- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
With the implementation of Patch v0.5.5 this week, we must make yet another compromise. From this patch onward, gliding will be performed using a glider rather than with Pals. Pals in the player’s team will still provide passive buffs to gliding, but players will now need to have a glider in their inventory in order to glide.
How lame. Japan needs to fix its patent laws, it’s ridiculous Nintendo owns the simple concept of using an animal to fly.
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I wonder how much of this game they can force them to change. I know Steam has a 2 hour limit for returns but at what point does this game become “not the game I bought”?
Pretty much anything so long as Palworld doesn’t have 1.- a backbone and 2.- a dictionary at hand. Because it is as simple as finding a picture of any of a long list of animals that can glide, state the words “previous art” and they should be free from this ridiculous demand.
Mechanics that already exist in nature should not be copyrightable. Can you imagine if the first videogame company ever patented “character walking”?
they were pretty much in hotwater for copying pokemons likeness, they probably dint want to have more expensive legal and drawn out fight.
I mean, the game is in early access so if you bought it and are now complaining it changed… It’s a you problem, not something that should be refundable.
Nah, not complaining, idly wondering. I made my bed, I’ll sleep in it, I’m just wondering how far a game can go to change a game and still claim it’s the same game.
If anyone owes you money, it’s Nintendo. We should class action their asses.
Theseus’ Game
There’s and endless list of games people have complained about changing during early access. It’s a stupid idea. Don’t preorder games.
Yuuup, Palworld was a rare early access buy for me. Burned too many times but a sale burnt a hole in my pocket after holding off for years and I got curious, I knew what I was getting into haha
point does this game become “not the game I bought”?
Anytime you can’t access the version of a game you spent money on
I mean… Patents in general are bullshit just for things like this.
There’s a parasitic egg layer that uses leaves some get put into birds and then get shit out? Why isn’t Nintendo suing these insects for using birds to fly around?
Japanese ones are particularly worse. In the US a successful defense is prior art, there is no such defense in Japan.
Cowards, you haven’t lost a legal battle yet so what the fuck are you doing
Legal battles aren’t exactly cheap and they can drag on for years. Pocket Pair could end up bankrupt in the meantime from excessive legal costs, while Nintendo can keep that shit going for decades.
Since when is flying on a monster patentable. What a bunch of bullshit. Nintendo has really used up the last of any good will the company had. I will not be giving them a dime from here on out.
Yeah, Nintendo seems to think they are untouchable. They can do whatever, charge whatever, not even innovate anymore with the Switch 2, and attack fans. I’m done with Nintendo, the only way I’ll ever play any of their games is on the high seas.
This lawsuit is so stupid. In my opinion, patenting, copyrighting, or trademarking concepts or mechanics in video games shouldn’t be allowed at all. The nemesis system in the Shadow of Mordor games was so cool, but we’re never going to see anything like it again. Warner went through the trouble to copyright (or something idk I’m not a lawyer) that system, and then let the series die out.
I’m waiting to see the headlines that any other games with a shooty thing that goes bang is illegal, and the concept of shooting a gun in a video game is going to be owned by either Rockstar/Take Two or the collective mob of Call of Duty developers. If the world is gonna get that stupid, I got my fingers crossed that Bubsy 3D owns the rights to jumping
Edit: Thought about it for 10 more seconds and I have questions. Is it specifically gliding using a creature that Nintendo has a problem with, or is it creature-assisted traversal in general? Can they sue Skyrim since you can ride horses? Palworld made the change so that you need to build a glider to glide around. BOTW and TOTK used gliders. Is Nintendo gonna sue them for that now too? I fucking hate all of this so God damned much
Iirc sony has a patent on an input device having two separate data streams. It seems you write the most general thing you can on patents and patent offices don’t care
Amazon has a patent on the “one click purchase” button…
Unfortunately, at least in the US (and from the sound of it, probably Japan), the patent office has the viewpoint of ‘patent everything and let the courts sort them out.’ The courts, on the other hand, defer to the patent office because ‘it’s they’re job so they must know what they’re doing.’
patenting, copyrighting, or trademarking concepts or mechanics in video games shouldn’t be allowed at all
It’s not allowed at all in board games. There’s a known issue that someone could completly copy the mechanics of a board game, and as long as they don’t copy the art or the exact text of the rulebook there is no legal means to stop it.
