The only reason Nintendo is doing this to begin with is because Palworld made them look really bad by beating them at their own game. It will be trivial for them to explain this to their shareholders, if they haven't already.
Especially in the interest of preventing future incidents of people trying to do so, as Nintendo's method in the past is to DMCA big names to scare all the little ones into scattering.
Their shareholders will care more about that then looking bad for a brief time, as they always "look bad" when trying to aggressively protect their IPs every other year. But in doing so they continue to be the only real dog on the field and make billions off lackluster products constantly. Its a proven strategy for them.
I don't want to defend their scummy behavior, but that is how their business strategy has worked for a long time now.
Shareholders will care if people tell them they plan to boycott Nintendo over being a bully, Nintendo has no value if it isn't a parent-to-child transgenerational thing. Reduced current and future customers is very scary to investors.
Reduced current and future customers is very scary to investors.
It is, and its equally capable to happen if Nintendo starts having actual competition with its most guaranteed IPs from ex-employees and a legion of journos writing articles denigrating their value by comparison to this silly little game.
I think shareholders will be much more likely to be afraid of that scenario versus "some internet people said we were being mean :( , they might boycott us if we don't start acting right!"
What they are doing is wrong and probably legally wrong too, but you are talking about convincing the most amoral people in a mega corporation to care.
A different company, a smaller dev team pushing back against Sony internally to protect their IP, and an obvious massive revenue loss from Steam allowing refunds with no time limits.
As in, a completely different situation that has no relevance or comparison.
Arguably, Nintendo is reacting because Sony backed Palworld. There's plenty of other monster catch & trains out there-- but Palworld's got Sony behind them, and is a big enough threat for Nintendo to activate their legal team.
There's some cultural issues with the Palworld dev being ex-Nintendo and going against the company that raised him going on, too. Underneath, Sony supporting Palworld is a threat to The Pokemon Company, a Nintendo cash-cow.
The Palworld lawsuit can be viewed as proxy battle in the continuing corporate struggle between Nintendo and Sony, since Nintendo knocking out Palworld keeps Sony from damaging/diluting the Pokemon brand.
Like you point out, a Nintendo win leaves only their (lackluster) products on the market.
I had forgotten that angle but its likely very true. After all, damn near identical games like Coromon and Nexomon are being sold that are far more Pokemon clones than Palworld could ever come close to being. They just didn't make much noise so Nintendo didn't care to even waste time on indie slop like them.
There is a lot of petty nonsense going on behind these decisions, but at the end of it there is still logical soundness enough for Nintendo to justify themselves to their shareholders.
Its like when they shut down those emulators earlier this year, its a complete dick move from our end but they could just point to Tears of the Kingdoms lackluster reception/sales and have their investors throwing extra lawyers in to help them do it.
The only reason Nintendo is doing this to begin with is because Palworld made them look really bad by beating them at their own game. It will be trivial for them to explain this to their shareholders, if they haven't already.
Especially in the interest of preventing future incidents of people trying to do so, as Nintendo's method in the past is to DMCA big names to scare all the little ones into scattering.
Their shareholders will care more about that then looking bad for a brief time, as they always "look bad" when trying to aggressively protect their IPs every other year. But in doing so they continue to be the only real dog on the field and make billions off lackluster products constantly. Its a proven strategy for them.
I don't want to defend their scummy behavior, but that is how their business strategy has worked for a long time now.
Shareholders will care if people tell them they plan to boycott Nintendo over being a bully, Nintendo has no value if it isn't a parent-to-child transgenerational thing. Reduced current and future customers is very scary to investors.
It is, and its equally capable to happen if Nintendo starts having actual competition with its most guaranteed IPs from ex-employees and a legion of journos writing articles denigrating their value by comparison to this silly little game.
I think shareholders will be much more likely to be afraid of that scenario versus "some internet people said we were being mean :( , they might boycott us if we don't start acting right!"
What they are doing is wrong and probably legally wrong too, but you are talking about convincing the most amoral people in a mega corporation to care.
Explain sony backing off on helldivers then?
A different company, a smaller dev team pushing back against Sony internally to protect their IP, and an obvious massive revenue loss from Steam allowing refunds with no time limits.
As in, a completely different situation that has no relevance or comparison.
Arguably, Nintendo is reacting because Sony backed Palworld. There's plenty of other monster catch & trains out there-- but Palworld's got Sony behind them, and is a big enough threat for Nintendo to activate their legal team.
There's some cultural issues with the Palworld dev being ex-Nintendo and going against the company that raised him going on, too. Underneath, Sony supporting Palworld is a threat to The Pokemon Company, a Nintendo cash-cow.
The Palworld lawsuit can be viewed as proxy battle in the continuing corporate struggle between Nintendo and Sony, since Nintendo knocking out Palworld keeps Sony from damaging/diluting the Pokemon brand.
Like you point out, a Nintendo win leaves only their (lackluster) products on the market.
I had forgotten that angle but its likely very true. After all, damn near identical games like Coromon and Nexomon are being sold that are far more Pokemon clones than Palworld could ever come close to being. They just didn't make much noise so Nintendo didn't care to even waste time on indie slop like them.
There is a lot of petty nonsense going on behind these decisions, but at the end of it there is still logical soundness enough for Nintendo to justify themselves to their shareholders.
Its like when they shut down those emulators earlier this year, its a complete dick move from our end but they could just point to Tears of the Kingdoms lackluster reception/sales and have their investors throwing extra lawyers in to help them do it.