much discussion because no one in the thread is going "nuh-unh, his head is different, it's not plagiarism. Only so many ways you can depict shadows, bro". Everyone seems to acknowledge that it's a copy, and that sucks ass, too. Plagiarism sucks no matter who the target is. That's the point we're trying to make. This one just has more discussion because people are disingenuously arguing that it's not plagiarism because they NEED this game to succeed.
Edit: Though according to posts above me, the HK-clone dev has official support and blessing so whatever
That's certainly the natural reading of what I said - and why I found it uncomfortable - which is why I was trying to rack my brain to think of an alternative interpretation that gives them the benefit of the doubt - I kinda think *that*, more than Palworld itself, speaks for the intent behind the design philosophy, and if there is no benefit-of-the-doubt alternative interpration, it doesn't cast the devs in a favourable light.
That is cool context. But I'm not contesting the ethical here. I was arguing against people asserting that the strong reactions to palworld specifically positive or negative are because of it's quality which I just do not see that being the main reason. Whereas it seems much more observable that a huge chunk of the fervor is deeply rooted in the whole pokemon/anti pokemon thing positive and negative.
You do not see as strong a reaction to other knockoffs at large.
?? You think this is some weird gotcha? Like yes Palworld fans are also angry is also an empirical observation that is 100 correct.
But I would also say/add in the context of a game that has been out for not even a week(so I would have doubts about how deep a fan you can become in that short of a time for only palworld) it would also be fair to note that in this case the Palworld fan is probably in large part also a Pokemon antifan. Hence as I said this entire fervor is rooted in the tribalistic bullshit of that fanbase.
Like I dunno what argument you're trying to have dude.
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Lowkey, this post gave me an actual headache. Please like, actually read the thread
"The person who made the viral thread comparing the Palworld models to Pokémon has admitted that they fabricated the results and manually scaled the models to make them look similar."
That's not what that means at all, models being scaled differently in modeling software is not in any way an example of fabrication. This has been debunked earlier in the thread. PokemonCentro is a well established bs leaker in the Pokemon world and has no credibility.
There is absolutely no sign that anything in Lies of P was copied from any game, mechanically or aesthetically.
If this is true, goddamn the Pokémon fanbase is truly going hard for the Most Embarrassing Fanbase(tm) trophy this year.
Edit: Well, they continue to follow Centro Leaks, that's embarrassing enough.
This was posted several times a few pages ago and it doesn't count for anything. Scaling is incredibly easy to do to an existing model
Seriously, anyone who believes that has never touched modeling software in their life
I think it's utterly fascinating how quickly Palworld defenders like to think they're anti-misinformation by shutting down people using misinformation.
AFAIK it isn't, they said they scaled to match the sizes of the models.
Several pages have passed since it first showed up here so fair you haven't seen the discourse there, but that was debunked hours ago.
Come on. Think about it for a minute. If I copy Mario but make him 10x as large, that doesn't mean I haven't copied Mario, lol.
Of course you would change the scale of models to compare them to show similarities and differences!
Guys, is it still plagiarism if I up the font size? Asking for my friend James
bro is using misinfo to counter misinfo we live in a society
lmao
brb gonna draw a very large scale pikachu and sell it for money because that's not plagiarism apparently
only if you have no idea what's being debated here
which is a lot of people here who keep posting that
only if you have no idea what's being debated here
which is a lot of people here who keep posting that
This was already debunked, they scaled them to match size(on all axis) not like adjusting one to match, and then adjusting another to match.
I like that you've come to the incredible conclusion that people are far more likely to talk about a much bigger studio and company being involved with plagiarism incidents than a smaller indie dev that flew under the radar. Stellar conclusionsIf this was any other company people wouldn't even talk about it. Literally. This is big cause it's selling big and cause pokemon fans be angry. Most other knockoffs do not create the fervor which if it was based on principle and not specific IP I feel shouldn't be the case.
'Crowsworn' Kickstarter Anniversary Trailer Released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OcEQfCABrM&ab_channel=MongooseRodeo New trailer for the 1 year anniversary of the game's Kickstarter campaign. There should also be a boss-fight demo (no embargo on it) sent to backers at the "Curious Bird" tier along with more screenshots coming in a...
No he didn't. Did y'all actually read those screenshots?
Literally the problem. People are going to choose whatever information supports their views and take that as fact - there is no critical thinking at all about whether or not the source they're quoting is reliable or not.