Boardgamers are aware of this, and agree that it is better for development of future games than if someone could own the idea of “rolling a dice”, so if knockoffs do come around they tend to quickly get called out and not purchased.
I don’t know how videogames managed to get different rules.
That’s probably Richard Garfield’s fault for setting precedent with his collectable card game patent.
It’s the using a creature to glide that’s the specific problem this time. Not the “using a creature” per se, but “pressing a button to instantly summon a non-player-controlled game-creature to allow for gliding, which is instantly dismissed once the player touches the ground” or something like that in the patent
it’s even more stupid because that’s not how the mount works in Pokémon anyway
It’s how it works in Legends: Arceus, isn’t it?
As described in the patent, yes. You press one button, you start riding said mount. If it’s glider mount, it automatically changes to the stag once you touch the ground OR to the fish if you fall to the water.
Palworld never had this “automatic change from one mount to another”, at best it was the glider pals that you didn’t have to manually summon in order to glide and went away once you touched the ground or water. I’ve skimmed the patent a few times, but I don’t recall it having a case for going from creature-assisted-gliding to back on foot
Which is equally insane, no?
Yes, the more you read the patent the more you just want to grab whoever approved it and force them to explain how and why it deserved it, despite lots of prior implementations.
As far as I understand patent law, if nobody has actually patented something someone can just say “mine lol” and scoop up royalties and block shit for spite.
Introduce a .5 second delay before dismissing the creature upon touching the ground.
I’m unconvinced that the Nemesis system would have worked well in too many other settings, but one game patent that had a tangible effect on the industry was Bandai-Namco’s patent on loading screen mini games. Remember how you could make the Soul Calibur II characters yell stuff while the match loaded? Funny that we didn’t see it again until Street Fighter 6, isn’t it? Conveniently after a patent would have expired. We went through an entire era of games with load times that could have benefited from mini games, and by the time the patent expired, we had largely come up with ways to get rid of load screens altogether.
Well saying the nemesis system wouldn’t have worked well in other games is almost assuming that it wouldn’t be changed or evolved to fit other genres. People forget that the real damage some patents/copyrights do is not in their explicit existence, it’s the sphere of influence they exert on related concepts entirely. We weren’t just robbed of the nemesis system, we were robbed of anything even slightly resembling it.
And I feel like once you understand that you realize it can be adapted to greater things. Spider Man games could have used it. Assassins creed would have been an amazing place for experimentation with those ideas. Could be adapted to Star Wars games, dragons dogma, yakuza, borderlands. And it doesn’t need to be a central focus of these games like it was with the WB games. But even the concept of having enemies that kill you be leveled up in some way is now tainted.
Maybe it is a lack of imagination on my part, but that mechanic seems to rely heavily on characters that can be killed and come back to life with a vengeance on a regular basis, which I don’t think makes sense in any of the settings you listed except for Borderlands, with its New-U stations, funny enough. You could adapt it into something where both you and an enemy are defeated non-lethally, I suppose, but that’s a concept that strangely doesn’t have a common template in video games.
Spiderman and Batman are literally famous for not killing their enemies, so I think your first sentence is way more than a maybe.
Horizon Zero Dawn would have been awesome with a nemesis system, especially if it was applied to the robo-dinosaurs. You could have the in-universe justification that a particular robot uploads its consciousness upon death and downloads into a new body, and now it remembers how you killed it before and it will adapt accordingly. Start having epic robots that know you, and you have to keep an eye out for them, but also upon being destroyed they could dispense better scraps.
The tried to patent fucking MOUNTS. Someone get square and blizzard on the sue-train and ream Nintendo a new one.
Who the hell in their right mind would want to buy a switch after seeing this?
I won’t, unless I can buy one 2nd hand AND there’s a way to jailbreak it
All the nintendo boot licking neckbearded incels that you see defending the company like if its their own.
Even that group is a tiny minority. Most buyers are people who just want to play Nintendo games and don’t care about anything else.
Children will, from their parents who don’t see these articles or care, just that their kid is entertained… Don’t be an ass.
