April 25, 2025 • 15 mins
Nintendo has filed new patents to go after palworld's dev pocket pair. these could have massive rammifications on the industry as a whole.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Now we're back talking about Pow Worlds, changing gears a
little bit. Between all the new releases, Oblivion Remastered, everything
coming out, I want to take a break and kind
of go back to some older news, some stuff that
we may have covered before and talked about before. I
know it's one of Jake's more fun games, pow World,
And of course we want to we need to talk
(00:22):
about Nintendo's lawsuit against them because they are arguing additional
patents now that how World is infringing on that can
have some massive, wide reaching industry I'm looking for something
other than to say problems like this is a huge
problem for the industry if these pat if this patent
(00:45):
is like they go, yes, these pants are absolutely true.
This doesn't just hit pow World. This would sit a
precedent that could hit so many games. Of course massively
overpowered as the article, but we're going to be jumping
over to games Frey to talk more in depth about it,
to go through kind of what this patent actually is
(01:06):
and really talk about what it means, because there is
a lot to this that is horrifying when you think
about what this could mean. How World studios are used
multiple prior game releases. Nola fined Nintendo's patent lawsuit. Wheels
of litigation continues slowly between Nintendo and Power World. Power
World was slapped with this lawsuit back in September, and
(01:28):
of course they are still fighting it, and they're probably
going to be fighting it for years to come. We
know how slow litigation is, especially this kind of thing
with discovery and patent lawsuit. This was all in Japan,
which has very strict patent rules and very strict copyright.
For instance, in the Japanese legal system there is no
(01:49):
such thing as for you fair use, so it's easier
to argue patents there than in the US. And now,
of course they're trying to bring those patents over to
the US. They were seeing Nintendo was seeking sixty six
thousand dollars in damages, and of course my computer's restarting,
so it's going, hey, you don't have a MacFee or
whatever they require, and I'm like, no, I don't want it.
(02:13):
Back to what I was saying, Nintendo was seeking sixty
six thousand dollars in damages and an injunction against the
Survival Sandbox. The sixty six thousand dollars is chump change.
Nintendo is a billion dollar company. Sixty six thousand dollars
against a dev like Pocket Pair is nothing. What they
really wanted was that injunction and the precedent set it forward,
(02:36):
because if they could get this passed through and this
set up, Nintendo could begin to go after other places
and start working against maybe some other bigger problems. This
is why I said, this can have some major connotations.
Once you set precedent, you're letting the genie out of
the bottle, and I think that's one of the reasons
why this lawsuit needs to go away. I don't think
(02:58):
Pocket Pair can afford to settle this. They can't afford
to let the judge know that the precedent set will
not just be them. The judge needs to know that, hey,
if you set this precedent, this could hit this industry
like a truck. Some of the mechanics that they're talking
(03:19):
about are, of course throwing an item, throwing an item
to capture an enemy or to deploy an enemy. We
actually saw Powerwroll remove that already. How towing a little
bit to Nintendo giving them a bone smoothly writing on
creatures and capture mechanics. Okay, so Nintendo's arguing a lot
(03:42):
of things, and the one I want to focus on
is kind of the one that's smoothed over here and
games Frey talks more about it, because I want to
actually read through what this panent is, because that matters
a lot, because it is a very prow odd pat
one that needs to be rejected and argued against, because
(04:06):
this can hit so many companies and so many games
in development. It's not just smoothly writing a creature. So
the patent itself, it says a game program which causes
a computer or information process device to control a player
character within a virtual space based on operational input. That's
legalies that means software hard game, not hardware, but a
(04:29):
games program in which you control a character within a space.
Every video game ever, is what it's saying. This patent
is intended for. And when one of a plurality of
types of boarding creatures that the player characters can board
is selected from the characters owned by the player character,
and a boarding instruction is given as the player character
(04:49):
board the selected boarding character and make it mobile. This
is just the definition of mounting a creature. Any games
where you mount a creature, if you have a Mountain,
World of Warcraft Elder Scrolls Online. If you own a
horse in Red Dead Redemption, technically, because there are multiple
different kinds of horses, that is a plurality. Any type
(05:11):
of non vehicle creature is what. This applies to every
fantasy game that has creatures. You can ride. Anything like
that hits this industry like a truck. That is what
I'm most concerned. And when a first operational input is
given while the player character is in the air, has
(05:31):
the character bored and air boarding character among the boarding
characters that can move in the air and make it mobile.
This is saying that boarding a creature in the air,
jumping out and boarding a creature in the air. Of course,
that doesn't just apply to this because of the definition
of creature. Technically, a lot of different kinds of blighters count,
(05:59):
which is horrifying to think about any type of living glider.
