‘Palworld’ video game ignites furor as it becomes an overnight sensation

Japanese developer Pocketpair hit an unexpected home run with its game “Palworld,” selling 7 million units in less than a week on the PC Steam service alone, according to the company’s X account, but with its success has come a backlash driving even more buzz.

“#Palworld has sold over 7 million copies in only 5 days! Thank you very much!! We continue to be hard at work addressing the issues and bugs some users are experiencing,” the post revealed, with the eye-popping figure not even accounting for the Xbox and Windows PC platforms where the game is also available.

In the game itself, players find themselves in a large, open world, catching and using Pokémon-like creatures in the environment to fight off enemies (sometimes with firearms), tackle hunger and survive the elements.

But the comparisons to Pokémon have also sparked controversy.

Fans of the long-running Pokémon franchise on Nintendo platforms have been angry about the close similarities of various creature designs, according to video game outlet IGN. It’s gotten bad enough that Pocketpair has said it received death threats.

“Frantically working through all my DMs and emails! I promise…However, you’ll excuse me if I skip over the death threats, threats to the company and massively outlandish claims,” posted one Pocketpair community manager. “If you’re capable of writing like an actual human being though, I’ll reply asap!”

Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe also responded to the alleged death threats on X and countered the claims of plagiarism as being “slanderous.”

Impassioned gamers behaving badly on behalf of a brand isn’t new, such as the harassment campaigns, doxxing and death threats that came out of the Gamergate culture wars from a decade ago. Toxic behavior even led to the “swatting” death of a Kansas man in 2017, and 91% of respondents to a Game Developers Conference survey last year agreed that harassment and abuse have become a concern for studios.

As for the possibility of legal action itself, Mizobe didn’t appear concerned when talking to Japanese outlet Automation, noting that “Palworld,” while inspired by Nintendo’s beloved franchise, was closer to other survival adventure games like the recent “Ark: Survival Evolved.”

While Pocketpair has avoided lawsuits so far, a YouTuber independently modified the game by putting “ACTUAL Pokemon into Palworld” and found himself thwarted by a copyright claim from Nintendo.

“Nintendo has come for me, please leave me in your thoughts and prayers,” he posted on X.

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