Nintendo’s curious Palworld case, Pokémon TCG Pocket launches, and Instant Games’ big news | Week in Views

The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can’t let go of…

So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we’ve created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.

Craig Chapple

Head of Content

Remember Facebook Instant Games? It’s back

It was quite a blast from the past reading into Facebook Instant Games again this week.

I can’t actually believe it has been six and a half years since I wrote the same headline that we published this week: in-app purchases come to Facebook Instant Games.

Only this time it’s on iOS. In 2018, I noted that, while Android was getting IAPs through the Facebook app, the social networking giant was “exploring monetisation options on other platforms”. That didn’t take long, then.

As I mention in the linked article, it’s a clear example of how Apple and Google have really stifled competition and innovation through their walled garden approach to their app stores and mobile ecosystems.The 30% share is so big, that when Facebook – foolishly, mind – tried to keep get its own 30% cut on Android, developers rightly kicked off.

It’s amazing how much the 30% figure has stuck across platforms as the standard. I hope, as Epic has been pushing on the Epic Games Store, there’s truly room for new revenue share models that favour developers more than we’ve seen in the past.

If not, we’ll just see developers increasingly flee to the opportunities in HTML5 and web gaming. Apple and Google trying to squeeze as much out of publishers as possible – let’s not forget the money they take for UA, too – is already coming back to bite them.

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company vs. Pocket Pair: Understanding the details

Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have a lawsuit against the creators of Palworld, Pocket Pair. We’ve been hearing about this on and off since Palworld was released because, well, the resemblance of the game ‘Pals’ to ‘Pokémon’ is pretty clear. 

But in art, there is always imitation. Being inspired and having a likeness to something, however obvious it may be, technically is something we see all the time throughout all types of media. A movie that takes inspiration from another, music that inspires another artist, we see similarities all the time. 

The same can be said of video games. There are countless instances of playing one game that reminds you of another, whether it’s the art design, a character, or the mechanics themselves. 

While I do not doubt that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have a great team of lawyers, I wonder how difficult this case will be for them to win. Firstly, they’re choosing not to go for a copyright infringement because, as I just mentioned, while Pal’s indeed look similar, they’re also different enough not to be a straight-up carbon copy. 

Instead, the lawsuit is about a patent for which we currently don’t know the details. This article from Futura details one of the company’s patents.

As we always like to state on our Podcast, I am by no means a lawyer or have legal expertise, but I have played a ton of video games, and I can’t help but think that this could describe countless games.

While this is just an example and not easily the point they are using in the lawsuit, it does seem that winning such a case is no easy feat. But let’s say they do win. Could this be problematic for other games too?

Pokémon TCG Pocket launches tomorrow, but will it be the very best like Pokémon Go…?

The Pokémon series’ newest and wordiest mobile game has just launched, transforming the TCG into digital form with bite-sized battles and plenty to collect.

Titled Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, the game feels like something that should have existed years ago considering the TCG’s 28-year history, and yet it’s a brand-new release out this week. Of course, that history means plenty of artwork to leverage and near countless cards to introduce in future updates – giving old favourites a second wave and potentially earning The Pokémon Company that much more money from them.

As of launch, most cards feature the Pokémon from the original 151 like Pikachu, Charmander and Mewtwo, tickling that same nostalgia spot as Pokémon Go when it launched eight years ago. But unlike Go, there are the odd few cards featuring newer creatures, suggesting it won’t take quite as long for younger fans’ favourites to make it in too.

All in all, I’m personally expecting this one to be quite the money maker, considering over 50 billion Pokémon cards have been sold physically. Pair that with the power of mobile and a free-to-play model to encourage newcomers, and surely the power’s firmly back in Pokémon’s hands.