If your game decided we use gliders, but you know,
for the fun of it, we're gonna make it a
flying squirrel or something, technically you're in violation of this
patent and Nintendo consue you. Uh. And while a player
character is boarding, the airborne boarding character moves, the character
(06:19):
boarding okay, controlling the creature in the air after boarding it.
This is just the definition of mounting creatures. This is
just the definition of mounting creatures. Nintendo wants the patent
who mounted creatures. You can never ride a horse in
a video game. Again, You can never own a mount
(06:43):
in a video again game again. What is Nintendo thinking?
Like I said, this hits the industry like a trump
because if this goes through and pocket Pair gets ruled against,
Nintendo can say, oh, so we own mounted creatures. Now.
(07:06):
I'm against patenting mechanics in games as a whole. I
don't think it's it's good, a good idea. It's inherently
anti competitive. Nintendo is a titan of the industry, smaller
than Microsoft or Sony, but there's still a titan. There's
still a billion dollar company, and they're trying to say, no, no,
(07:28):
we own this very broad mechanic, just like we own
throwing items to capture creatures. We own that that. This
is ridiculous because this implies the other things. Again, I'm
against patenting these kind of mechanics as a whole because
(07:48):
when you patent these kind of mechanics, it limits the
rest of the game's industry. I talked about this before
a little time ago when I was kind of talking
about Shadow of War and the Nemesis System. Monolith owns
the Nemesis System. WB owns the Nemesis System. Unfortunately, I
(08:10):
believe the studio that owns the Nemesis System is currently
being decommissioned, which means technically until unless WB wants to
hand it over to another studio, no other game company
can use the Nemesis System. Now, that is a very
niche system. That is a system that has a lot
of moving parts to it. But when you're saying that
(08:31):
you can patent specific mechanics, did you know that a
lot of scroll wheel types are patented, and when these
scroll wheel types are patented, other games are very limited
in their UI design. For instance, I think it was
Need for Speed, correct me if I'm wrong. Need for
Speed for like ten years owned the patent on a
(08:56):
mini game in a loading screen. If you ever played
a game I've an old game where you could play
Pong in your loading screen. That company owned that patent
for ten years. No other game could say, you know,
this loading screen is going on. We could have a
mini game going no one else did that could do
that because they own the patent to that, and those
are like minor kind of niche things. Those are like, oh,
(09:18):
quality of life changes. This is a functional mechanic to
a lot of games. This is absolutely ridiculous because what
if Nintendo comes out and says, hmmm, uh, now that
we're gonna patent this, let's pattent a character jumping again,
I am going to the absurdest, farthest part of this slope,
(09:41):
and I'm saying this is a slippery slope because companies
are greedy, and the fact that they're saying, hey, we're
doing this, We're putting these patents forward and we're going
to retroactively apply them, that is ridiculous. Pocket Pair has
already been in developm of this game Nintendo. Nintendo is
(10:02):
behaving like like the villains. Nintendo is supposed to be
the family friendly company. They are not behaving like it.
They're behaving like Microsoft, like Sony, like they like they're
finally getting into the American corporate cock throat game, which
is ridiculous because Nintendo has always been seen as this
(10:22):
very are artistic games. They want to push the industry forward.
They invented z targeting. They they want to go where
the rest doesn't, where a bunch of other groups are
making the PS five and the the Xbox six. They're
again abservice there, I know the Xbox series X. They're saying, no, wait, wait,
let's produce the WU let's make switch. Now. They're behaving
(10:46):
like the cutthroat American companies where they're going, no, we
want undercut our competition. Let's let's keep this oligopoly of
games companies moving. And if I sound heated, I do
sound heated because I see the writing on the walls. Corps. Wow,
why did I become the anti corp guy? Why did
(11:09):
I become the anti corp guy? These corps when when
they keep they they will keep pushing until somebody stops them,
until leally they can't push anymore until something bigger fish
comes out and says enough, whether that be a government,
whether that be a economic block, or their audience says
(11:35):
we won't support this, they will keep pushing. And we've
seen this in the games industry. Every game is pushing,
Every game is trying to eke a little bit more money.
It's not about the art anymore. It's about the business.
It's about the trillion dollar business. And the best games
that are coming out of nowhere are the indie games
that are flying out of no our schedule one among us,
(11:57):
all these little games that come out and everyone's like, oh,
this is I can see the artistic art behind it.
