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Nexus Mods update regarding Palworld and Pokémon (www.nexusmods.com)
submitted 11 months ago by ram@bookwormstory.social to c/gaming@beehaw.org
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Palworld continues to break records on Steam, racking up 1,864,421 unique concurrent players in the past 24 hours. At least 4 of those uniques are in the Nexus Mods offices, where after-hours ‘research’ is being conducted.

Whether you think this game has arrived out of the blue, or was an obvious hit, one thing is clear; It bears a lot of similarity to an existing game franchise you may have encountered, namely Pokémon. We won’t go into detail about potential similarities; suffice to say that enough significant likeness exists in the base games to require clarification when it comes to modding the game.

We do think that adding Pokémon content to Palworld is a very cool idea and we understand why people would want such a thing. However, we're not comfortable hosting this content at Nexus Mods.

As you may know, Nintendo (who jointly own the Pokémon franchise) have a consistent record of mercilessly submitting legal challenges, DMCAs and takedowns against fan-made content.

Given Palworld's similarity to the Pokémon franchise as a base game, hosting content that adds Pokémon copyrighted characters or assets into the game is almost certainly going to put us at risk of legal action. Palworld content that is uploaded to Nexus Mods and is considered to have Pokémon-derived characters or assets will be taken down. Our normal moderation policies will apply.

We don’t think it's worth the risk to allow this content to be shared in our community. At best we would have to deal with the headache of legal threats from Nintendo and at worst they may seek to take action against us and the uploaders of the mods directly.

There are many creative opportunities to explore mods for this game that add to the world and gameplay, but do not infringe on existing IP so obviously. You are encouraged to explore these modding directions freely.

We are looking to support Palworld modding in any way that we can and we have already released Vortex mod manager support for Palworld. We also encourage you to visit us in our Palworld modding forums.

All of us here at Nexus Mods are really excited to see what the PalWorld modding community comes up with.

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[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 47 points 11 months ago

I really couldn't care less about this game, but this is a based stance to ensure the game's longevity

[-] TurboHarbinger@feddit.cl 44 points 11 months ago

You mean their site's longevity. This won't affect the game either way.

Also, mods of these type will always exists anyway, and Palworld would end being even more popular thanks to that (unless they start with the classic early access bullshit from other games).

[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 months ago

Wouldn't a mod like that risk the game being taken down due to copyright infringement or something similar? As I understood it, using Pokemon in a mod isn't bad in and of itself, but because of the combination with a "Pokemon-derivative" game it would be problematic to host the mods

[-] Daxtron2@startrek.website 22 points 11 months ago

The game does not host mods nor has any control over what users do to their game.

[-] TurboHarbinger@feddit.cl 20 points 11 months ago

Usually these cosmetic mods only work for yourself. You modify your client files to replace certain models and textures. Only for your client. No one else would notice you're running mods and everything would be perfectly normal for everyone else. And unless DRM is a thing in this game, not even the devs would notice.

Devs can demand to take down mods, they could also kill all mods for good if they wish. They are not being affected by copyright at all. Not even with their original game. Is not a clone of a Nintendo game, their aren't using their licenced characters or assets. Not even their game modes are similar.

[-] AdmiralShat@programming.dev 12 points 11 months ago

Why would community made content have any impact on the game?

[-] aniki@lemm.ee 21 points 11 months ago

I've never played a pokemon but the madness around this game is enticing. Seems like this is the game that players have been waiting for that Nintendo just didn't want to make.

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 14 points 11 months ago

It's a good game. It's basically ARK, but with NPC humans, pokeballs to store your monsters in (so nice), and removal of the (imo) annoying over-focus on PvP. I've also been having a LOT more fun with base-building in Palworld, especially in terms of having cosmetic items to place, to really make your base feel "lived in".

[-] GammaGames@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago

The fact that you unlock furniture sets and you don’t have to make some Frankenstein’d bed out of benches and boxes puts it so much higher than Ark!

