Nor should it be. The standard for copyright violation is pretty high, things don’t have to just look similar, they need to actually match, so there’s no copyright over the idea of cute, Japanese-themed monsters, especially with other Japanese-themed monster games/shows like Digimon. Even if they matched the art style, you can’t copyright art style, you can only copyright the art itself.

The original part is the specific formulation. Pretty much all games are mashups of other games anyway. Palworld found a formula among popular games that really struck a chord with people, and they executed on it pretty well.

And yeah, I’ve seen extensive portions of Palworld since my SO is really into it. My SO doesn’t care much at all about Pokemon, Breath of the Wild, or Fortnite, though they really like Palworld. That alone is a pretty good argument for Palworld being distinct.

Nintendo is mad that Palworld did a great job with some of their ideas, and I think they want a piece of the action. I don’t think they’re concerned that anyone would mistake Palworld for any of their IPs, they just want some cash. I’m interested to know which patents they claim Palworld violated, because it’s honestly really rare in video games for patents to actually be enforceable because there’s so much prior art and a lot of variations in how mechanics can be used.

Exactly. ISPs want to do as little work as possible and collect as much as possible. If they have to monitor for torrents, track which customers they’ve warned, etc, that’s extra cost that, ultimately, could take away paying customers. So there are no benefits for them unless the piracy is causing problems for other users (i.e. could result in more customers cancelling service).

Exactly. Hydrofoils have a bunch of downsides (more expensive to buy and maintain, don’t work in shallow water, don’t work with big waves, etc), so it’s not like the average boat owner can simply switch to a hydrofoil boat. It’s a cool solution if it works in your particular area, but they’re not a drop-in replacement.

Or just… block ads.

Hard disagree. I really enjoy a lot of Nintendo’s games, and will be buying Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom right around release. Some favorites:

• Smash Brothers
• Mario Kart
• Zelda - didn’t like BotW and didn’t get TotK, but I loved the Switch ports of Skyward Sword and Link’s Awakening
• Kirby
• Mario Party
• Super Mario 3D World
• Xenoblade Chronicles

My kids like Pokemon and my SO like Ring Fit, but I think that series is pretty boring. And here are some I haven’t played, but probably will:

• Astral Chain
• Switch Sports
• Luigi’s Mansion
• Paper Mario
• Metroid
• Pikmin

That said, I very much don’t like Nintendo as a company, especially its opposition to emulation. But I do like their first party titles, and they’re very polished at launch, unlike many other big studios.

What’s weird about it? AFAICT, Palworld doesn’t violate Nintendo copyright in any meaningful sense, though it might violate Nintendo’s patent claims.

That said, this lawsuit seems really late, and I wonder if that’ll factor into the decision at all (i.e. if it was close, the judge/jury might take the lack of action by Nintendo as evidence of them just looking for money).

Well, the day my boss says that is the day I submit my 2 weeks notice, and probably half of our dept. We were hired with the promise of always having 3 days at home most days, and my boss kept to that, even pushing back against company policy that tried to shift to 3 days in office.

Cool, glad I didn’t listen to my parents, who wanted me to work for Amazon. Yeah, I probably could’ve made a ton more, but I’m making plenty where I’m at.

I work 2x in office, less if I have a somewhat passable reason to not go in. And I can WFH for a few weeks at a time if I need to travel for whatever reason. It’s nice working for someone that somewhat respects me.

Exactly. They should be dropping anything that isn’t revenue positive or isn’t furthering the goals of browser. Rust is a great project because it’s being used directly in the browser. Mastodon isn’t, because it has no relationship to their browser efforts. I’m on the fence about the VPN, but if it’s revenue positive, it should probably stick around, and it sort of benefits the browser as well.

Ads.

We had a company meeting last week where the presenter linked a YT video and a Wendy’s Frosty ad showed immediately after (amateur hour), and people were talking about how they wanted a Frosty. If you could smell the fries, you’d be more likely to actually go to Wendy’s for lunch.

So yeah, do not want.