Nintendo and The Pokemon Company recently announced that they had filed lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair for patent infringement, with the survival title’s abundant Pokemon-esque monster designs seemingly under fire, and Pocketpair has now issued an official response regarding the lawsuit.
In a statement, after acknowledging the lawsuit, Pocketpair says it is “unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon”, since it has “not been notified of such details”. Later in the statement, the studio remarks that having to dedicate “significant time” to the lawsuit rather than focusing on the game is “truly unfortunate”, but says that it will do its best to “ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.”
“Pocketpair is a small indie game company based in Tokyo. Our goal as a company has always been to create fun games,” Pocketpair’s official statement reads. “We will continue to pursue this goal because we know that our games bring joy to millions of gamers around the world. Palworld was a surprise success this year, both for gamers and for us. We were blown away by the amazing response to the game and have been working hard to make it even better for our fans. We will continue improving Palworld and strive to create a game that our fans can be proud of.
“It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit. However, we will do our utmost for our fans, and to ensure that indie game developers are not hindered or discouraged from pursuing their creative ideas.
“We apologize to our fans and supporters for any worry or discomfort that this news has caused.”
Palworld is available in early access on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. Within roughly a month of its release, Pocketpair announced that it had crossed 25 million players across all platforms.