Palworld vs. Pokémon: Nintendo’s Lawsuit
Image: Pocketpair
When Nintendo filed a patent lawsuit against Pocketpair, the developers of Palworld, many were struck by the resemblance between the two games, drawing parallels to Pokémon. However, John Buckley, the global community manager at Pocketpair, revealed that the entire team was taken aback by the legal action. Speaking at a GDC 2025 event in San Francisco, Buckley described the mood at Pocketpair as “a very depressing day”.
“We did legal checks before Palworld released and they were all cleared in Japan. So obviously when the lawsuit was announced we were like, ‘What?’ And we went back to the lawyers, and the lawyers contacted the courts and asked, ‘What’s going on?’ and that’s when we realized it was patents they were going for.
“Pretty much everyone at Pocketpair is a huge fan, so it was a very depressing day, everyone heads down and walking in the rain. It changed a lot of things for us. We were just about to release the PlayStation version, we were just about to go to Tokyo Game Show, so obviously we had to scale back a little bit and hire security guards and stuff like that.”
The lawsuit, which accuses Pocketpair of infringing on multiple patents related to mechanics found in Pokémon, is currently ongoing. An analyst has characterized the situation as “a clear case of bullying”, suggesting that Nintendo is using the patent system against a successful but smaller company. In response to the lawsuit, Pocketpair affirmed their commitment to supporting their fans and encouraging indie game developers to pursue their creative visions.