Pocketpair has warned players that other companies are now making copycats of their game, Palworld.
On the official Palworld Twitter account, they shared this message:
“[Warning]
There is no Palworld application for phones. Apps using names and product images such as “パルワールド” and “Palworld” are appearing on the AppStore and Google Play, but they are not affiliated with our company in any way.
We have reported this issue to Apple, which operates the App Store, and Google, which operates Google Play.
Please be aware that downloading these apps may lead to the leakage of personal information stored on your smartphone or to fraud.”
Pocketpair Community Manager Bucky made their own cautionary tweet, this time warning about NFTs:
“There is a fake account replying to a lot of Palworld posts which tries to lure users into buying “Palworld NFTs”.
These are fake, we don’t have any connection to NFTs and we are working to take down the account asap.
Be careful and don’t click any links posing as Palworld!”
One can still find and look at the fake Palworld Twitter account Bucky linked to, which remains live and is still tweeting about giving away copies of the game.
It’s quite stunning that it only took days for these Palworld copycats to appear, to lure players into the NFT world, and also to pretend to be official Palworld apps on Android and iOS. It really puts into focus how relatively easy it is for any developers with even just a little money to copy a few assets to make a derivative product, and then pass it off as original.
In any case, gamers who are used to copycats and impersonators should be able to tell when a game or game related product they are looking at or playing is the real deal or not. They may use similar looking assets and characters, ideas, and settings, but if one pays attention to the red flags, they should be able to figure it out on their own.
While it may seem to have burst out of nowhere, Palworld apparently took two years to get together, and is of course, very much a work in progress. One wouldn’t want hardworking developers who came up with original ideas to be exploited by having those ideas stolen by other companies for profit. Especially a game like this that has already picked up a fandom, that may prove loyal in the years to come.
