Napoleon: Total War

Palworld and Pokémon

  • Comment
Palworld continues to break records on Steam, racking up 1,864,421 unique concurrent players in the past 24 hours. At least 4 of those uniques are in the Nexus Mods offices, where after-hours ‘research’ is being conducted.

Whether you think this game has arrived out of the blue, or was an obvious hit, one thing is clear; It bears a lot of similarity to an existing game franchise you may have encountered, namely Pokémon. We won’t go into detail about potential similarities; suffice to say that enough significant likeness exists in the base games to require clarification when it comes to modding the game.



We do think that adding Pokémon content to Palworld is a very cool idea and we understand why people would want such a thing. However, we're not comfortable hosting this content at Nexus Mods.

As you may know, Nintendo (who jointly own the Pokémon franchise) have a consistent record of mercilessly submitting legal challenges, DMCAs and takedowns against fan-made content.

Given Palworld's similarity to the Pokémon franchise as a base game, hosting content that adds Pokémon copyrighted characters or assets into the game is almost certainly going to put us at risk of legal action. Palworld content that is uploaded to Nexus Mods and is considered to have Pokémon-derived characters or assets will be taken down. Our normal moderation policies will apply.

We don’t think it's worth the risk to allow this content to be shared in our community. At best we would have to deal with the headache of legal threats from Nintendo and at worst they may seek to take action against us and the uploaders of the mods directly.

There are many creative opportunities to explore mods for this game that add to the world and gameplay, but do not infringe on existing IP so obviously. You are encouraged to explore these modding directions freely.

We are looking to support Palworld modding in any way that we can and we have already released Vortex mod manager support for Palworld. We also encourage you to visit us in our Palworld modding forums.

All of us here at Nexus Mods are really excited to see what the PalWorld modding community comes up with.

140 comments

Comments locked

A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time being
  1. Demorphic
    Demorphic
    • Community Manager
    • 36 kudos
    Locked
    Sticky
    To address many of the 'what-about-isms' that arise from an update like this, 'what about this character in this game' etc. There are various examples, but most in are games that are of little concern to the IP (Intellectual Property) owners.

    This is quite a unique situation, being incredibly high profile and involving two very similar IPs. This is why we addressed it specifically. We have a well established content takedown process if IP owners want to challenge any piece of content on the site.

    In addition, please don't directly call out modders or initiate mod witchhunts in the comments here.

    This recent Pokémon Company release further validates our position on this:
    https://corporate.pokemon.co.jp/media/news/detail/335.html
  2. stormsgod
    stormsgod
    • premium
    • 1 kudos
    so are you gonna remove every other game's mods that add pokemon as well? that statement from the Pokémon Company is nothing more than a "please tendies, stop spamming our inbox. legally we cant do anything". this website is so blatantly compromised you can taste the bias lmao. screencap this and watch as this comment gets deleted.
    1. Samesek
      Samesek
      • supporter
      • 0 kudos
      Imagine actually calling people tendies outside of /v/
  3. agentgerbil
    agentgerbil
    • premium
    • 1 kudos
    Yeah i'm cancelling my premium subscription over this hypocrisy.
  4. GoodbyeLeeches
    GoodbyeLeeches
    • member
    • 10 kudos
    "We openly make an announcement in which we condone the modding community should be able to use copyrighted assets for their projects. However, we also simultaneously communicate that the modding community must go to do this to some other place away from Nexus, since we will be automatically systematically banning all such content despite our announcement of agreeing with mods that use copyrighted assets, and that there's nothing wrong about it even though we won't allow it here. Thank you for understanding our flagrant hypocrisy, as we say one thing but do the exact opposite. We deeply care about our community, we deeply care about you. We wish you luck in your search of alternative hosting sites. Have a good day, also don't forget to donate to us for doing so much for all of you."

    "We stress that no one should be prosecuted for making Pokémon mods, but please don't do it on our site, we'll get your family if you do! Take care."
    1. Glitchfinder
      Glitchfinder
      • premium
      • 672 kudos
      "I understand this idea" and "I cannot condone this idea" are not mutually exclusive, nor is it hypocritical to both understand why people would want to do something and simultaneously tell them not to do it.
    2. Demorphic
      Demorphic
      • Community Manager
      • 36 kudos
      I think it's worth reiterating here, we are not the authority on what you can and cannot mod into your games. We can make a call on what we are willing to host on our platform. Beyond this, it's your call.
    3. Gantz79
      Gantz79
      • premium
      • 404 kudos
      Because if you admit openly and without any doubt that you support copyright infringement and host it on your server you are an accomplice, but if you do not you just have to delete the content in case of complaint and say that you can not control what users upload, the same thing that happened to MEGA.
    4. comeintomadness
      comeintomadness
      • supporter
      • 1 kudos
      I dont think i'd even bother with Nexus if there was another option for the mods I get, some of the mods i've heard about them deplatform really feel like it goes the spirit of modding
    5. lmstearn
      lmstearn
      • premium
      • 26 kudos
      Modding rights rescindo,
      No pun Nintendo.
    6. paladin181
      paladin181
      • member
      • 4 kudos
      No, The hypocrisy is the multitude of Pokemon mods in other games, but this one is off limits, guys.
    7. Chalbran1
      Chalbran1
      • supporter
      • 0 kudos
      The other mods haven't been sued yet, there's currently an active lawsuit against an already existing Pokémon overhaul mod and Patreon for hosting it. If anyone's the hypocrite its Nintendo for not going all or nothing.
    8. Gantz79
      Gantz79
      • premium
      • 404 kudos
      But we return to the same thing, Patreon is not responsible for what its users post unless they refuse to eliminate it and give it support, as long as there is no firm ruling of fraud it cannot allow itself to eliminate content that its rules allow, just like what happened like the dead MEGA and the movies.
    9. SplashOfBlue
      SplashOfBlue
      • supporter
      • 1 kudos
      But we return to the same thing, Patreon is not responsible for what its users post unless they refuse to eliminate it and give it support, as long as there is no firm ruling of fraud it cannot allow itself to eliminate content that its rules allow, just like what happened like the dead MEGA and the movies.

