Great piece! This game is all we've talked about at the game studio I work at this week. That and now Enshrouded. I've purposefully not shown my 8-year old son anything about Palworld because I'm actually timing how many days it takes for the hype to reach him and his school, resulting in him coming home and asking if he can play it. For Lego Fortnite's release it took about one week.
Other interesting thing is I showed my son the Enshrouded launch trailer last night and his reaction was: "So they copied Zelda and added base crafting? Cool! I'm in." I'm pretty sure we'll end up playing that together soon enough.
The comment "I got really excited when I found out you could ride the Pokémon, when I saw they had a saddle! That was my favorite part." is why Nintendo is going to come after this with its full arsenal of attorneys. This is damaging to the Pokemon brand. I don't think it will last long.
As for the game itself? I don't know too much about it honestly and I'm glad I follow people like you Patrick who are paid to keep on top of it. Thankfully my child isn't old enough for this yet, and I was just replaying Link to the Past on my Analogue Pocket last night so I might be too old to play this. Ha!
Thanks for covering this though. Glad to be informed about it. Crazy the numbers it has done already.
Watching the Palworld trailer, I too was struck by how, as always, our favorite verb is "shoot", even with realistic firearms at cartoon-cute critters, and that said cuties were literally on an assembly line making AK-47s.
But I recall that as a kid the meaning of these complex, weighty, "adult" imagery and motifs just breeze by like Rugrats jokes not aimed at me because I'm so enraptured by the core conceit, which is novel and engaging for a long time.
Is this okay? Hell if I know. Concerned, at least.
I wonder how much of the Palworld discourse was supercharged by hbomberguy's video last month. I'm getting tired of people calling *everything* "plagiarism" when it's clearly some other related concept.
That's an interesting point! I also think people have a personal affinity for Nintendo/Pokemon in way they absolutely do not with other games/companies.
Honestly, it reads closer to parody than plagiarism to me. Copyright law is such a mess though, partially cause of big companies like Disney doing their best to hold onto their ip indefinitely.
Kinda makes me sad. A lot of our greatest writers/artists and most important works borrowed liberally from what came before (Chaucer and Shakespeare come to mind easily, but it is a long tradition) but because of how tight copyright law is cool stuff that builds on the old has a lot less room to breathe.
I want the original copyright owners to get their bag, but I also think art/ entertainment thrives when it can be in more conversation with recent works.
Edit: blegh, this was supposed to be in reply to another post. Something messed it up though...
I'm genuinely confused that this forced labour discussion is happening? How many games have we had before where you have minions building and I've never heard this discourse before. You think the peasants in Age of Empires are getting a fair wage? Dungeon Keeper? Hell in Cult of the Lamb you outright torture some of the cutest animals ever (I'm so sorry Latchy).
I wonder how much of this is the unusual contrast between cute characters and realistic weaponry that makes it a stark contrast. You're certainly right that this isn't new to games generally.
Great piece! This game is all we've talked about at the game studio I work at this week. That and now Enshrouded. I've purposefully not shown my 8-year old son anything about Palworld because I'm actually timing how many days it takes for the hype to reach him and his school, resulting in him coming home and asking if he can play it. For Lego Fortnite's release it took about one week.
Other interesting thing is I showed my son the Enshrouded launch trailer last night and his reaction was: "So they copied Zelda and added base crafting? Cool! I'm in." I'm pretty sure we'll end up playing that together soon enough.
That reminds me that we need to get back around to trying LEGO Fortnite.
The comment "I got really excited when I found out you could ride the Pokémon, when I saw they had a saddle! That was my favorite part." is why Nintendo is going to come after this with its full arsenal of attorneys. This is damaging to the Pokemon brand. I don't think it will last long.
As for the game itself? I don't know too much about it honestly and I'm glad I follow people like you Patrick who are paid to keep on top of it. Thankfully my child isn't old enough for this yet, and I was just replaying Link to the Past on my Analogue Pocket last night so I might be too old to play this. Ha!
Thanks for covering this though. Glad to be informed about it. Crazy the numbers it has done already.
Thanks for reading!
Watching the Palworld trailer, I too was struck by how, as always, our favorite verb is "shoot", even with realistic firearms at cartoon-cute critters, and that said cuties were literally on an assembly line making AK-47s.
But I recall that as a kid the meaning of these complex, weighty, "adult" imagery and motifs just breeze by like Rugrats jokes not aimed at me because I'm so enraptured by the core conceit, which is novel and engaging for a long time.
Is this okay? Hell if I know. Concerned, at least.
I think two things are probably true: video games have too many guns, but mostly it's boring as a verb, rather than being a "problem" for kids.
I was really skeptical this was even a real game at first, arc survival with Pokémon is actually a neat concept now that we know it's legit.
Honestly I wonder if the devs will be tempted to smooth some of the edge (realistic looking guns, eating pals, catching trainers, etc.)
If the tone goes more for monster hunter vibes you could capture the kids while keeping the adults too
There's a lot of potential in the game. Whether it lives up to it...
I wonder how much of the Palworld discourse was supercharged by hbomberguy's video last month. I'm getting tired of people calling *everything* "plagiarism" when it's clearly some other related concept.
That's an interesting point! I also think people have a personal affinity for Nintendo/Pokemon in way they absolutely do not with other games/companies.
Honestly, it reads closer to parody than plagiarism to me. Copyright law is such a mess though, partially cause of big companies like Disney doing their best to hold onto their ip indefinitely.
Kinda makes me sad. A lot of our greatest writers/artists and most important works borrowed liberally from what came before (Chaucer and Shakespeare come to mind easily, but it is a long tradition) but because of how tight copyright law is cool stuff that builds on the old has a lot less room to breathe.
I want the original copyright owners to get their bag, but I also think art/ entertainment thrives when it can be in more conversation with recent works.
Edit: blegh, this was supposed to be in reply to another post. Something messed it up though...
I'm genuinely confused that this forced labour discussion is happening? How many games have we had before where you have minions building and I've never heard this discourse before. You think the peasants in Age of Empires are getting a fair wage? Dungeon Keeper? Hell in Cult of the Lamb you outright torture some of the cutest animals ever (I'm so sorry Latchy).
Haha, it's a fair point. I think it's the cute aesthetic that makes it stand out. I do not think most players care. They know it's a video game.
I wonder how much of this is the unusual contrast between cute characters and realistic weaponry that makes it a stark contrast. You're certainly right that this isn't new to games generally.