For everyone’s edification, Geigner’s take on Techdirt. I suspect this won’t be the last TD article on this trainwreck-in-the-making.
“Multiple patents”
Specifies none
Off to a great start, I see. I know that actual game mechanics cannot be patented or copyrighted (the same principle applies to non digital games), so I’m really curious to what these patents are.
“Method for releasing 927 iterations of the same stale game across multiple platform generations.”
It can’t possibly be for “Method of splitting one complete game into two mutually exclusive cartridges with separate rosters to entice whales to buy two copies,” because if it were they’d have already sued Capcom 15 years ago.
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Game mechanics can be patented. It’s stupid, but things such as “loading screen mini games” and “overhead arrows pointing to your objective” have been patented. The second I believe even got enforced once.
I think these kind of things have been getting approved less and less, but I wouldn’t be surprised if “balls that contain monsters” was patented back in the early days too.
The game during loading screen isn’t a “game mechanic” per se, which is why I think it was patented back then. Completely ass backwards that it could be patented, but there’s that.
As for the overhead arrow for navigation, I wasn’t aware of that one. Was that from EA? I think it can be argued that’s not a “game mechanic” either, because it’s not “an essential component of the game”
It was crazy taxi and no other game could use the mechanic. And telling you where to go is pretty darn important to a lot of games
Interesting… The Wikipedia page for Crazy Taxi talks about their lawsuit with Simpsons Road Rage in 2001, for using the overhead arrow among other complaints. But makes no mention at all of Midnight Club, who by 2005 when I got Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition was using that same overhead arrow for in-race directions. I don’t see screenshots of Midnight Club 1 or 2 having the arrow but I can guarantee from personal experience that MC3:DUB did have them. I wonder what happened in those four years that made Rockstar not afraid to use that mechanic, especially as this section on the Crazy Taxi page states
The case, Sega of America, Inc. v. Fox Interactive, et al., was settled in private for an unknown amount. The 138 patent is considered to be one of the most important patents in video game development.
Someone linked a list of all the patents Pokemon Company specifically holds and the very first one was “creature breeding based on good sleep habits.”
- How does that even get a patent?
- What the fuck iteration of Pokemon requires you to have good sleep habits to breed your pokemon? 🤨
- Does it actually help you sleep? 🤔 I might need to start breeding pokemon…
I know for sure that palworld does not promote good sleeping habits in any shape or form, at least not to my addicted ass
Pokemon Sleep, sleep tracking app
It’s real, folks.
Breed me, daddy.
You’ve mixed copyright and patents together and confused yourself a bit. Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted, but they can be patented. Some game component designs can be copyrighted as well, and even trademarked.
There are many, many, many game mechanics and features which have been patented, such as in-game chat, minigames on loading screens, arrow pointing to destination, and so on. Game studios have to license those features from the patent holders if they wish to use them.
Some random company even owns a patent for the concept of sending and receiving email on a mobile device. The entire system is a fucking joke.
There is an era of patents from the late 90s through the early-mid-00s that were insanely vague and rarely stand up to scrutiny, but most are expiring at this point, if they haven’t already. Generally, though, patents are not granted on “concepts” but on implementations. That’s a sometimes ambiguous line, but that’s a fundamental principle of modern patents.
Pocketpair is a Japanese company too right? That doesn’t bode well, Japan has some shit laws for defending these sorts of lawsuits. I really like palworld, and don’t want it to go away. Fuck Nintendo.
Patenting vague game mechanics is egregious. This would be like Insomniac patenting “character runs around with a big gun” and subsequently filing a lawsuit against Nintendo for Splatoon, because both Ratchet and the Inklings run around with big guns.
Patenting things like this that are obviously unpatentable ideas rather than actual inventions is unfortunately a necessity for defensive purposes in a world where companies will do anything in order to kill competition except risk competing with them since that isn’t guaranteed by throwing money at it. Enforcing a bunch of patents against a company with fewer liquid assets is a guaranteed way to beat a competitor with money alone since winning the suit isn’t the goal, only draining the assets of the competitor. Sucks that this is considered a valid business practice now.
>Open Thread >People shitting on Nintendo, because fuck Nintendo >Nobody actually looked at the 1:1 model comparisons >Nobody actually looked into PocketPair as a company Jeez. I thought we were better then Reddit.That being said, I don’t like Nintendo & their Ninjas, but PocketPair is not innocent here.
This is not their only ripoff. For their next project, they choose to ripoff Hollow Knight. (At least they are consistent I guess?).
They also abandoned an unfinished early access game (This game is 4 years into Early Access).
Their CEO is also a crypto bro and said himself that he does not necessarily care about originality, if it means, that he can reach more people (and by extension earn more money).
Just to name a few.
Didn’t the guy who originally posted the “1:1 model comparisons” later admit that he stretched and scaled the models to fit better?
It’s derivative, but not a ripoff.
My opinion for what it’s worth is generally no one is going to not play hollow knight because they are playing the ripoff. You can’t own a style or game genre if someone has a similar look and feel there’s not much you can do about it than have a better game.
