Once again, showing why Nintendo is a POS company.
Compete by making better games and stories, not by patenting basic role playing game mechanics and suing your competition.
The true fault here is the us patent system.
Nintendo is shitty for patenting this, sure, but why was the patent granted? This has happened numerous times for big tech companies where an overly broad patent is granted that allows them to stifle innovation and bully smaller companies out of business instead of properly competing with government protection
Exactly. Nintendo is not our friend, but it’s also playing by the rules it has available to it. It’s the rulemaker’s fault if the rules are shite.
As a publically traded company in the current system, Nintendo is not in the business of making video games, it’s in the business of making shareholder value. Video games are just a tool for doing that, exactly how a PC is a tool for writing documents or developing software. At the end of the day, companies have more than one tool at their disposal, and are going to use all of them to compete.
It’s on us to take away the tools we don’t think they should have access to, not on them to voluntarily not use the ones that are in play.
Classic American response: “companies aren’t responsible for the shitty choices they make, they can make as many shitty choices that harm people for profit as possible at all times and it’s just business”.
I’ve grown to hate that famous quote “It’s not personal, it’s just business.” because it’s almost exclusively used to excuse people when they choose to act like sociopaths.
Systemic change is needed when the system allows for that exploitation. That is not excusing companies. Noone should be able to do it is the right reaction.
No one should be able to do it is the right reaction, but ‘Nintendo deserves no blame or shame for choosing to do it’ is the wrong reaction. Nintendo could have used all the money it spends on IP lawyers to instead lobby the government to change the patent system, but they chose not to.
No-one you replied to said anything different which is why I find your reply weird.
I misread the comment hierarchy, I thought this was a part of a different chain.
The patent system is broken as fuck.
Specifically, the patent describes a situation where:
- A console or other system is being used to run a video game from storage
- The player controls a character in a “virtual space”
- The player can perform an input command to make a “sub character” appear (i.e. summon another character)
- If there’s an enemy where the sub character appears, the player can control a battle between the sub character and the enemy
- If there’s no enemy where the sub character appears, the sub character will automatically move around
- The player can move the sub character to a different location on the field, and if an enemy is there they can control a battle between the sub character and the enemy
This describes literally every pet system in any game where the pets can battle.
This is so overly broad, it’s insane.
It’s also any RPG-like game that lets you summon creatures or undead
It sounds incredibly vulnerable to this exact argument. Patents aren’t valid if it’s been invented already.
The problem is lawyers. Nintendo has billions to spend on them.
Even lawyers can’t get you out of trying to patent something that was clearly already in the market. Previously, Nintendo’s patent lawsuits had been for specific mechanics such as throwing a ball to capture npc animals.
So… Final Fantasy, Oblivion, Inscryption…
Let’s get old with it. Dragon Quest Monsters, Shin Megami, Monster Rancher ….
You can summon animals and demons and stuff in Dungeons and Dragons.
Devil May Cry V has V that functions like this as well
WoW hunters, warlocks?
OSRS has parts where you have to command your pet cat to attack rats even
Although in fairness I’d rather not have to ever deal with those mechanics ever again
Change a few little things and boom. No nintendo.
“Boom. No nintendo” sounds like a plan to me…
Fuck Nintendo.
Fuck Nintendo!
Man fuck nintendo
Just want to remind everyone that PalWorld is a really good game. Its still getting major updates and has an insane amount of high quality content to explore.
Did they ask Digimon when they made the patent?
Wikipedia says Digimon release 1997, Pokemon 1996.
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a lawsuit against Pocketpair in Japan last year, alleging that Palworld infringes on three patents that are related to monster catching gameplay, including summoning Pals by throwing Pal Spheres, and using Pals as vehicles like gliders.
Indication of how protective vs aggressive Nintendo uses it’s patents.
How similar vs novel do you feel pal world is to Pokemon?
Wonder what Blizzard thinks of this.
lol what a fucking joke
You can expect they will only “enforce” this with a competitor that gets too popular and all the other niche indie games like a cassette Beasts and TemTem they will leave alone
Existing IPs, maybe. But the real point of this patent is to stifle innovation and preempt competition. No indie developer is going to dare enter this creative space anymore as they don’t have the resources to challenge Nintendo’s patent - even though I think this won’t hold up in court.
Amma try summon demons irl to battle each other and get Nintendo to sue me for the most excellent court case.
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