The person loved the game when they made it. This
is just corporate greed. And this hal World thing has
been corporate greed. How World is just competition? Why can't
Nintendo see that? Hey, their product is stronger. Hal World
(12:21):
is not a direct ripoff. I'm sure it takes direct
liberties with it, and it's like, okay, yeah, I can
see where they're pretty close together, but it is not
a direct ripoff. Because here's the thing. If Pow World
is a ripoff, arc is a ripoff. There, they're completely
different games, and Nintendo's saying, no, no, they're the same.
(12:41):
Uh maybe there is some character designs that are too similar,
and Nintendo can go, okay, no, we have copyright on this.
This character is obviously just a ripoff of ours. But
to say we're going after them because we want to
own these mechanics in these games. We want to own
these mechanics. And of course, Hocket pairs, Hocket pairs Defense
(13:05):
is literally, Hey, guys, they can't own this patent. Games
have been doing this forever. They are going so broad
with their patents that it's ridiculous. And I think some
people need to really start looking into this because Nintendo
is Nintendo's beginning and not beginning. It has begun. It's
a villain art. The switch to is coming out. Nintendo
(13:27):
has begun. It's a villain art. It's a very short article,
which is why I'm like, I can just sit here
and rant. I love getting up on my soapbox. And
of course if you're watching and you love me getting
up on my soapbox and ranting and going nuts. This
is of course an opinion show my just thoughts on it.
(13:49):
Leave a comment, leave a like, subscribe if you want more,
tell me you want more of this content, and I
will make more. Maybe I'll also integrate like my face
when I can get a new camera from home. I'm
recording all from not the studio, doing these on the
off days, on the on days, Tuesday's, Thursday, Saturdays. I
do stream. You can catch me over on twitch link.
In the description I'm done shilling for myself. Hit that
(14:12):
like hit that subscribe. I mean that's everything that we
got for you right now. Again, it is a short article.
Pocket Pair is just fighting the good fight. Honestly, this
is the good fight. You can't let Nintendo say we
own we own mounts. You can't let Nintendo say we
(14:32):
own capturing monsters. We can't. Nintendo can't say, hey, we
own throwing an item, and it's ridiculous that they think
they can. Honestly, somebody just steps in and say no,
this isn't just this isn't just anti anti competitive, this
(14:57):
is monopolistic behavior. Da've nopolize the Pokemon style game for
so long that the second they get competition, they don't
want to play fair. They just want to eliminate it.
I've been your host, Isaiah. We'll catch you later
Now we're back talking about Pow Worlds, changing gears a
little bit. Between all the new releases, Oblivion Remastered, everything
coming out, I want to take a break and kind
of go back to some older news, some stuff that
we may have covered before and talked about before. I
know it's one of Jake's more fun games, pow World,
And of course we want to we need to talk
(00:22):
about Nintendo's lawsuit against them because they are arguing additional
patents now that how World is infringing on that can
have some massive, wide reaching industry I'm looking for something
other than to say problems like this is a huge
problem for the industry if these pat if this patent
(00:45):
is like they go, yes, these pants are absolutely true.
This doesn't just hit pow World. This would sit a
precedent that could hit so many games. Of course massively
overpowered as the article, but we're going to be jumping
over to games Frey to talk more in depth about it,
to go through kind of what this patent actually is
(01:06):
and really talk about what it means, because there is
a lot to this that is horrifying when you think
about what this could mean. How World studios are used
multiple prior game releases. Nola fined Nintendo's patent lawsuit. Wheels
of litigation continues slowly between Nintendo and Power World. Power
World was slapped with this lawsuit back in September, and
(01:28):
of course they are still fighting it, and they're probably
going to be fighting it for years to come. We
know how slow litigation is, especially this kind of thing
with discovery and patent lawsuit. This was all in Japan,
which has very strict patent rules and very strict copyright.
For instance, in the Japanese legal system there is no
(01:49):
such thing as for you fair use, so it's easier
to argue patents there than in the US. And now,
of course they're trying to bring those patents over to
the US. They were seeing Nintendo was seeking sixty six
thousand dollars in damages, and of course my computer's restarting,
so it's going, hey, you don't have a MacFee or
whatever they require, and I'm like, no, I don't want it.
(02:13):
Back to what I was saying, Nintendo was seeking sixty
six thousand dollars in damages and an injunction against the
Survival Sandbox. The sixty six thousand dollars is chump change.
Nintendo is a billion dollar company. Sixty six thousand dollars
against a dev like Pocket Pair is nothing. What they
really wanted was that injunction and the precedent set it forward,
(02:36):
because if they could get this passed through and this
set up, Nintendo could begin to go after other places
and start working against maybe some other bigger problems. This
is why I said, this can have some major connotations.
