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Palword Is Gaming's Controversial Breakout Hit of 2024

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You might have heard about Palword ever since its release a few days ago (Jan 19).

Described by many as “Pokémon with guns,” the game has become 2024’s newest breakout hit in gaming with some impressive stats. Palword has sold 5 million copies in just 3 days, according to the official Twitter account.

The game is available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and Xbox Game Pass. It is not available on PlayStation or Nintendo Switch.

There is some controversy however. Numerous claims by Pokémon fans suggest that the game plagiarizes existing content, and that they discovered tweets from Pocket Pair’s CEO suggesting that the creatures are AI-generated.

Palworld CEO and game director Takuro Mizobe responded to these claims, and while he did not deny accusations or the influence from Pokémon, he said that the dev team had been receiving death threats on social media. “We are currently receiving abusive and defamatory comments against our artists, in addition to tweets that appear to be death threats,” he wrote on Twitter, translated by VGC.

“While we have received various opinions about Palworld, it is important to note that the supervision of all materials related to Palworld is conducted by a team, including myself. I bear the responsibility for the produced materials. I would appreciate it if these comments towards artists involved in Palworld would cease.”

Since Mizobe’s response, VGC spoke to senior AAA game devs to get their thoughts on the scandal. One such developer told them, “You cannot, in any way, accidentally get the same proportions on multiple models from another game without ripping the models. I would stand in court to testify as an expert on this.”

Another dev commented, “When does ‘heavily inspired’ become a blatant copy? It’s much easier to take a successful style and tweak it slightly than it is to come up with a new, cohesive style, right? I wouldn’t be comfortable passing this off as my work; it’s just too close in many places.”

They continued, “If those are original Pokemon models shown in those videos, then Nintendo should be home and dry in terms of demonstrating copying. That could be a smoking gun.”

A Twitter account (@byofrog) has also continued to call out Palword, sharing evidence of not just design inspiration, but plagiarism of actual game assets.

ONTD, are you playing Palword?

Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

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