This article is reprinted from PCGamer

Original author: Ted Litchfield

I love my Nintendo Switch. I'm primarily a PC gamer, but this hybrid console has broken new ground in my gaming habits and rekindled my love for Nintendo games that hasn't been as strong since the GameCube/Game Boy Advance era. Sometimes, though, when I see the little piece of paper Mario running across the screen, this adorable symbol of my childhood, I think, "Damn, the company that made this game ruined someone's life because of 3DS piracy." ”

Nintendo has cast itself as the legal "terminator" of the gaming industry, but that doesn't seem to affect its fate – it's enjoying one of the greatest hardware successes in its long history with the Switch. However, these aggressive legal tactics can end up hurting companies, damaging their reputations for dubious and hard-to-quantify purposes. To make matters worse, it's hurting video games in general.

Bad for the industry

I don't really like Phantom Beast Palu's attempt to make a Pokémon-specific survival game, but I have a hard time thinking that Nintendo's patent litigation will do any good to the competition and creativity of the industry. Warner Bros. famously trademarked its rival system in Middle-earth and then shelved it, and the promised use of the system in the upcoming Wonder Woman game has yet to materialize — it does so by prohibiting indie developers from trying something similar.

In a medium built on parody and iteration – a first-person shooter used to be called a "Doom clone" – a high-profile legal action to punish this behavior seems to me short-sighted and detrimental to the player.

What if Nintendo patented the level escape mechanic and used that patent for Pizza Tower, which in turn improved and expanded the concept? Palu is clearly a spin-off, perhaps even to the point of tastelessness, but by taking it under the knife, Nintendo's actions may scare away other more valuable games in the future.

We recently saw an example of how a video game publisher's lawsuit could have a ripple effect on our gaming lives: modder iArtoriasUA removed their popular hack to remove PlayStation network logins from the God of War: Ragnarok Nexus, solely in anticipation of Sony's legal action.

Similarly, artists and fan game makers have learned to steer clear of the amount of attention and publicity that could catch Nintendo's attention.

Bad for Nintendo

Strengthening the reputation of "Nintendo, the strongest legal department" will inevitably come at the expense of "Nintendo, a cute toy manufacturer".

An analysis of Nintendo's history of intellectual property litigation reveals a pattern of absurd, overwhelming force being exerted on smaller players: the ugly case of Gary Bowser – who was sent to prison and is now paying off $14.5 million in debt while suffering chronic pain from the effects of elephantiasis, all because of the sale of hardware that supports 3DS piracy – or the massive copyright crackdown notices on YouTubers for their use of the game's soundtrack music.

But even in outright piracy like Bowser's, do companies really benefit from it? How much of Nintendo's estimated market capitalization of $65 billion can really be attributed to the strength of the legal department?

Palu the Phantom Beast is even less of a direct threat to Nintendo's interests than a pirate, it is a surprisingly successful copycat, and it seems that the company must punish it only to save face. The reputation of the whole "Pokémon with guns" and the use of "Palu balls" that resemble Poké Balls (which may be the key to Nintendo's patent case) seems to me like a spoof, a mischievous satire of the globally recognized Pokémon brand, far from an existential threat to Nintendo's valuable intellectual property.

In addition, the genre and audience that Phantom Palu occupies (survival crafting games on PC) never seems to have been of particular interest to Nintendo.

The timing is particularly confusing: Nintendo didn't strike at the height of the heat, when everyone was talking about Palu and Pokémon, and at this late hour, why bother?

Palu's biggest success was clearly driven by its popular appeal to Pokémon spoofs, and now it's just another survival-making game with a stable core community – see also Valhalla or Sons of the Forest.

Palu the Phantom Beast has faded into obscurity, and a short-lived novelty has been overshadowed by the more enduring hit of 2024, Helltrooper 2. Just when everyone basically forgot about Palu the Phantom Beast and moved on, Nintendo suddenly stepped in and announced, "In case you forget, they're small characters and we're huge, scary bullies." ”

Paloo the Phantom Beast has never been a threat to Nintendo's profits or market share, but the publisher is going to strike anyway, seemingly being forced to remind us of its insecurity as an industry-leading, globally recognized company that is so deep that it can't help but use all the firepower it can muster on something that is largely unrelated, or even a competitor.

Strengthening the reputation of "Nintendo, the strongest legal department" will inevitably come at the expense of "Nintendo, a cute toy manufacturer". I think this tension will someday affect the company's bottom line – I'm certainly considering not buying Nintendo's products anymore, even though rumors are flying around about the upcoming Switch 2. Even though its profits are currently guaranteed, it's hurting fans, game developers, and the gaming industry as a whole, which isn't good for anyone, including Nintendo.

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