#pocketpair

[onemillionwordsofcrap]

Palworld developer is based though??? Assuming they're being honest about this (and I do recognize that there's room for doubt but just going off the information I have rn), the meteoric rise of a Japanese developer that specifically does not do crunch could end up being... kind of a big deal.

(Incidentally, seems like they're hiring, what with their sudden millions of dollars. Good opportunity for some of you technical types?)

[megamanofnumbers]

Pokemon fans are just mad that an actual indie company made a better Pokemon game than their fake indie company.

[micromanatea]

“I just want Nintendo to fail”

All of you palworld dickriders are making me so sad. It’s not about competition for Nintendo, it’s a matter of artistic integrity. The ceo of pocketpair is not only a diehard crypto/ai shill, but the assets of palworld have been PROVEN to contain 1:1 copies of Pokémon geometry. [CORRECTION: they are NOT 1:1 rips. They ARE very close, however.]

I thought you people gave a shit about artists.

Where was the support for Casette Beasts? Monster Hunter stories? Digimon? Yokai Watch?

The second a game might seem fun, everyone forgets to stand on business. For shame.

[chrysanthemumsnow]

Let me dress him up please TAT

[morphydiurn]

Pyrin Noct 🌠

[neressma]

Palworld arguments and how to deconstruct them (+ common misconceptions)

Instead of making call-out posts targeting specific people like an SJW tumblrina in need of attention, I will provide general counter-arguments everybody can use within the Palworld discourse. I am sick and tired of AI-art getting normalized, this issue is getting out of hand and we must spread awareness for the sake of artists everywhere.

YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO EDUCATE PALWORLD DEFENDERS, BUT DON'T ATTACK THEM PLEASE!

Without further ado, here common arguments by Palworld fans and how you can deconstruct them.

1. "So you're defending a multibill. corp?!"

This is a common argument used by Palworld defenders. Within their narrative, Pokemon designs are a direct product of their Nintendo (the multibillion dollar company in question) and you're totally bootlicking them if you're pointing out the obvious plagiarism - as if the very heads of Nintendo were the ones creating the Pokemon designs... The truth, of course, is that individual artists provide these designs FOR Nintendo. Instead of "taking from the rich" like Palworld fans claim, their game actually steals from these artists. Hence, those who call out Palworld aren't die-hard Nintendo fans as much as they are people who simply call out plagiarism in defense of artists. I would even go as far as to add that people who defend PocketPair (the developers of Palworld) and those who buy the game just for the sake of controversy (yes, it's been done) are themselves adamant defenders of a corporation. Since they imagine others to be blindly defending Nintendo, it's bordering hypocrisy.

2. "It's not plagiarism"

If you show a Palworld defender one of Palworld's character designs and the Pokemon it's based on, they will in some cases start pointing out the differences between the two in order to claim there's no plagiarism involved. This is easy for them to do because the Palworld design you showed them isn't quite a rip-off of a Pokemon, no. It's actually the rip-off of TWO Pokemon. In fact, most Palworld designs tend to use the model of one Pokemon and some features of a other, along with some final alterations that are unique. Once you point this out, it's easy to notice on most if not nearly all Palworld designs. Here is an example that comes with a visual analysis, provided by @RaphDesLandes (a gamedev!) on X:

3. "There's no proof of PocketPair using AI!"

Not only is there proof of it, but that same proof shows that the devs run servers for AI programs, the same which they use for their game "AI Impostor", a game in which the core mechanic is the use of an AI-image generator. Here is the most flagrant example (I hid the developer's name because I'm not that kinda guy).

Of course, I don't blame people who didn't know this. It's far from being common knowledge amongst Palworld fans, after all. That's why it's important to spread the word though.

4. "Gamefreak should'a made better games!"

It's not a secret: Nintendo and GameFreak have been letting us down with the recent Pokemon games on the Nintendo Switch. From poor writing to bad graphics, many fans (myself included) are unsatisfied. Palworld players praise the games' quality, claiming that it's existance is justified by the fact it's programmed better than recent Pokemon games. While it's understandable that one would want to play games with superior programming, it doesn't justify plagiarism (they could've just made a Pokemon fangame or a mod), and, well... it's simply false and doesn't apply.

Here is a link to a tweet showing one of Palworld's game-breaking glitches.

Not only that, but Palworld is mostly made up of Unity Engine assets, and it's controls are wonky. They're reminiscent of Garry's mod, which came out in 2006, except Gmod is faster.

5. Bonuses

-evidence of PocketPair using Pokemon fans' art to model their characters after (post by @onion_mu on X)

-every Palworld-Pokemon lookalike (source unknown but reposted by @hejibits on X)

-and also: deconstructing the (partial) myth around Palworld's success on Steam

Lastly, it's important that I point this out, even if it's unrelated: Pocket Pair devs have received death threats. This is unacceptable. I encourage everyone reading this to create an online-environment where people discuss and debate with rationality, rather than such shameful behaviour. To me, people who send others death threats are no better than thieves, so please stay respectful!

