Palworld’s astonishing success swelled over the weekend, with the ‘Pokémon with guns’ survival and crafting game shooting up Steam’s most-played games list and selling millions more copies.
I looked up a video showing some model proportion comparisons. Yeah they do look to be pretty similar, but I guess it just comes down to: Where do you draw the line between copyright infringement and fair use? Like obviously palette swapping a squirtle to be red and making him a fire type is probably illegal? But if you take the squirtle model, change him to be all fuzzy, with a spiky shell, different eyes, etc to the point where the model meshing is no longer the same… is that really infringement?
I don’t know myself, and will leave it up to TPC to figure it out, but it doesn’t really bother me one bit either way.
I mean, the problematic part here is that they take the model in the first place, or at least that all signs point to that being the case. Sure, you can coldsteel the hell out of an existing character, but if you’re using an asset you didn’t develop and didn’t license to make a product that you then sell for money, no matter how different the end result looks from the original, that is absolutely infringement. It’s infringement that might have gone unnoticed had the models been more sufficiently edited, but at the end of the day it’s the theft of someone else’s labor.
I don’t know if that’s what happened here, but when the industry professionals say it’s hard to get model proportions that close even moving the same asset into a different engine, and the whole roster is uncannily similar? If it looks like a duck…
That’s interesting, but it’s ultimately not up to the artists.
The creators lawyers felt comfortable that they are in the clear. I don’t think that will stop Nintendo from burying them in litigation but I’d say if the lawyers are willing to say that then the assets are likely created in house.
The idea that the assets were stolen was the comment I replied to.
There are artists who disagree. They’re saying the proportions are identical to models used in Pokemon Violet/Scarlet.
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/palworld-pokemon-plagiarism-accusations-pile-up-as-ceo-responds/
I looked up a video showing some model proportion comparisons. Yeah they do look to be pretty similar, but I guess it just comes down to: Where do you draw the line between copyright infringement and fair use? Like obviously palette swapping a squirtle to be red and making him a fire type is probably illegal? But if you take the squirtle model, change him to be all fuzzy, with a spiky shell, different eyes, etc to the point where the model meshing is no longer the same… is that really infringement?
I don’t know myself, and will leave it up to TPC to figure it out, but it doesn’t really bother me one bit either way.
I mean, the problematic part here is that they take the model in the first place, or at least that all signs point to that being the case. Sure, you can coldsteel the hell out of an existing character, but if you’re using an asset you didn’t develop and didn’t license to make a product that you then sell for money, no matter how different the end result looks from the original, that is absolutely infringement. It’s infringement that might have gone unnoticed had the models been more sufficiently edited, but at the end of the day it’s the theft of someone else’s labor.
I don’t know if that’s what happened here, but when the industry professionals say it’s hard to get model proportions that close even moving the same asset into a different engine, and the whole roster is uncannily similar? If it looks like a duck…
None of the assents are from pokemon, proportions don’t even get close to indicating that.
That’s interesting, but it’s ultimately not up to the artists.
The creators lawyers felt comfortable that they are in the clear. I don’t think that will stop Nintendo from burying them in litigation but I’d say if the lawyers are willing to say that then the assets are likely created in house.
The idea that the assets were stolen was the comment I replied to.
Proportions do not constitute imitating a copyrighted character.
Everything Palworld does is legal, people who disagree don’t understand copyright law or what is protected.
You can argue with me if you want, but you’re wrong.