      This would probably be why its so far only been DMCA's towards ToastedShoes clips/videos of the mod. Also to note, it was never available and is/was a private mod with the intention to release it.
    10. Arkayjiya
      Arkayjiya
      • member
      • 5 kudos
      "No, The hypocrisy is the multitude of Pokemon mods in other games, but this one is off limits, guys."

      I feel like you don't know what hypocrisy means. It would be hypocritical if their reason for removing it was on moral ground, but since it's purely based on a cost benefit analysis, there can't really be hypocrisy unless you're gonna argue that "they don't actually care about cost/benefit". If they haven't removed previous mods for other games, it's because there was little risk. Now there is.
  5. cCaptainnn
    cCaptainnn
    • member
    • 1 kudos
    As someone who once financially supported this site via my main account, I have to say I'm disappointed in how corporate Nexus has become, and I am eager to see others take up the mantle once worn by this site before such terrible changes occurred.
  6. XelusPrime
    XelusPrime
    • member
    • 1 kudos
    Considering  that Nintendo is actually going after Palworld now (openly stated they will be investigating Palworld until they find something to sink the game with), this is a good call from Nexus, and a totally reasonable one too. Nintendo has a high degree of "butthurt". Curious to see how this will all turn out with Palworld, haven't played the game myself, have friends that do, that praise the game a lot, but will see what happens.

    On the other side, I also have some respect for Nintendo, sure they are guilty of ripping off other things (show me a corporation that hasn't), but atleast they also do the leg work to try and protect the work their developers have made, even though they come across as total d****. Being a creative, it crushes one's soul when someone steals your hardwork (happened several times to me over the years), and making money off of it, not saying that is what Palworld has done, but in general, it really kills your creative spirit.

    Most will just turn a blind eye to copyright infringement (among other things), few really truly understand, let alone appreciate the amount of work that goes into something that most just see the end result of, and thinks, "pfft, thats so simple" or whatever.
  7. ArisneR
    ArisneR
    • member
    • 3 kudos
    as always, pathetic post about how u dont want to anger twitter users
  8. piromods
    piromods
    • premium
    • 54 kudos
    Yet another L take from Nexus
  9. GuyFankk
    GuyFankk
    • premium
    • 1 kudos
    I understand the caution and don't debate it. My whole view is yeah, Nintendo has always RUTHLESSLY pursued legal action against people the moment they have a case. Nintendo has known about Palworld forever. If there was any case at all, it would've already existed and Palworld would already be done.

    I don't get on board with the hate trains with no CONCRETE proof. You can't deny inspiration / similarities but it's not my job to witch hunt gaming companies.
    1. razick
      razick
      • premium
      • 1 kudos
      Hate train is mainly from Pokemon fans who think that anything bipedal and yellow resembles Pikachu.
  10. Leylu
    Leylu
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    Similar doesn't mean a direct copy and I didn't realize Nintendo/Pokemon owned turtles or pigeons now. They also "copied" a lot of their stuff from other games. The idea of originality is very hard to prove legally because anything is hardly 100% original and not inspired by something.

    Utter nonsense made up problems by people who are bored with their life. 
    1. SplashOfBlue
      SplashOfBlue
      • supporter
      • 1 kudos
      have you been living under a rock? the assets used in palworld are literally ripped from pokemon. it's not inspiration, it's actively stealing assets and designs from it

      Apparently you have. The allegations for that have been proven wrong. As the person who said them and had the pictures literally said they made it all up and crunch down the assets to make them look to be almost 1:1
    2. Pacotaco184
      Pacotaco184
      • premium
      • 0 kudos
      have you been living under a rock? the assets used in palworld are literally ripped from pokemon. it's not inspiration, it's actively
      stealing assets and designs from it
      You understand that the person who showed the 1:1 model thing admitted to altering the models to fit, right?
  11. Chalbran1
    Chalbran1
    • supporter
    • 0 kudos
    The other mods haven't been sued yet, there's currently an active lawsuit against an already existing Pokémon overhaul mod and Patreon for hosting it. If anyone's the hypocrite its Nintendo for not going all or nothing.
    1. SplashOfBlue
      SplashOfBlue
      • supporter
      • 1 kudos
      This is incorrect, there is no lawsuit. Its only been DMCA's to the youtubers channel for posting the content. the mod was never public or behind patreon