Palworld (Chinese: 幻獸帕魯/ Japanese: パルワールド) made its debut on Steam and Xbox Game Pass on January 19th, and has achieved tremendous success for small developer Pocket Pair in a few short days since its release. According to Pocket Pair, Palworld has sold 5 million copies since its launch.
Of interest to the cryptocurrency community is that Pocket Pair’s founder and CEO, Takuro Miki, also has a background in the crypto industry as a co-founder of Japan’s major exchange Coincheck (Japanese: コインチェック). However, Takuro Miki has recently faced death threats due to Palworld. What’s the story behind this?
Palworld is a multiplayer survival adventure game developed by Pocket Pair. The game combines elements of survival, building, and combat, where players interact with mysterious creatures called “Pals” in an open world. These creatures play important roles in the game, and players can capture, raise, and even battle with them.
Palworld draws inspiration from other popular survival and pet collection games, but also adds unique elements such as deep interactions with the creatures and rich multiplayer gameplay.
Palworld achieved great success and controversy just three days after its early access launch. Criticism mainly focused on the design of the “Pal” characters in the game, which were deemed to be imitations of Pokémon, as well as suspicions of the use of generative AI in game development.
Takuro Miki, CEO of Pocket Pair, previously expressed interest in using AI tools to generate Pokémon-like characters on Twitter, as well as their development of a game called “AI Art Imposter” that uses image-generating AI in 2022. These became the starting point of the concerns.
However, these facts have not served as definitive evidence of the use of AI in the development of Palworld.
Some netizens analyzed the 3D models of the characters and believed that it would be impossible to accidentally create such similar models in terms of precise proportions. They regarded this as a warning to game developers not to take shortcuts at the risk of imitation.
They also believed that this might prompt Nintendo, the parent company of Pokémon, to file a lawsuit.
However, Palworld has faced criticism from many Pokémon fans who believe that plagiarism is unacceptable. Takuro Miki stated that the artists of Palworld have faced numerous defamatory attacks, including tweets that almost constitute death threats. They are open to various opinions about Palworld, but its production involved many individuals, including himself, and he bears the responsibility for the work. He also hopes that such behavior will stop.
Nintendo, the parent company of Pokémon, and a spokesperson for Pokémon Company, have currently declined to comment on the case.
Palworld’s official statement previously mentioned that the character design of Palworld is based on an artist hired by the company, who had applied to nearly 100 companies but was rejected, and now draws most of the characters in Palworld.
The game distribution platform Steam recently introduced a new policy requiring developers to disclose the use of AI when submitting new games, but the page for Palworld does not include such a description.
The game industry seems much more interested in AI technology than blockchain. Not only Pocket Pair, but companies like Microsoft and Square Enix have also shown similar attitudes.
There is no direct evidence yet to determine whether the creature design in Palworld was inspired by Pokémon or if AI was used to generate Pokémon-like characters.
Through this incident, we can see that AI is disrupting various industries and will continue to challenge creators and existing regulatory systems. At the same time, AI brings infinite possibilities.