Palworld player adds hilarious “hard evidence” to plagiarism conversation

A Palworld player on Reddit shares "hard evidence" that hints at the game using plagiarized assets. The reveal comes courtesy of a Reddit user, "u/Holly-White," who shared images of a creature from the game and the original source, which the user claims developer Pocketpair used as the base and plagiarized from with some compelling evidence.

This isn't the first time Palworld has been accused of using rehashed assets. Close to the game's release last week, some players and even developers came forward with allegations regarding the game using generative AI content and plagiarizing and rehashing assets from Nintendo's and Game Freak's flagship IP, Pokemon.

However, the recent evidence that Reddit user u/Holly-White seems to be the final nail in the coffin for Pocketpair makes the plagiarism allegations very obvious.

Note: Aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the author's opinions.

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Reddit user shares damning evidence of plagiarism in Pocketpair's latest MMO, Palworld

Hard evidence palworld plagiarized byu/Holly-White inPalworld

The evidence of plagiarism presented by u/Holly-White shows a side-by-side image of one of the monsters in Palworld, which shares an uncanny resemblance to a real-life animal. As the Reddit user presents, Pocketpair's MMO seems to have been plagiarizing real-life animals and their features for the monster designs in their games.

If it still isn't clear, the post made by the user is a jab at some Nintendo fans claiming Palworld's monster designs and progression system are a complete rip-off of the Pokemon games. While the allegations made by fans did have some evidence backing them, it's not enough to downplay the success of Pocketpair's MMO.

Despite being a relatively small title from an independent developer, Pocketpair's latest MMO took the world by storm within the first few days of its release. The game sold over 4 million copies within three days of its release and sold a couple more million copies in the following days.

While the creature collection theme of the game does share a striking resemblance to the Pokemon's moment-to-moment gameplay loop, it isn't the primary gameplay mechanic in Pocektpair's MMO. Instead, Pocketpair's MMO leans more towards the crafting-survival genre, akin to games like ARK, Rust, Enshrouded, and more.

Although Nintendo did acknowledge the existence of Palworld, the console manufacturer has not given any official statement on Pocketpair's game infringing any of the copyrights or trademarks related to Nintendo's flagship Pokemon franchise. And until there's real "hard evidence," it's unfair to come to any conclusions.

Pocketpair's latest MMO survival game is an eye-opener for Nintendo and Game Freak on how they can make Pokemon fun again without having to stray too far away from the franchise's roots.