During a talk at GDC 2025, Pocketpair global community manager John Buckley responded to the lawsuit Nintendo and The Pokemon Company filed against the company over Palworld.
Buckley spoke about how the move came as a shock for Pocketpair since the team “did legal checks” before the game’s release. He also mentioned that “it didn’t feel good obviously” and “it was a very depressing day” when the lawsuit came in.
Buckley’s full words:
“We did legal checks before Palworld released and they were all cleared in Japan. So obviously when the lawsuit was announced we were like, ‘What?’ And we went back to the lawyers, and the lawyers contacted the courts and asked, ‘What’s going on?’ and that’s when we realized it was patents they were going for.”
Källa: Palworld dev was surprised by Nintendo / Pokemon lawsuit, was ”a very depressing day”