Good. Kick Nintendo in the dick.
Welp, I had no plans of buying Palworld. I’ve been playing Enshrouded instead. But I’ll be picking it up now. Screw you Nintendo and your anticompetitive ways.
Thank you for reminding me about Enshrouded. I started playing that a few months ago, but a week into it my gamer friends wanted to start a new Valheim playthrough, and that was that. I should revisit it though
If I didn’t have friends who need so much financial help, I’d buy it too.
Palworld is a lot of fun you won’t regret it
Palworld has to be the most addicted I’ve ever been to a game in years, and that was back at launch in January. I’m not going to spoil anything, but they’ve added a ton of new things since!
Please hurt them.
Nintendo is straight up evil.
Seeing a lot of comments on here and it just reminds me of what I have been telling my friends since day one.
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PalWorld is a threat to Pokemon. It has potential to crown Pokemon in a different way and really compete. Nintendo will 100% find a way. I told them and told them. I said the same thing on Reddit. Sure enough, downvoted.
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I love Pokemon, I love Zelda, and Mario but I absolutely love competition. There is no way a billion dollar franchise, multi level marketing, insanept popular game series is going to let something come along and compete against it. If you haven’t watched The Boys on Amazon you are missing out. One of the most redeeming characters, IMO, says it best in two sentences in the boys in one whole episode and it is the premise of everything. "You don’t get it do you? You don’t mess with the money.
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I love seeing games come along and bring something new to the table because it should drive Nintendo to do better for GameFreak to do better. I liked PalWorld and welcomed it as someone who loves Pokemon. While PalWorld didn’t maintain my interest its because Pokemon just does something for me PalWorld doesn’t. However, that being said I have found my self turned away from Pokemon since Gen 7 and 8 semi redeemed 7 and 9 is just sad (performance wise). I have found my self playing the hell out of tjr classic Pokémon games. Point being I welcomed PalWorld in hopes that it would light a fire under Nintendo’s ass to develop a really good next gen Pokemon game. It was wishful thinking though. Nintendo is a “don’t mess with the money” company and that is all it is. Fuck Nintendo. PalWorld was good for the game industry. What Nintendo is going to try to set precedence on is that you can own an idea a simple concept.
I have been telling my friends for literal fucking years and for some reason they just swing the bat for Nintendo. Nintendo makes some great games but holy fuck they are a shit company. They just are. I told them over and over this was coming Nintendo would find something and now here we are.
I sent this too them and they all got silent. They genuinely believed Nintendo couldn’t and wouldn’t.
Well arguably they can’t legally but… Bludgeoning people with lawyers regardless of legality is pretty standard big business behaviour
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You know Nintendo is just weird.
They file a patent lawsuit against an indie game, just because someone finally got popular. But why don’t thay sue digimon or blue dragon, and while their at it, howtotrain a dragon while their at it.
This whole thing is just weird.
The really odd but is being unaware of which patents they’re allegedly infringing on
That should be part of the filing shouldn’t it?
Also are they going to sue Square Enix for Dragon Quest Monsters while they’re at it?
“I’m suing you!”
“What for?”
“It’s a surprise 🎉🥳🎊”
Maybe.
Well, they waited for Pocketpair to become big enough to give them money, and not too big to risk losing against them.
Oh shit here we go again with your rectangle looks too much like my rectangle.
Oh no, they actually made a good rectangle, our rectangle is cheap and boring. Instead of making an effort, we sue their rectangle
I mean, Nintendo isn’t typically the bad guy though, right? And palworld is a pretty clear like 1:1 rip, so…
I mean, good to challenge the “big” guy generally, but wrong target here specifically and weak case, right?
Kick his ass Pocketpair
I’ve never been interested in Palworld, and I certainly don’t intend to play it, but I’ll probably buy it today.
Because fuck Nintendo.
Same wasn’t even thinking about this game. But now I got to have it. Fuck Nintendo. Never buying a new game from them every again. They should be sued into bankruptcy.
Same.
It’s clunky and the novelty wears off quickly, but it was worth a play.
Yeah, waiting for them to put out a few more updates and maybe I’ll try again: they’ve fixed a good chunk of some stuff recently. It’s still not there as a completed game for what it wants to be, but it’s okay as a cooperative PvE survival/monster collector.
Haven’t played since they added the island as more levels, so this may be an old opinion: Theres just no real end game past get a cool base. Dungeons are pretty moot at that point, the raid boss just blows up the whole base for some rewards which isn’t worth it unless you have an empty base to summon shit, and the tower bosses and lvl 50 bosses weren’t a bad challenge but that was about it. After you’ve killed those once there’s not much to do. I guess farm them for very specific drops… to be stronger so you can… idk do nothing else….
But again, I haven’t played since they added the island and higher levels so maybe it’s a bit better in that regard now?