Lmao bro wut? The majority of gamers is in their 20s…found the neckbearded cheeto whose gonna boot lick for that switch 2 that’s weaker then a 1050ti and an Xbox series S lmao
Nintendo’s target audience is often young adults, with a large share of Switch players falling between 20 and 25 years old. And then 40 year old
Try again…
I have already boycotted Nintendo, but nice try? I’m on PC and steam deck.
most consumers don’t care, that’s why they’re consumers. Switch 2 is gonna sell gangbusters and no amount of frivolous lawsuits is going to put a dent in that.
Plus you still have people mad at Palworld for no reason other than they think it “copied” Pokémon, like the guy getting downvoted into oblivion.
Glide with a glider in your inventory like Zelda? Is that patented?
How is it that pokemon has a hold on things like animals allowing flight, but gliders allowing flight isn’t under patent?
Like, whoever did gliders first needs to sue Nintendo to change breath of the wild, no gliders allowed anymore.
Wonder who owns the rights to Fly Boy now?
They could simply have the pals hold on to gliders that the players can use and nothing would change in the gameplay…
Can’t they just release free DLC with those features worldwide exlcuding Japan where those patents are enforceable ?
That would be a nice “fuck you,” but it’s probably not worth the extra effort to them.
The spectacle of it would certainly boost sales for a little bit. How much and whether it covers the development time, who knows.
I’d do it on principle alone, but I’m a petty bitch.
It would be neat if modders put all the “patent-infringing” stuff back in.
I’m sure they will.
And as long as none of them try profiting off it, Nintendo has no leg to stand on with their usual C&D bullshit.
That’s another thing if they could allow specific api and opensource those parts they remove so someone can create mod that brings all of this back. Like we removed it but we make those things opensource, do what you want, we don’t care. It’s not in paid version of our app.
Most companies do stuff like that but pocketpair is based in Japan so they can’t, they’d be held accountable.
I think everyone understands that nintendo are bad guys in this this situation but pocketpair is just scared. They just say we want to get over it as soon as possible to focus on our game. I understand that small company is scared of old, long timer in this business. But they need to turn it over because if they behave like a sheep they will be eaten by wolf.
If they could change narrative and simply add. We removed those things and replaced it with this but we don’t care what you do with our game. Here is api. Do what the fuck you want.
Sorry, I meant that most companies do fixes to comply with local legislations/sentences and then ignore them everywhere else, Pocketpair can’t do that because they are being sentenced in their home jurisdiction, so their infractions in other jurisdictions could and would still be brought to court.
Fuck you, Nintendo. Release a fucking decent Pokemon game instead of lawyering the competition that’s offering a more desirable product
It’s the capitalism way.
“The company with the best, cheapest product will come out on top… Unless the shittier company has more money and lawyers and then they sue everyone else into the ground for even attempting to break into the market.”
Patents should last 10 years instead of 20, and digital patents even less.
I can see why patents are so long when you need to build like a billion dollar factory to make a product and mass produce it.
Digital concepts don’t take that much investment and once you have it you don’t need to invest in making more, it’s just there.
So yes, digital patents should be a fraction of the time that physical patents should be. Like 2 years instead of 20.
2 years seems like a nightmare for indie developers. Do you want a bunch of AI Chinese cash grabs pushing things out like Hollow Knight 2: Microtransaction Edition or Stardew Valley Romance Sims? Because without IP protection, indie developers will get creamed.
I don’t remember all of the differences, but I think you’re conflating copyright, patent, and trademark here. Software patents should almost not be a thing, but copyright and trademark should still exist.
Copyright if elements of the game such as 3D models, images and code have been copied.
Trademark if the name of the game is used (i.e. “Stardew Valley Romance Sims”).
Patents for game mechanics.
As a side note, personally I think that game mechanics shouldn’t be at all patentable
in most countries, afaik, you actually can’t patent game mechanics, for the same reason you can’t patent rule sets for boardgames:
because they are essentially just logical connections. it would be like patenting math, which is also not allowed, for very obvious reasons. (with some very specific, very niche exceptions)
japan is just plain weird and wrong about their patent system.
that’s why all of the lawsuits about this stuff are happening in japan; not just because that’s where the companies are, but because japanese copyright law is (especially) fucked.
I don’t believe those indie developers have any patents.