Thank you for reading 🖤 Please let me know if the link on 4. doesn't work or the post got taken down!

[bluenightcomedies]

saw an interview with Palworld's dev where he insists that Palworld is actually supposed to be Dragon Quest Monsters meets Ark: Survival Evolved and the pokemon/BOTW likeliness is a complete coincidence which ngl is even funnier to me cuz imagine trying to be a knockoff of a lesser-known game series and trying to not look too similar... only to accidentally look like a knockoff of the much more well-known game series instead⭐ EDIT: Alright that's it, I'm turning reblogs off. This post was prodding fun at the rhetoric, not defending it to any degree, nor do we want to participate in this pathetic clout-chasing routine.🌙

[chase-omega]

There are 2 ways to play Palworld…

[kirambo]

I have been playing Palworld a lot!

[archonfurina]

Palworld: Rayne Syndicate Boss Zoe

[joreeroj]

[lllllllllllines]

(I urge that you read this to the end, as I know some of you will take pieces of what is said here and use it as ammunition for more drama. I can't really do tl;dr because i feel like it would ruin a lot of my points)

I don't usually like to deal with drama or discourse in general leaves a bad but I feel like this needs to be said.

This discourse is stupid, a lot of different points on either side due to several reasons at least in my opinion.

Ive seen many people who were against palworld use claims for stolen designs, mentions of AI art as well as lots of people either acting in defense of game freak/TPC/Nintendo as well as some acting in defense of artistic integrity.

I've seen the people who were for the game act in one singular way while just trying to have fun with it(which i cannot deny, it looks fun as fuck).

This being them claiming that they are just kissing the boots of Nintendo, though i don't think its quite fair to put them in the same category.

Just have fun with the game, no need to engage with the hate if you don't want to(even though i know it's difficult, especially when it's staring you in the face).

For those who are for, I only have a couple things to say.

Companies are not faceless entities, I know that this sounds like basic knowledge but I've noticed that's not something people usually mention.

Not everyone who attacks this game, cares for pokemon. Im gonna go in more depth when i get to them, but i feel like this needs be said.

While there are many good things on the internet, the internet as a whole, especially nowadays, is chaos and pain.

So many different opinions, leading to low self-esteem and rage.

You just want to have fun, you probably don't like pokemon, or if you do, you probably don't like what they've been doing with it.

You've seen the early trailers and had a laugh, found out this year that it came out, sought it out be cause hey, could be a bit of a meme.

But soon you start to actually have fun with it and hope it succeeds, despite some of the designs not being totally original, and you don't care.

But soon, like usual, you find that there are people who dislike the game.

In the real world, it doesn't matter to you, it rolls off you like nothing, because you don't know them, maybe you get into a heated argument with a friend.

But as soon as you hit the internet, you feel as though people are personally attacking something you like, (emotions are hard to convey through text) so you defend.

Not really caring about how it sounds to those you desperately fight against.

But in the end that's just adding fuel to the flame.

(though I can say that this discourse is great publicity for the game, good or bad it still lets people know that it exists.)

So just have fun with it.

(Unless dealing with discourse like this is fun for you idk)

For those who are against,

I am first going to speak to those who seem to want to defend Game Freak/TPC/Nintendo and those who speak for artistic integrity.

Why do any of your thoughts matter when it comes to a company.

as I had stated earlier, people usually associate companies and conglomerates as faceless entities.

They don't see them like systems, heavily broken systems, like if a beehive were born from an unloving tyrannical queen.

The ones at the top exist to fill their pockets while those at the bottom suffer for it.

I bet around half of the people speaking of artistic integrity don't really know the names of the designers of each pokemon(and to those who do, I'm glad, cause then I know you know what you're talking about.)

I feel as though speaking of artistic integrity only works when you're talking about an individual.

Which means, by extension, that a company like Nintendo, or the other two companies that own or work on the ip, those that see only the product and the work.

To them, artistic integrity is dead.

Why else would the shoot down fan works so heavily?

To keep their product close to the chest.

But what about the claims that they stole from fakemon artists?

To my knowledge, (please let me know if im wrong) there has only been one claim of such a thing, and it was soon taken back as they soon found out that the palworld model was older than their's.

Which im pretty sure proves that claim false.

And to the people who are against AI art, don't get me wrong, I hate the idea as much as you do.

But AI image generation like many things is a tool.

And if used properly, tools can be useful.

like say for example, you have an idea you want to draw, but you can't fully figure it out in your head.

There are no pictures that fully convey what ur thinking in the depth you want for a reference, you could use an image generator for reference.