It’s pretty much the same thing, but with a longer grind towards the final levels. Legendary bosses (jetragon, frostallion, centaur knights) were bumped to lvl 55, there’s a couple of “alien” pals from semi random, timed events (meteorites), and a “final” dungeon as an offshore oil rig, which is filled with max level syndicate goons that can kill you really fast, but there are many places you can stay where their AI will effectively break. The game crashing while you’re there is a much, much worse enemy
The core game loop is better than any of the pokemon games though.
I am curious as to why they took so long though. Were they waiting until the hype died down so it didn’t look malicious?
It’s clunky and the novelty wears off quickly
Referring to all Nintendo games.
Dunno man, it is possible to accept they make good games while still condemning their corporate bs…
But… they don’t. Their games are old the minute they’re released. Sure they have enough bare minimum charm to wow the masses, but when you truly take a skeptical and honest eye to them compared to many other games, you realize how lazy they are with the copy/paste approach most of the time, inability to add basic common niceties of modern gaming, and generally lacking worlds that feel unfinished.
If it weren’t for the IP name recognition, most of their games would be panned as meh.
I maintain a stance that the only reason they’re still around is because of brand recognition. Literally the only reason I could think of anyone liking their slop.
They make some good games. They also sling out a bunch of crap and repeatedly rerelease games at full price.
Yeah, games like Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart, Luigi’s Mansion, etc. are fun as hell and very polished. I can’t think of a single first-party Nintendo game that’s released riddled with bugs in recent memory, whereas the rest of the industry can’t say the same, excepting Sony’s first-party games.
I can’t think of a single first-party Nintendo game that’s released riddled with bugs in recent memory
Literally Pokémon. SwSh, SV and BDSP are all a bug-ridden mess. You will probably find more bugs playing SV for an hour than in all gen 3-6 games together.
Although yeah, it’s a (huge) anomaly and the rest of the first-party games are extremely polished. It just sucks to be a Pokémon fan in the 2020s.
I don’t think Pokemon is first-party since that IP and the dev studios fall under The Pokemon Company, whereas games like Mario and Zelda are developed by studios within Nintendo itself. I could be wrong.
If they ain’t first party, they’re certainly close enough that you couldn’t tell the difference.
It’s possible to acknowledge that yes but no they don’t make good games, just half-assed rehashed entries in the same 4 tired series they’ve been pumping games out of for decades
Hard disagree. I really enjoy a lot of Nintendo’s games, and will be buying Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom right around release. Some favorites:
- Smash Brothers
- Mario Kart
- Zelda - didn’t like BotW and didn’t get TotK, but I loved the Switch ports of Skyward Sword and Link’s Awakening
- Kirby
- Mario Party
- Super Mario 3D World
- Xenoblade Chronicles
My kids like Pokemon and my SO like Ring Fit, but I think that series is pretty boring. And here are some I haven’t played, but probably will:
- Astral Chain
- Switch Sports
- Luigi’s Mansion
- Paper Mario
- Metroid
- Pikmin
That said, I very much don’t like Nintendo as a company, especially its opposition to emulation. But I do like their first party titles, and they’re very polished at launch, unlike many other big studios.
Basically my stance. Do I like all the anti-competitive crap they pull? Absolutely not. But they do still make and/or publish most of my favorite franchises. This isn’t like, say, Microsoft or Google who bake their evil directly into their products.
Yeah, I was gonna say, Gen IX Pokémon looks like some of the clunkiest, most repetitive shit imaginable.
God, I wish Nintendo made the Pokemon games, because then they might actually not be ugly, terribly optimized garbage. Nintendo owns a minority share of The Pokemon Company, which is also owned by Game Freak and a company called Creatures. Each company takes care of different aspects of the franchise. Game Freak still does all the game development, and I wish they wouldn’t because they obviously don’t care about the franchise anymore and haven’t for quite a while.
The fact they put ILCA on BDSP (and how abysmally that turned out) was the nail in the coffin for me for trusting Pokémon games to be of any quality. SwSh was close, but that told me The Pokémon Company will pump out literally any dogshit they want and people will still buy it.
ILCA?
Developers put in charge of BDSP. Before Pokémon, their work was all extremely minor support for much bigger studios. So for example, if you’re a big AAA studio and you want to save on precious development time, you might contract out a dozen studios to do busywork, and one of those studios might be ILCA. For example, two people from ILCA are credited in Yakuza 0, but this is as “Casting Cooperation”. Their most major game they’d actually worked on themselves before this was Pokémon Home.
So essentially, you’re taking a small company where 95% of their existing work is as a supporting role to do relatively easy work for other major studios, and the other 5% is Pokémon Home, and you’re telling them “Okay, now remake Diamond and Pearl.”
It’s just like every other ‘sandbox’ game out there.
About the only substance is in the early game. Then there isnt much to do but grind out a checklist to collect everything.
It gets repetitive too fast.
Same. Does any Steamdecker know how well it works?
Low-medium settings with 45fps/90hz cap works well enough for me on the oled. Smooth except for in crowded bases
