As many gamers are already painfully aware, there have been cheap clones and knockoffs of popular games for as long as the medium has existed. With that said, the advancements in AI technology have made the practice all-the-more common as generating similar content has become as simple as inputting some key-phrases and slapping on a different but similar coat of paint to cover up the stolen property.
This time around Palworld, the Pokémon inspired, third-person, multiplayer, base-building, monster catching, open world phenomenon, has gotten a bit of a taste of its own medicine.
While Palworld itself was clearly influenced by the storied Nintendo pocket monster franchise, it carved out a space for itself with its own unique twists and features, that to many players, made it even better than the source material it was paying homage to. Nintendo didn’t see it that way and have been issuing lawsuits for as long as the game has been in development. Regardless, now Palworld has its own copy-cat.
Palland is a shameless knockoff akin to Wii shovel ware from back in the day. It doesn’t even attempt anything truly unique to set it apart, and when presenting the elements that made Palworld good, it fails. The graphics are poor, the gameplay is ridged, and by most accounts, it just isn’t very fun. Here’s the big kicker, NINTENDO PUT IT ON THE SWITCH! Yes, the same company that has repeatedly sued the near-universally loved Palworld for copyright infringement and IP theft and so on, have allowed its dollar-store clone to be sold on their eShop!
At this point I can’t tell if it’s simple pettiness, some warped sense of revenge, or just a flagrant oversight that makes them look foolish and biased… again.
Palland describes itself as a survival game with base-building mechanics, which is not unique in the slightest as there are a thousand of those types of titles in the genre, but the similarities in gameplay and imagery to Palworld are undeniable and glaringly obvious. They didn’t even try and hide it, like they were given permission straight from Nintendo to prove some kind of point.
Something equally interesting is that BoggySoft, the devs of Palland, almost certainly used AI tools to replicate certain features from the other games. Data miners combed through Palland‘s files and uncovered some wild inclusions. There’s a whole file called DLCPalworld, and an AI generated logo that mentions both Pokémon and Palworld in the coding of the file structure!
I’m all for developers making games based on their interests and inspirations; nearly every indie horror game has some influence from Resident Evil for goodness’ sake, but this isn’t inspiration, it’s theft! Multiple counts of theft that they aren’t even trying to hide; they put it right there in the files.
Maybe this wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if it was isolated to an indie game storefront where players get a free copy and can donate to the devs if they see fit, but this is on the Nintendo eShop; how long until it hits Xbox and PlayStation storefronts? These types of cheaply made clones are overwhelming digital marketplaces as it is, and there are very few policies in place to stop them.
At least Xbox is making a push with their new policies to crack down on shady developers from changing SKUs to resell games through bundle spamming. Hopefully these companies can communicate a bit and work on how to stem the tide of AI garbage and IP theft that is currently plaguing their storefronts before it gets too far out of hand.
