Palworld is Being Accused of “Plagiarism” and Use of Generative AI For its Monster Design

With just less than one week since the launch of Palworld, the game has already received a fair share of praise and popularity; however, the game has also drawn in equal amounts of controversy, with internet users accusing the title for plagiarism and using generative AI for some of its monster designs.

Given Palworld’s huge launch, the discourse that had been present since the game’s initial announcement had been reignited, particularly around the monster designs called “Pals” and its similarities to Pokemon.

Several users on Twitter quickly pointed out the striking resemblances to the designs of some of the Pals, which takes in similar elements that are found in the Pokemon designs.

The discourse doesn’t stop there, as users had pointed out that the developer, Pocketpair, and their history with implementing generative AI in their past titles. Twitter user Zaytri noted in a thread that one of the developer’s previous title was a game called “AI: Art Imposter”, which features an AI image generator as its core mechanic.

In the same thread, the twitter user also highlighted the CEO of Pocketpair, Takuro Mizobe’s interest in AI technology, and how he believed AI tools could one day be advanced enough to bypass copyright issues.

While there’s no actual confirmation whether or not the designs in Palworld were made with the help of AI, some users believe that it was the case, as it could explain the similarities with the Pal’s designs, and how Palworld was made by a mostly inexperienced team.

In a recent blog post, Mizobe mentions that Palworld’s monster concepts were mostly made by a single graduate student.

“She was a new graduate and had applied to nearly 100 companies, but failed them all, and she is now drawing most of the characters in Palworld.” he wrote.

Despite the controversies surrounding the game, Palworld is still an extremely popular game, with the title surpassing over 1 million concurrent users on Steam, making it the fifth most played game on the platform, beating other notable titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Elden Ring.

Palworld is a multiplayer open world game that has players go about capturing animal-like creatures called “Pals”, as they utilise them for various tasks such as base construction, exploration, and combat.

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