Looking up those patents, the first alludes to a system where a player aims and fires an “item” toward a character in a field, and in doing so triggers combat, and then dives into extraordinary intricacies about switching between modes within this. The second is very similar, but seems more directly focused on tweaking previous patents to including being able to capture Pokémon in the wild, rather than only during battle. The third, rather wildly, seems to be trying to claim a modification to the invention of riding creatures in an open world and being able to transition between them easily.

  • LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    People need to stop supporting Nintendo at all. They’re lawsuit happy assholes who have been doing everything they can to piss away any good will they might have had. They’re the only game company out there who refuses to make enough of many of their products, like their mini NES and SNES, to meet demand because then its “exclusive”, they are the only company trying to destroy all type of emulation for Nintendo consoles, and they’re the only company who seems to actually want their older games to disappear into the ether. Edit: Oh and they fucking refuse to put their games on sale or lower their prices years afterwards. BoTW is still 60 bucks even though it’s 7 and a half years old. Fucking insane.

    Fuck Nintendo.

  • Venicon@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Fuck Nintendo. They get a pass so often from people when they really shouldn’t.

    • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      25 days ago

      Part of the reason is because most people don’t notice the lawsuits or think this is boilerplate legal stuff that happens in the background all the time. They’re too distracted by the entertainment side of things.

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Ok that third one, come the fuck on.

    Like don’t even pretend. You could never ride nearly the number of Pokemon you can compared to Pals in Palworld.

    That’s basically patenting riding a fucking horse

  • Blaster M@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    People who don’t like Palworld, maybe give a real reason? The AI stuff was made up by a salty troll who admitted later he made it up. It being “legally distinct from pokémon” isn’t a good enough reason. It having the ability to

    Spoiler

    butcher your Pals for resources

    may be a reason to be upset about the gameplay, but then again, many, many, many RPGs have you culling the local wildlife and depopulating a nation for quests too. Neither is the Genshin Impact art style a reason to hate it. That’s just JRPG asthetics.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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      24 days ago

      The butchering thing always bugged me. Where tf do you think your chicken nuggies come from? The only difference is that we don’t let real animals have friends before we kill em

    • Glytch@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Butchering your pals is less of a problem than enslaving other human beings.

      More to the point it’s just bad. It’s incredibly grindy, has an incongruous tech tree, and the A.I. (both enemy and ally) is trash. It’s also mostly a copy of their previous game, Craftopia, which was also bad and has been in Early Access for 4 years now with no signs of ever leaving it.

      I don’t hate Palworld because it’s a low effort Pokemon knockoff, I hate Palworld because it’s a low effort Ark knockoff following the same business plan of not finishing their previous game before abandoning it for their new game. At least with Ark you got to ride dinosaurs rather than store-brand Rapidash.

    • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      To be fair, Genshin Impact art style could be a reason to hate it if you hate JRPG aesthetics.

  • LANIK2000@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    Pretty sure 1 and 3 could be applied to many modern actions games. Software patents shouldn’t exist! Same with apple’s patents for specific menu animations. It’s fucking evil!

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Any game with ranged weapons is literally this. If I’m playing Fallout 4 and shoot a raider in the head then combat is initiated. That’s literally his combat works. Fuck Nintendo and fuck bullshit patents.

  • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    Obviously this depends on the exact details of the patents, which are all in Japanese, as well as the specifics of Japanese patent laws.

    However, patents only last for 20 years, and they are undermined by public disclosure before filing. The first Pokemon game came out more than 20 years ago. However^2 not all of the features in the patents were present in the original games. All 3 patents were first filed in 2021, well after many of these features were established.

    The first patent is about aiming something and entering into a fight mode. This wasn’t in the original game. Aiming at enemies and entering a fight mode almost certainly existed before Pokemon (Final Fantasy perhaps). Furthermore, Palworld doesn’t really have a fight mode - it isn’t a turn based game but real time. Throwing a sphere is just one way to start a “battle” but there is no mode change between “explore” and “battle” modes because they are functionally the same in Palworld. Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, which were all around in 2018, would seem to amount to public disclosure that undermines this patent.

    The second patent has more detail about catching Pokemon outside of battles. This might have some elements of Palworld gameplay in it. However, again we have prior art that predates the patent.

    The third patent is about riding characters. This has certainly existed in other games before Pokemon and before this patent. Off the top of my head, World of Warcraft had you riding mounts, Final Fantasy had you riding Chocobos, and Mega Man let you ride Rush.

    However the big issue with all of these is that these challenges are always better off done before the patent is granted. With the patents established it is a massive uphill struggle trying to get them withdrawn. Given that each charge is only for $33,000, so about $100,000 total, I expect a settlement will be reached instead of going on this fight.

    • Kelly@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Given that each charge is only for $33,000, so about $100,000 total, I expect a settlement will be reached instead of going on this fight.

      Unfortunately that would be the worst outcome for everyone else.

      The patents need to be contested and invalidated or smaller devs will feel they can’t use these mechanics.

    • Nightweb@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

      If I recall correctly weren’t all the patients filed for and approved after PAL World released?

      • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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        24 days ago

        Looking it up, Palworld was announced in 2021, but not released (under early access) until 2024. However they were apparently designing the game back in 2020, if not earlier.

    • Akatsuki Levi@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      The third one, wouldn’t it hit Rockstar with Red Dead Redemption? After all, you do ride a animal(horse) and can easily swap in and our of 'em

      • Breezy@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        I thought of elden ring more so of the patent. Palworld wasnt as smooth as summoning torrent, but it felt very similar.

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.ml
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    24 days ago

    Software parents, specifically game mechanic parents, are fucking insane. You should see the stuff Square Enix has patented following death stranding.

    I get the whole “they just reskinned my game mechanics!!!” but also: I don’t. It’s like saying Go, Draughts, Chess, etc. are copies or “infringing” on one another for being a board game set on a grid with black/white pieces.

    Even the idea of intellectual property is shaky for me but at least it’s more clear cut whether you’ve directly copied or deceived someone with a similar design of a character.

  • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    They left it small so that it wouldn’t be worth it to fight in court and they’d either just settle for a license fee or pay the fine. But sounds like the best way would be to get the patents revoked, but that’s probably more expensive than just paying the fine due to the legal fees.

    • otp@sh.itjust.works
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      24 days ago

      Why do you need Nintendo to loose? You wouldn’t rather Nintendo to tight?