Pokemon Company's Former Top Lawyer Calls Palworld 'Ripoff Nonsense'

Don McGowan, The Pokemon Company's former chief legal officer, has labeled Palworld as «ripoff nonsense.» His views on the hit survival game dovetail with those of some vocal Pokemon fans who are not happy about Palworld and eager to criticize it any chance they get.

Originally unveiled by Japanese developer PocketPair in mid-2021, Palworld is an open-world survival game with monster-taming mechanics whose early access version hit PC and Xbox consoles on January 19. Despite sharing more similarities with Craftopia—PocketPair's last title—than Pokemon, it has so far proven to be unable to escape the "Pokemon with guns" label attached to it by both critics and fans alike. But as the ongoing accusations of Palworld ripping off Pokemon suggest, that description may not be completely baseless.

Don McGowan, who worked as The Pokemon Company's chief legal officer over a 12-year period ending in 2020, has now offered his two cents on the ordeal. Speaking with Game File's Stephen Totilo, McGowan described Palworld as «the usual ripoff nonsense» that he used to encounter on a daily basis back when he was still with The Pokemon Company International. «I'm just surprised it got this far,» the industry veteran said. It is unclear whether that remark was meant to imply Pokemon ripoffs usually fizzle out before release, or that McGowan would look into suing PocketPair for copyright infringement if he were still in charge of all Pokemon-related legal affairs.

McGowan's former employer has so far remained mum on the hit game. Seeing how Palworld has been sharing gameplay footage for years leading up to its early access release, The Pokemon Company already had ample time to prepare a copyright infringement complaint. Whether it decided against doing so because it wasn't convinced it had an iron-clad case against PocketPair or some other reason is unclear. But there is little doubt that the conglomerate has been aware of Palworld and its similarities to Pokemon for a long time now.

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