You don’t need a patent to protect the IP of a work of fiction. That’s what copyright is for.
Digital patents should not exist. Period.
For trivial software features like these, definitely not. I think patents start to make sense in the area of really advanced algorithms, like SAT solvers, ML, and so on. So conditional on patents in general making sense, those kinds of patents seem legit to me.
Serves the Palworld devs right. This is what happens when one blatantly plagiarizes, and I am here for it.
We are talking about gliding on a mount…a very common game feature…
We are talking about gliding on a mount…a very common game feature…
"On November 30th, 2024, we released Patch v0.3.11 for Palworld,” it said. “This patch removed the ability to summon Pals by throwing Pal Spheres and instead changed it to a static summon next to the player.
Well I am talking about the blatant plagiarism, which is what the devs for Palworld did.
Summoning creatures from an object is hardly “blatant plagiarism”. Many, many, many games have the ability to summon creatures from an object. Pokemon was certainly not the first one to do it…
Summoning creatures from an object is hardly “blatant plagiarism”. Many, many, many games have the ability to summon creatures from an object. Pokemon was certainly not the first one to do it…
What will you argue if I bring up the fact that they ripped off countless Pokemon?
Oh wait.
I don’t care because I am not here to argue with someone who doesn’t understand what plagiarism is. Luckily the courts do, and ruled on the case. :)
the difference here is that a ton of other creature collector games have done something similar when it comes to summoning them. Coromon is the first one thst pops up in my head.
what makes palworld different? it genuinely sold well, enough to challenge Nintendo and it’s monopoly with their Pokémon games. Which they barely put any effort in nowadays because they sell regardless because of brand loyalty
What will you argue if I bring up the fact that they ripped off countless Pokemon?
The case case isn’t about character designs, the case is about patents Nintendo filed after PocketPair released a game with said mechanics. The idea that one should be able to patent a game mechanic someone else has already released in their games is BS. Japan’s patent system sucks and Nintendo sucks for abusing it.
Whatever you say bud.
The courts ruled it isn’t plagerism. So… You’re looking pretty stupid here.
The patents in question have nothing to do with creature designs. And neither would patent law be covering the design of creatures. That would be copyright law.
Weird how they are overhauling their game if the courts ruled in favour of them eh?
Buddy, quit while you’re
aheadnot too far behind. You’re just proving what @Tattorack@lemmy.world said: you don’t understand the difference between patents, copyright, and trademarks.
Except it doesn’t. Nintendo was only able to do this by exploiting Japanese-specific patent law since Palworld is made by a Japanese company. They had no case otherwise.
“They wouldn’t have a case if they didn’t use local law” is a crazy argument.
Pathetic corporate simp.
Go touch some grass, both of you.
Moderation note : both got a 3 day ban, no need to continue those needless flamewars. I kept the message were actual arguments were written, and deleted those who were basically just slap fights.
Pathetic corporate simp.
Nothing like feeling powerful behind a screen eh?
You tell me, shill. I’m this unpleasant IRL, too.
You tell me, shill. I’m this unpleasant IRL, too.
That is good to know. Hopefully someone in your RL checks your chin to correct this behavior.
What’s your address?
What I will tell you is I live in Canada, I live in BC, and all of this can be gleamed from my profile. If you find yourself in my neck of the woods hit me up keyboard warrior.
Why don’t you go find them?
That’s an amusing accusation to throw around.
Pathetic corporate simp.
- Yours truly, trade unionist and activist.
The last Nintendo console I bought was the Nintendo DS lite. The last Nintendo product I bought was Age of Empires DS The Age of Kings.
As you can probably tell, that was a rather long time ago. Since getting my first TTDS flash card I’ve more or less exclusively pirated Nintendo things. I’ll just continue doing that.
News like this isn’t giving me any remorse.
I’ve only pirated old stuff, games from my youth that are collectible items now for silly money or a complete crapshoot on whether 30 year old tech has stood the test of time.
If I had the time to play them I would definitely see my conscience clear on pirating new stuff from them now.
I jailbroke my Switch after they went after Yuzu in March last year. Every time I read about them, it makes pirating new games on it more satisfying. I’m really gonna enjoy Metroid Prime 4 on it!
