As you may recall, there was a development that shook the gaming world recently and Nintendo sued Palworld producer Pocketpair for infringement of Pokemon GO copyrights. Pocketpair responded to Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit yesterday with an official statement.
Palworld producer is not backing down!
The Tokyo-based independent game company released a statement on its social media accounts and official website following the news of the lawsuit, stating that they have not yet been informed about which patents they have infringed.
Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe said in an official statement, ‘Yesterday we learnt that a patent infringement lawsuit was filed against our company. We will initiate the legal process and investigate the allegations. At the moment, we do not know which patents we are alleged to have violated and we have not yet been informed about this issue.’
The company expressed its regret that it will have to devote its resources to fighting the lawsuit instead of developing games after this unexpected development. However, Pocketpair emphasised that it will fight this battle on behalf of Palworld fans and that independent game developers should not be prevented from pursuing their creative ideas.
Pocketpair apologised to fans for the developments and emphasised that they will continue to develop Palworld and strive to create a game that players can be proud of. Meanwhile, the PS5 version of the game is expected to be officially announced very soon.
This lawsuit, which made a big impact in the gaming world, brought the power imbalance between independent developers and big companies and the debate on where the boundaries of creativity should be drawn back to the agenda. The course of the case will be followed with curiosity in the coming days. However, considering Nintendo’s ruthlessness in these cases, it seems unlikely that the outcome will be in favour of Pocketpair.