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ArTg0bLiN

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Someone posted something about Nintendo trying to stifle creativity in Indie artists because of this whole palworld thing.


I wanted to sort of add detail to my own hang ups about Pocket Pair (the studio behind palworld) so i left a comment there. I’m just gonna copy and paste, but let me know your thoughts. I’d be interested to hear some civil discourse on the subject, as opposed to the flagrant disses i hear on both sides on places like Facebook or twitter.


I won’t share the Video, mostly because i don’t know how to share it here. Suffice it to say that nintendo making a statement that they’ll be “looking into palworld” was perceived by the video maker as a threat to indie creativity. The OP of the video posted a statement in tandem with that video:


“A little something for all of you who are calling palworld a pokemon ripoff here's a little something for you to think about especially if you want gamefreak to step up their game and make a better pokemon game”


I responded with the following:


I think my problem with palworld isn’t even the gameplay. It LOOKS fun. The problem is how similar some of the pals look to actual pokemon. There are plenty of monster capture games that have made hundreds of monsters that look nothing like already existing pokemon. Experts have already pointed out that the statistical chances of designs looking that similar are incredibly low, and to to have that happen repeatedly is next to impossible.


There are a few issues that i can point out on my own that worry me.


1: palworld knew what they were doing when they copied gamefreak’s homework. While yes, the companies that own the pokemon franchise as a whole absolutely need to do better, that’s a separate and needed conversation. Palworld had plenty of opportunity in the years before launch to tweak several of the designs to avoid this kind of discourse.


Which brings us to the second problem.


2: the discourse HAS to be intentional. There’s no way that palworld would be doing this well this quickly if this kind of discussion about plagiarism, stolen assets and alleged AI assistance in development had never occurred. Any press is good press, and because of the accusations, Palworld is getting a lot of it, with a lot of people jumping to its defense, which I’m willing to bet was the point.


3: Pocket Pair, the team behind palworld, has a provable history of doing things like this. The most blatant examples i can think of are “never grave: the witch and the curse,” which seems to borrow a lot of its vibes and gameplay from another INDIE title, hollow knight.


The other is Craftopia, which seems to pull a lot of inspiration from Legend of Zelda: breath of the wild, another Nintendo IP.


The issue with this last point has its own arguments. For example, a lot of the arguments defending palworld are basically saying “nintendo should just make a good pokemon game then.” That argument is undercut by them copying from LOZ: BOTW/TOTK, because those are already great games. The fact that they copied it implies that they were trying to ride those coat tails, and would have done so either way.


The other Argument defenders of palworld pose is that Nintendo, a large multi-billion dollar company, shouldn’t be picking on indie developers. This argument is ALSO undercut by pocket pair copying from hollow knight, a game that was made by Team Cherry, another crew of indie developers. This implies that Pocket Pair has no scruples when it comes to ripping off game mechanics from other popular titles, even if that game also happens to be lesser known.


This is all setting aside that many of the games they’ve made before have been left in unfinished states, so i wouldn’t be surprised if that winds up being the case with palworld as well.


If people want to play palworld, it’s their prerogative, and I’m not trying to throw shade. It does look like a pretty fun game, and I’m certainly tempted to play it myself. But it’s also important to acknowledge that while the game certainly is fun, the developers are certainly not innocent, and absolutely could have done better. They just chose not to. Whether or not Nintendo has the legal grounds to sue, designing many of the pals to look like existing pokemon was a deliberate choice, and done in poor taste.


OP responded:


Art Goblin Draws nintendo can't exactly say much as several of the original pokemon where more or less ripoff of dragon quest monsters. If pokemon does sue pocket pair for stealing their IP all pocket pair would have to do is point out the similarities between the pokemon and monsters from dragon quest in the image below and it could lead to a backfire on the lawsuit so the odds of nintendo seeing pocket pair is low plus if Akira Toryama who created dragon quest (yes he is also the guy who created dragon ball) felt like it he could easily sue nintendo for millions for ripping off his monsters to make pokemon back in 1996


(they included the following image with their comment

Untitled

I responded to this one too:


The dragon quest comparison is, and continues to be, a bad faith argument, but that’s not the fault of anyone sharing it. Not directly, at least. For one, the creator of pokemon had already stated during the creation of pokemon that they were heavily inspired by dragon quest, really enjoying the monsters, and wishing there was a capture mechanic. (Edit: satoshi taijiri was jealous that Ken sugimori got 2 magic hat drops in DQ2, and wished there was a trading mechanic so he could have one. It was what inspired the trading mechanic in the original games and every one moving forward.) Yet, even with that inspiration, NONE of the monsters depicted look nearly identical. Many similar monsters, for sure, but no one would ever mistake a golbat for whatever that bat monster is, and the same holds true for pretty much every monster on that page, nor a pigeon for the bird, or a dragonite for that dragon. The art styles alone are too dissimilar for there to be any reasonable claim to plagiarism.


In the case of palworld, like i said in my original comment, the reason for the discourse in the first place is BECAUSE some of the pals look nearly identical to in-game existing pokemon, which many people in the field of development have already said is nearly impossible to do by accident, let alone accidentally doing it several times.


All this does is bring me back to my original argument: Pocket Pair absolutely could have done better, and the dragon quest/pokemon comparison only proves the point. To be inspired by something is not the same as directly copying that thing. Doubtful that Nintendo would ever win any kind of major suit, but it’s likely that Nintendo might require them to alter some assets.


