PickMon: Nintendo's Lawyers Are Probably Spitting Their Tea, And Honestly, So Am I

AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·

PickMon: Nintendo's Lawyers Are Probably Spitting Their Tea, And Honestly, So Am I

A new game called 'PickMon' has surfaced, brazenly mashing up *Pokémon*, *Zelda*, and *Palworld* elements, even throwing in Roadhog from *Overwatch* for inexplicable measure. While Nintendo's legal team is battling tariffs and IP challenges, this audacious release is a fascinating, if likely short-lived, spectacle in the gaming world's ongoing copyright saga.

I've been tinkering with this story all morning, and bloody hell, it's wilder than it first appeared... especially if you're Nintendo's legal team, who I reckon are currently short-circuiting their coffee machines. We're talking about 'PickMon,' a newly revealed game that seems to have looked at the collective success of *Pokémon* and *The Legend of Zelda*, whispered "hold my beer," and then proceeded to fuse them together in a digital cauldron, adding a splash of *Palworld* for good measure. And if that wasn't audacious enough, it seems to have invited Roadhog from *Overwatch* to the party. Fair dinkum, PocketGame, you've certainly got some guts.

From what I'm gathering from its Steam page, 'PickMon' is pitching itself as a 'multiplayer open-world survival crafter' from developer PocketGame and publisher NETWORKGO, who previously brought us the rather obscure *Hainya World*. Players apparently "dive into a vast, uncharted continent filled with ancient civilizations and mysterious creatures called ‘Pickmon.’" So far, so familiar, right? But here's the kicker: you team up with these 'Pickmon' (sound familiar, mate?) to fight enemies, gather resources, farm land, and build what the developers describe as sprawling "industrial empires." Yep, that's the *Palworld* flavour shining through, isn't it? It's like they've taken all the hot buzzwords of the last year and tried to distill them into a single, highly concentrated (and potentially litigious) elixir.

Now, you might be wondering, 'Jeff, what in the digital ether possesses a developer to be this brazen?' And that, my friends, is where the plot thickens, like a particularly chunky potion. The original report from Polygon suggested that maybe, just *maybe*, PocketGame is trying to slip this bargain-bin mashup onto Steam while Nintendo's formidable legal department is, shall we say, a tad preoccupied. Preoccupied with what, you ask? Oh, only battling the entire United States government in court over tariffs imposed under a previous executive order. It's not every day you see Nintendo suing Uncle Sam, is it? So, while their lawyers are busy filing briefs and perhaps wrestling with outdated fax machines, the theory goes, a little game called 'PickMon' might just sneak under the radar. A lovely thought, but honestly, I reckon Nintendo's legal eagles have enough peripheral vision to spot a copyright infringement from a mile away, even when they're arguing over international trade law.

Nintendo, bless their heart, are legendary for their iron-clad grip on their intellectual property. They don't just defend their IPs; they guard them like a dragon hoarding golden rupees. We've all been watching the ongoing saga with Pocketpair and *Palworld* – a lawsuit that kicked off in November 2024, focusing partly on monster-summoning mechanics. But that whole situation has gotten as convoluted as a forgotten dungeon puzzle. Japanese authorities rejected Nintendo's attempt to patent certain *Pokémon*-style monster-capture mechanics, and then the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office took the unusual step of re-examining one of Nintendo's *previously granted* patents. Bloody hell, even the wizards can get their spells tangled sometimes! And let's not forget the utterly brilliant, true story of the 'Super Mario' grocery store in San Ramón, Costa Rica, that *successfully defended* its trademark against the gaming giant earlier this year. It's a rare crack in the armour, a delightful little glitch in the matrix, if you ask me.

But back to 'PickMon.' Beyond the obvious *Pokémon* and *Zelda* vibes, there's another truly head-scratching element. The reveal trailer, in all its glory, features a character who looks suspiciously like Roadhog from *Overwatch*. Now, I'm all for unexpected crossovers – my digital wizard brain thrives on chaos – but *that* particular spell seems to have gone wonderfully wrong. Blizzard Entertainment definitely owns Roadhog. Are we to assume this is a new era of 'anything goes' character cameos, or just another layer of 'let's see what we can get away with' from PocketGame? My money's on the latter, mate.

Oh, and the 'twist' for Nintendo's lawyers, as the original Polygon article slyly put it, is that you use *cards* to tame the beasts. Clever, eh? Thankfully for PocketGame, Nintendo doesn't own *Yu-Gi-Oh!*. But honestly, even a card mechanic isn't going to distract from the uncanny resemblance of your 'Pickmon' to, well, *Pokémon*, or your 'Link-alike' wandering through a landscape straight out of Hyrule. It's like trying to disguise a dragon by putting a silly hat on it. We're still gonna know it's a dragon, mate.

So, what does this all mean for 'PickMon'? While I'm genuinely curious about the sheer chutzpah on display, and part of me wants to cheer for the underdog trying to stick it to the giants, my inner cleverly observant wizard is reading the digital tea leaves, and they're looking a bit dusty for PocketGame. Given Nintendo's track record – and their current heightened scrutiny of anything that smells vaguely of monster-taming competition – it's incredibly hard to imagine 'PickMon' being long for this world. It’s a bold experiment, a delightful moment of digital anarchy, but I reckon it's destined to be a fleeting spectacle, like a truly magnificent, but ultimately unstable, magical conjuration. Enjoy the trailer, if you dare, because it's probably going to be a collector's item of legal disputes soon enough. It just goes to show, mate, even in the wild west of game development, some spells are best left uncast... or at least, without so many glaring copyright infringements.

Tags: PickMon, Nintendo, Copyright, Palworld, GameDevelopment

Original article: Polygon