A few weeks back,  developer Pocket Pair released Palworld, a monster taming survival crafting game that quickly drew criticism due to its creature designs having strong similarity to existing Pokemon, eventually resulting in both Nintendo and The Pokemon Company issuing statements suggesting they were investigating potential copyright infringement.

Although official legal action has yet to be confirmed from either company, a new report has surfaced claiming that Nintendo Of America just made a move. According to a post from a Reddit user going by Bitpix3l, Nintnedo filed a DMCA takedown notice against a design they posted on Teespring, one which featured the Palworld Pal Sparkit.

Huh, didn’t realize “The Big N” was the legal rights holder to Sparkit…
byu/Bitpix3l inPalworld

Following this post, many have begun quick to criticize Nintendo Of America, particularly since Sparkit is one of the Pals which looks least like an existing Pokemon, claiming that Nintendo has no right to the design down. Others are a bit more skeptical of the claim, as bad actors have occasionally impersonated Nintendo to file takedown notices and cause mischief. We will be sure to report back with more details should they become available.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.