So far, i haven’t recieved a response, but i feel like it’s important to paste part of another comment i made to someone who was just attacking the OP:


The palworld defenders' argument that nintendo needs to make a good pokemon game is a separate issue, but it's a good point on its own. For all the flaws, palword looks really good, and currently they're charging less than $30. Meanwhile, pokemon scarlet and violet are both $60, and despite going through 3 waves of dlc at this point (I'm including pecharunt) the overworld is a glitchy, pop-uppy mess, and has recieved no major updates to reduce or eliminate that problem. The pokemon company, gamefreak and nintendo absolutely missed the mark when It comes to a quality product. And that's setting aside the fact that combat mechanics have changed very little in over 25 years.


The gameplay for palworld seems like a breath of fresh air to a lot of pokemon players who are, I guess, exhausted with stagnant competitive pokemon play, and I'll point out in my argument that I never disparaged the gameplay, style of game, or even the graphical impressions. My issues lie with many of the pals themselves, along with the company, pocket pair, and their own business practices.


____________________________________________


Some additional notes. While the 3 organizations that own pokemon as a franchise (gamefreak, Nintendo and the pokemon company) are indeed large corporations, the pokemon themselves were originally designed by single individuals. They may have all been finalized by Ken sugimori, but each pokemon is unique in that individual people had designed them. In copying their designs, palworld is, OBJECTIVELY, undercutting the work of individual creators, while also failing to be creative in their own right. It’s disappointing, because for every clone pal, there are at least a few that look wholly unique, which means they had the capacity to do better from the start.


I’m also not disparaging the gameplay. The feel of the game seems to be completely different from the turn-based combat of many creature capture games, so in this, I give Pocket Pair credit.


TLDR, “Pokcet Pair and Palworld should have made a lot of their pals more unique” and “Nintendo, Gamefreak and the Pokemon Company should be trying harder with their own games” are two separate and equally valid Arguments and debates. Some of the pals look too similar to existing pokemon to be a coincidence, and there’s no excuse for that kind of creative bankruptcy. On the gameplay front, Nintendo, gamefreak and The pokemon company don’t have an excuse for all the problems that came with scarlet and violet. They absolutely have the power and finances to delay a game to make it better, but were clearly more concerned with making money.


But I’m curious. What are your thoughts on the debate? I’m hoping I’m not the only one trying to see both sides of this thing.

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Palworld

1 min read

I’ll say this much about palworld, and that’ll be it from me


I didn’t do any reasearch when i first heard about the game about a year back. I thought it was a neat concept, and i was, up until recently, eager to get my hands on the game myself.


But the more i learn about the game and the designs of some of the pals, and the more i learn about the contents of the character of Poclet Pair - the company that’s made the game - the less likely i am to play it. As far as AI generated images are concerned, whether or not AI was used in palworld is less relevant to me than the fact that they have a separate game on it’s own involving AI generated images and their creation. This isn’t the kind of company i think deserves my money.


I won’t begrudge anyone who wants to play the game, it definitely looks like it has a certain kind of charm to it. But It’s just not for me, dudes. The way Pocket Pair operates just rubs me the wrong way.

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Reddbubble!

1 min read

Hey, did you guys know i have a redbubble account!

Well, I DO! i post a lot of my designs there, mostly as stickers, but you can get a lot of my stuff also on things like shirts, or backpacks, or blankets!


Drop by my corner of redbubble and give it a look if you like my stuff, but also no pressure! Link is down below!


Insigniacommish Shop | Redbubble

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Scam accounts

1 min read

Geez, these are really getting out of hand here. seems like every time i pop into DA i get at least 2 chat requests from bot accounts that say the same thing. I'm hoping the Staff at DA do something about it. it's not the end of the world for me, it's just kind of annoying, is all.

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I know a few people who I don't talk to anymore who were, when I knew them, really good at their artistic endeavors. Mostly anime stuff, cuz that was my friend group in high school (although one was excellent with realism), but they all were objectively (far and away) better than I was, lol.


I wonder sometimes how those people are doing, and if they've continued to improve. I hope they have. Even if you don't have as much time for it, you should always try to make time for the things you enjoy doing, and these people I knew definitely enjoyed it at the time.


If not, that's fine too, but I remember being kinda bummed when the realism guy said he'd basically stopped drawing entirely after high school. I don't think I could just give it up. I'm 32 years old now, but I still love drawing dumb shit too much. I do occasionally get a laugh when I look through old sketch books, or when I look at the traditional drawings I pulled from my profile, but only because of the vast improvements I've made over the years.


A big piece of information I remember getting from one of my former art friends about a decade ago was how to do shading in a way that differentiates different articles of clothing and makes the drawing feel more cohesive. I don't remember what was said exactly, but I've always tried to do more and experiment a little here and there with how I do my shading, and honestly it's probably one of my favorite things to do. I haven't looked up anything outside of a few short tutorials since, but it's fun imagining where light is coming from to shade the piece in a way that looks good.


I don't think I'll ever do anything professionally with my work outside of brief little stints where I try to make pins or stickers, but it's still something I'll always enjoy being able to do. Even if it's dumb shit.



The point is, I wonder if old art friends have continued to art sometimes, and I hope so, is all.


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