Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe has stated that he is seeing Chinese studios copying Palworld, and thinks that that’s a good thing.
As initially reported by Automaton, Mizobe made a tweet earlier today about these Chinese copycats. Their translation of Mizobe’s tweet goes like this:
“Tencent is already making a Palworld clone game! In China, many companies are simultaneously developing mobile clones of Palworld, and the budgets are in the 10 billion yen-range, 10 times larger than Palworld’s…Next year, we might see many Genshin Impact-level creature (or bishojo) raising games…These are incredible times.”
Mizobe also shared a screenshot of a new upcoming game called Auroria, which showed a line of seemingly non-human workers in hard hats and orange overalls carrying boxes. This image closely resembles a very famous image from Palworld, of a line of Pals also carrying items.
Unlike Palworld, Auroria has a sci fi theme, with building and exploration mechanics. But the monster collecting, open world, survival, crafting, and multiplayer elements are something both games have in common.
Auroria is not the Tencent game Mizobe is referring to. This one is actually being developed by Tianjin Wumai Technology. Mizobe cited Tencent because of an earlier report that the conglomerate’s game studios, TiMi and Lightspeed Studios, were working on a Palworld-style game for mobile devices. NetEase has also been rumored to be working on a similar game, with the name Once Human.
Now, Mizobe felt the need to tweet again, after seeing disparaging news coverage of his initial tweet. He said:
“To “accuse” someone of something, means to say they are doing something wrong.
I don’t think what Tencent is doing is wrong.
I’m proud that other companies want to make games like Palworld. The industry historically innovates when we borrow ideas from games we love.
I’m suprised that many high-quality mobile games are already in development.”
In a follow up tweet, Mizobe shared footage of Path of Rune, another Chinese game that initially seemed to take from The Legend of Zelda games, but he notes has recently tacked on Palworld like elements. In this tweet, he said in plain English: “I didn’t accuse anyone. I was just surprised.”
Truthfully, Mizobe’s statement is gracious, and a seeming 180 from when they told their fans to beware of mobile and NFT copycats. But we will note their earlier warning was because those apps were pretending to be making Palworld products, or one could say, outright plagiarism.
Mizobe is also true that the video game industry has generally thrived from video game companies copying ideas from each other, but we should also point out that the real innovations happen when those developers try to make something that is truly their own. Some gamers may still never truly believe it when Koji Igarashi says he was inspired by The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, not Metroid, when he was assistant director on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. And yet, you can read all about that here.
We also feel the need to point out that the claims that Palworld assets were AI-generated or stolen have yet to be proven or disproven. Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have both gone on record, without naming Palworld or Pocketpair, that they will take action against trademark infringement.
But really, if it turns out Nintendo doesn’t see evidence of foul play, we may eventually see Palworld appear on one of their platforms. Because what Mizobe said isn’t just a pie-in-the-sky fantasy, it really is how the video game industry works.