[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 9 points 11 months ago

I've only very surface-level knowledge of the game, but to me it seems like an amalgam of all kinds of early access games. It seems to offer a little bit of everything but not a whole lot of depth. I might be wrong, so do feel free to weigh in and tell me if anyone's up for it

[-] orvorn@slrpnk.net 10 points 11 months ago

You're not entirely wrong but the Pal system itself has a good amount of depth - Pals have traits and skills, and are weaker or stronger against different other types of Pals, so you can be very clever about what skills you teach them and what fights/environments you take them into. The game can get very easy if you exploit this system properly but is quite challenging if you ignore Pal stats and just grind levels and gear.

[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago

So like Pokemon essentially, right?

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 7 points 11 months ago

Except you use them in your base to farm, water, plant, mine, haul and each do varying quality of job based on traits and type. Without the right ones, automation fails. Base building is a bigger part of the game IMHO and its really well done.

[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago

I stand corrected, then

[-] sarsaparilyptus@beehaw.org 33 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

One of the countless reasons we need to repeal the DMCA and change copyright expiration to set in after 25 years

[-] falsemirror@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago

Love the spirit, but the DMCA is a mixed bag.

Section 512 may allow for takedowns, but it also ensures web hosts face limited liability and aren't litigated into hell when a user shares a spongebob meme. Really it's up to sites to identify and defend fair use when they recieve takedowns, and imo excessive requests on fair use material should be harshly penalized.

Section 1201, which makes it a crime to tamper with DRM however must be destroyed.

[-] Truck_kun@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

All for reducing copyright to 25 years or less.

DMCA... I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, been a while, and the media mostly talks about DMCA take down notices. DMCA includes the clauses that prevent people from tinkering and modifying things they bought/own if manufacturers put any preventative measures in place right (including repairing)? If so, I'm fully up for revisiting that.

But never, NEVER, NEVER touch Section 230. And anyone attacking it is likely being disingenuous , or doesn't really understand how Section 230 and the internet work (and are unlikely to write better legislation).

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago

Make it 4 years and I'm in.

[-] saigot@lemmy.ca 15 points 11 months ago

So what's a good place to pick up illegal mods?

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago

A VM. Some torrenting might help.

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 11 months ago

I hope that a certain "based" or "cursed" mod site gets these instead

[-] DmMacniel@feddit.de 5 points 11 months ago

There are sure some lovers of those mods.

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

As much as I hate most of of the mods on the "based," site... This would be the only low profile place for potential release (texture and model swapping)

Or the "cursed" one

[-] ram@bookwormstory.social 3 points 11 months ago

What sites would these be, out of curiosity?

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Uhhh "based" is mostly home the mods that nexus removes and are re-uploaded there because they promote bigoted or intolerant ideology. I've seen them have mods though that aren't "based" (hateful) that were YMCA'd from other sites because of being related to big N. perhaps any model swapping mods can be thrown there and mirrored into oblivion

[-] Celediel@slrpnk.net 11 points 11 months ago

YMCA'd

I dunno if it was intentional or a typo, but this is the funniest thing I've read all day.

[-] Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 11 months ago

Uhhh “based” is mostly home the mods that nexus removes and are re-uploaded there because they promote bigoted or intolerant ideology.

For anyone who's curious what this means exactly, we're talking about things like mods that remove pride flags, mods that replace body type 1/2 or a/b with sex identifiers, mods that restore content cut from the initial release of games for other regions, a weird scattering of lewd mods, one mod that adds child conscripts to M&B2, one that restores the cut Notch and /v/ splashes to Minecraft and removes the BLM and COVID ones that replaced them, that sort of thing.

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago

google "cursed mods" or "based mods" :P

[-] falsemirror@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago

Does anyone know if the mods which currently exists use assets from the Pokemon games, or are community made? That's the real core of it imo.

this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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