Nintendo is just a garbage lawsuit company that sometimes makes hardware with stupid subscriptions attached.
and none of it matters, cause they have literal legions of fans that will ride their ride, no matter how much it costs, no matter how poorly made it is, no matter how much nintendo spits in their face.
So Nintendo sees no significant economic repercussions from their behavior, and thus has incentive to change.
I was one of those but they were losing me more and more every year… But 3 years ago it became way too much, and I got off the bandwagon. Screw that lol.
I hope they don’t make as many sales as they expect… But you may be right, too many people who will buy their crap however expensive and how much they’re being mistreated by the company.
I’m not so sure.
All of my friends who are less pissed off at Nintendo than I am are not even considering buying a Switch 2 because Nintendo basically priced themselves out of the market. All of my friends who have a Switch 1 will not be buying the Switch 2, that’s pretty significant IMO, but I guess we’ll see.
I agree, they definitely priced themselves out of several demographics including casual gamers, parents of young children gamers, and “I guess I’ll get a switch as a second device” gamers. These people aren’t going to look at a switch that’s roughly the same price as the ps5 and xbox and think “yeah let’s grab that one”.
The wii u showed their demographic of “die hard fans that buy no matter what” is actually really small compared to the rest of their sales. And I think we’re going to see a repeat of that.
I hope it does worse than the Wii U tbh, Nintendo needs to be knocked down quite a few pegs. I am quite fed up with them.
Its also fucked up that the switch is still 300 dollars, despite being released over 8 years ago.
What happened to consoles getting cheaper? You know their cost to manufacture it isnt the same as it was 8 years ago.
and for every one like you.
Theres people who buy multiple of the console.
One person in my family bought 4 of the Nintendo Switch. One for him, his wife, and one each for each of their two grand kids.
and they also buy multiple copies of games, so they don’t have to worry about wanting to play a game someone else is already playing.
and I would not be shocked at all if they buy at least two of the Switch 2 the second it becomes commonly available.
Lemmy constantly falls into the same social trap as reddit: that we think we’re some monolith of consumerism and when we believe something we think everyone else will be on our side.
Go on YouTube and look up the hundreds of videos from the past few months alone of scalpers and other Pokemon buyers getting into actual physical fights, buying literally 10+ of those huge box sets, and camping out at those vending machines and buying literally everything in them the minute they restock.
I’m a vendor at comic and anime conventions here in the US. I did a show last month that was literally 99% Pokemon cards and merch, and everyone was buying that shit up regardless. There were actually maybe five booths including my own that weren’t selling just Pokemon stuff, if at all.
Lemmy constantly falls into the same social trap as reddit: that we think we’re some monolith of consumerism and when we believe something we think everyone else will be on our side.
I dont know why you are whinging about this when literally no one is making this claim. In fact, we are talking about the exact opposite of it.
Go on YouTube and look up the hundreds of videos from the past few months alone of scalpers and other Pokemon buyers getting into actual physical fights, buying literally 10+ of those huge box sets, and camping out at those vending machines and buying literally everything in them the minute they restock.
I’m a vendor at comic and anime conventions here in the US. I did a show last month that was literally 99% Pokemon cards and merch, and everyone was buying that shit up regardless. There were actually maybe five booths including my own that weren’t selling just Pokemon stuff, if at all.
Yes, thats the legions of people we were talking about, before you came in with this weird tangent.
I was agreeing with you with my anecdotal experience.
The comment you replied to said Nintendo is going to lose customers over this, while your comment said Nintendo fans are still gonna be their dumb shitty selves by buying multiple of the same system or even game. Where does my comment diverge from that line of thinking?
ETA: the consumerism claim was just something that I’ve noticed between reddit and Lemmy. Reddit might have thousands of users in one sub, while Lemmy only might have a few hundred. Both sites/whatever you call the collective of Lemmy, constantly think that people will go along with their beliefs about boycotting certain games/not buying certain products for whatever reason; when the fact of reality is that both of these places are actual echo chambers full of common denominators, and we need to face reality.
I think they will lose customers over this, sure, but nowhere near enough to make them reconsider being the biggest a-holes in gaming (take that 2nd place, EA)
Not that I matter being a single person but cya Nintendo I won’t be buying anything from you ever again honestly unless its used and from someone on facebook marketplace or the likes of.
