Palworld Developers Receive Death Threats Amidst Plagiarism Accusations

Since the launch of Palworld in Early Access, the game had record breaking success; however, the developers have received death threats following the discourse regarding plagiarism accusations.

Palworld CEO and Game Director Takuro Mizobe had posted a response on twitter stating that the development team has been receiving death threats and abuse over social media in regards to recent allegations.

“I have received various opinions about Palworld, but I am responsible for the production of Palworld, as I am the supervisor of all productions related to Palworld. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from slandering the artists involved in Palworld” the statement continues. (Translated via DeepL)

Amidst the plagiarism accusations, Twitter user Byo had posted several tweets and even videos, which they claim to show evidence comparing some of the Palworld’s in-game 3D models to Pokemon.

While the models in question are not exactly carbon copies, the user points out nearly identical proportions of the Palworlds to the Pokemon models that had been exported from the Scarlet and Violet games.

News publication site VGC had reached out to two experienced AAA game artists on their comment regarding the accusations.

“You cannot, in any way, accidentally get the same proportions on multiple models from another game without ripping the models. Or at the very least, tracing them meticulously first, I would stand in court to testify as an expert on this” one experienced game artist told them.

While another experienced game artist 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.”

According to a recent interview by Automaton, Mizobe had addressed the question of potential legal issues surrounding Palworld’s release and its similarities to Pokemon.

Mizobe mentioned that the game had cleared legal reviews, and that there had been no action taken against it by other companies.

“We make our games very seriously, and we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies” said Mizobe.

Palworld is a multiplayer open world game that has players go about capturing animal-like creatures called “Pals”, as they utilise them for various tasks such as base construction, exploration, and combat.

Join Us!