Once you set precedent, you're letting the genie out of
the bottle, and I think that's one of the reasons
why this lawsuit needs to go away. I don't think
(02:58):
Pocket Pair can afford to settle this. They can't afford
to let the judge know that the precedent set will
not just be them. The judge needs to know that, hey,
if you set this precedent, this could hit this industry
like a truck. Some of the mechanics that they're talking
(03:19):
about are, of course throwing an item, throwing an item
to capture an enemy or to deploy an enemy. We
actually saw Powerwroll remove that already. How towing a little
bit to Nintendo giving them a bone smoothly writing on
creatures and capture mechanics. Okay, so Nintendo's arguing a lot
(03:42):
of things, and the one I want to focus on
is kind of the one that's smoothed over here and
games Frey talks more about it, because I want to
actually read through what this panent is, because that matters
a lot, because it is a very prow odd pat
one that needs to be rejected and argued against, because
(04:06):
this can hit so many companies and so many games
in development. It's not just smoothly writing a creature. So
the patent itself, it says a game program which causes
a computer or information process device to control a player
character within a virtual space based on operational input. That's
legalies that means software hard game, not hardware, but a
(04:29):
games program in which you control a character within a space.
Every video game ever, is what it's saying. This patent
is intended for. And when one of a plurality of
types of boarding creatures that the player characters can board
is selected from the characters owned by the player character,
and a boarding instruction is given as the player character
(04:49):
board the selected boarding character and make it mobile. This
is just the definition of mounting a creature. Any games
where you mount a creature, if you have a Mountain,
World of Warcraft Elder Scrolls Online. If you own a
horse in Red Dead Redemption, technically, because there are multiple
different kinds of horses, that is a plurality. Any type
(05:11):
of non vehicle creature is what. This applies to every
fantasy game that has creatures. You can ride. Anything like
that hits this industry like a truck. That is what
I'm most concerned. And when a first operational input is
given while the player character is in the air, has
(05:31):
the character bored and air boarding character among the boarding
characters that can move in the air and make it mobile.
This is saying that boarding a creature in the air,
jumping out and boarding a creature in the air. Of course,
that doesn't just apply to this because of the definition
of creature. Technically, a lot of different kinds of blighters count,
(05:59):
which is horrifying to think about any type of living glider.
If your game decided we use gliders, but you know,
for the fun of it, we're gonna make it a
flying squirrel or something, technically you're in violation of this
patent and Nintendo consue you. Uh. And while a player
character is boarding, the airborne boarding character moves, the character
(06:19):
boarding okay, controlling the creature in the air after boarding it.
This is just the definition of mounting creatures. This is
just the definition of mounting creatures. Nintendo wants the patent
who mounted creatures. You can never ride a horse in
a video game. Again, You can never own a mount
(06:43):
in a video again game again. What is Nintendo thinking?
Like I said, this hits the industry like a trump
because if this goes through and pocket Pair gets ruled against,
Nintendo can say, oh, so we own mounted creatures. Now.
(07:06):
I'm against patenting mechanics in games as a whole. I
don't think it's it's good, a good idea. It's inherently
anti competitive. Nintendo is a titan of the industry, smaller
than Microsoft or Sony, but there's still a titan. There's
still a billion dollar company, and they're trying to say, no, no,
(07:28):
we own this very broad mechanic, just like we own
throwing items to capture creatures. We own that that. This
is ridiculous because this implies the other things. Again, I'm
against patenting these kind of mechanics as a whole because
(07:48):
when you patent these kind of mechanics, it limits the
rest of the game's industry. I talked about this before
a little time ago when I was kind of talking
about Shadow of War and the Nemesis System. Monolith owns
the Nemesis System. WB owns the Nemesis System. Unfortunately, I
(08:10):
believe the studio that owns the Nemesis System is currently
being decommissioned, which means technically until unless WB wants to
hand it over to another studio, no other game company
can use the Nemesis System. Now, that is a very
niche system. That is a system that has a lot
of moving parts to it. But when you're saying that
(08:31):
you can patent specific mechanics, did you know that a
lot of scroll wheel types are patented, and when these
scroll wheel types are patented, other games are very limited
in their UI design. For instance, I think it was
Need for Speed, correct me if I'm wrong. Need for
Speed for like ten years owned the patent on a
(08:56):
mini game in a loading screen. If you ever played
a game I've an old game where you could play
Pong in your loading screen. That company owned that patent
for ten years. No other game could say, you know,
this loading screen is going on. We could have a
mini game going no one else did that could do
that because they own the patent to that, and those
are like minor kind of niche things. Those are like, oh,
(09:18):
quality of life changes. This is a functional mechanic to
a lot of games. This is absolutely ridiculous because what
if Nintendo comes out and says, hmmm, uh, now that
we're gonna patent this, let's pattent a character jumping again,
I am going to the absurdest, farthest part of this slope,
(09:41):
and I'm saying this is a slippery slope because companies
are greedy, and the fact that they're saying, hey, we're
doing this, We're putting these patents forward and we're going
to retroactively apply them, that is ridiculous. Pocket Pair has
already been in developm of this game Nintendo. Nintendo is
(10:02):
behaving like like the villains. Nintendo is supposed to be
the family friendly company. They are not behaving like it.