Add to an image in your own way, while removing the parts that were taken by the algorithm.

Be creative.

When tools are used properly, they can do a lot of good things.

The reason people hate AI art, is because people are being stupid and lazy with it.

Hell, i think pocketpair realized their mistake a long time ago as not only has that game been absolutely shat on in the steam reviews, but you cant even find it on their website, or at least i haven't.

Lastly, I'm gonna show you a trailer for a game pocketpair is also making, it should be coming put Q1 this year.

A game I have not heard mentioned this whole discourse.

As an honest question, what part of this looks AI generated to you?

Its a 2D sidescrolling platformer, said to be a mix of a metroidvania and a roguelite, also with base building elements since that seems to be a commonality for them.

The only things i could see that were taken or inspired by are the backgrounds, which feel very hollow knight, and the main mechanic being a possession mechanic which loosely reminded me of super mario Odyssey.

I've seen AI 2D animation, and it's usually pretty jarring due to how quickly everything warps and changes as things move.

I don't see that in this.

Nor do i recognize any of the monster or character designs.

I could be wrong and both palworld and never grave could be scams, seeing as both are in early access.

And if or when i am, then that's egg on my face.

Those that were all happy to play a new and exciting game, will seeth and mald.

And you can live happily, i guess.

But it at least shows they know some integrity.

I mean, as long as they make any of the new pals that come out more original than the 111 that they have now, we should be fine.

The only time we should be outraged, is if there is sort of harm coming to the workers, and I don't think I've heard any news on that.

If it bothers you that much, make your own game.

Actively do something about it rather than complain on the internet.

Like, I can't even imagine how difficult that is.

Especially for a smaller company.

Pokemon has it easy, It doesn't need defense.

Defend it from itself before defending it from others.

Stop paying for shit that doesn't work out the gate.

Do something to force the people making the bad game to do better.

And stop trying to shit on the little guy for your own ideals.

Criticism is fine, yelling over a game on the internet is not.

Not by a long shot.

But hey I don't think anyone is gonna read this.

Much less to the end.

Because I've scrolled passed shorter posts for less.

[ribstongrowback]

i think the palworld thing is really interesting- because so far, there's no proof that the company used AI to make their mons

the real reason everyone is up in arms is because of the plagiarism thing, and like, idk, genuinely, do we care?

like does it matter?

it's game freak, they'll walk it off. people who like pokemons like them mostly out of brand loyalty. they like pokemons because they're pokemons, they don't just like cute monsters.

i'm sorry but i think it's fine if you want to make a game where legally distinct pikachu kills people with a 1911. i don't actually give a shit. like litterally why are we defending Pokemons, they're fine, they can shoot lasers and whatnot.

plagiarism matters when people are harmed. game freak is not people, and frankly, I don't think any of this will harm them.

one thing you can and should call palworld, however, is derivative. it lacks any sort of imagination. wether AI or not was used matters little: it's definitely just trying to make Content with a snappy concept and that's it. it's not worth your time not because of the tools that MIGHT have been used to make it, but because even if each of these mons had been painstakingly designed by hand with a graphite pencil, they'd still just be trying to ape pokemons. the intent would be the same regardless.

Pocketpair isn't the next Sommerton.

[flibbleynova]

Lamball

[ultravioart]

Oh God damn it.

Please boycott Palworld, apparently Pocketpair (devs of Palworld) a few years ago(?) made a party game that hosted a generative ai art model. Fuck that. Those models (Stable diffusion, etc) are created by abusing workers, and use unethical openweb datasets (private medical data, NSFL material, copyrighted material etc all gets used in openweb datasets).

I instantly drop any series that flirts with ai. Why twitter.com waited until Palworld's release to post about the past ai bs is beyond me, I would have liked to know that before purchasing. :/ Palworld was announced YEARS ago.

I had honestly thought Craftopia was the first game Pocketpair released because the YouTube videos I had watched of playthroughs had said it was thier first game release???

And I thought generative ai models were not allowed on steam?!?! apparently Steam changed the rules to allow generative ai models/assets in games, but only if they are tagged as using ai. Ugh. Way to worsen literacy of what ai actually means! (Populating a forest with randomized trees in a video game uses generative ai, but not the unethical kind. Same premise can be done with buildings, etc.)

Sigh. Lesson learned. :( Be sure to dig up the game dev before purchasing. This is so disappointing, I wish I could refund Palworld.

Palworld as is at launch does not seem to use any ai generated art. Generative ai that produce 3d models from text prompts are no where near the quality of the creature models, so it seems all models and animations have been done by hand at least. But with the dev's past history I am very concerned that Pocketpair may incorporate ai or worse, NFTs, into Palworld or future games. :(

So yeah, please don't financially support Palworld. I don't trust Pocketpair.

[morphydiurn]

Kitsun.