They're behaving like Microsoft, like Sony, like they like they're
finally getting into the American corporate cock throat game, which
is ridiculous because Nintendo has always been seen as this
(10:22):
very are artistic games. They want to push the industry forward.
They invented z targeting. They they want to go where
the rest doesn't, where a bunch of other groups are
making the PS five and the the Xbox six. They're
again abservice there, I know the Xbox series X. They're saying, no, wait, wait,
let's produce the WU let's make switch. Now. They're behaving
(10:46):
like the cutthroat American companies where they're going, no, we
want undercut our competition. Let's let's keep this oligopoly of
games companies moving. And if I sound heated, I do
sound heated because I see the writing on the walls. Corps. Wow,
why did I become the anti corp guy? Why did
(11:09):
I become the anti corp guy? These corps when when
they keep they they will keep pushing until somebody stops them,
until leally they can't push anymore until something bigger fish
comes out and says enough, whether that be a government,
whether that be a economic block, or their audience says
(11:35):
we won't support this, they will keep pushing. And we've
seen this in the games industry. Every game is pushing,
Every game is trying to eke a little bit more money.
It's not about the art anymore. It's about the business.
It's about the trillion dollar business. And the best games
that are coming out of nowhere are the indie games
that are flying out of no our schedule one among us,
(11:57):
all these little games that come out and everyone's like, oh,
this is I can see the artistic art behind it.
The person loved the game when they made it. This
is just corporate greed. And this hal World thing has
been corporate greed. How World is just competition? Why can't
Nintendo see that? Hey, their product is stronger. Hal World
(12:21):
is not a direct ripoff. I'm sure it takes direct
liberties with it, and it's like, okay, yeah, I can
see where they're pretty close together, but it is not
a direct ripoff. Because here's the thing. If Pow World
is a ripoff, arc is a ripoff. There, they're completely
different games, and Nintendo's saying, no, no, they're the same.
(12:41):
Uh maybe there is some character designs that are too similar,
and Nintendo can go, okay, no, we have copyright on this.
This character is obviously just a ripoff of ours. But
to say we're going after them because we want to
own these mechanics in these games. We want to own
these mechanics. And of course, Hocket pairs, Hocket pairs Defense
(13:05):
is literally, Hey, guys, they can't own this patent. Games
have been doing this forever. They are going so broad
with their patents that it's ridiculous. And I think some
people need to really start looking into this because Nintendo
is Nintendo's beginning and not beginning. It has begun. It's
a villain art. The switch to is coming out. Nintendo
(13:27):
has begun. It's a villain art. It's a very short article,
which is why I'm like, I can just sit here
and rant. I love getting up on my soapbox. And
of course if you're watching and you love me getting
up on my soapbox and ranting and going nuts. This
is of course an opinion show my just thoughts on it.
(13:49):
Leave a comment, leave a like, subscribe if you want more,
tell me you want more of this content, and I
will make more. Maybe I'll also integrate like my face
when I can get a new camera from home. I'm
recording all from not the studio, doing these on the
off days, on the on days, Tuesday's, Thursday, Saturdays. I
do stream. You can catch me over on twitch link.
In the description I'm done shilling for myself. Hit that
(14:12):
like hit that subscribe. I mean that's everything that we
got for you right now. Again, it is a short article.
Pocket Pair is just fighting the good fight. Honestly, this
is the good fight. You can't let Nintendo say we
own we own mounts. You can't let Nintendo say we
(14:32):
own capturing monsters. We can't. Nintendo can't say, hey, we
own throwing an item, and it's ridiculous that they think
they can. Honestly, somebody just steps in and say no,
this isn't just this isn't just anti anti competitive, this
(14:57):
is monopolistic behavior. Da've nopolize the Pokemon style game for
so long that the second they get competition, they don't
want to play fair. They just want to eliminate it.
I've been your host, Isaiah. We'll catch you later
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