Resident Evil and Street Fighter Veteran Sparks Backlash for Urging a Palworld Boycott Despite Not Playing It, Says Pocketpair Crossed a Line

Here we go again: a legendary game dev jumps into the Palworld discourse and sets off a small explosion. Yoshiki Okamoto — the Resident Evil and Street Fighter veteran with 40+ years in the industry and now chairman of the Japan Game Culture Foundation — posted a video that basically tells people not to buy Palworld while Nintendo is suing its developer, Pocketpair. The blowback has been swift, and honestly, the whole thing is a little messy.

What Okamoto said, and why it blew up

Okamoto weighed in on a Japanese-only video posted September 27 on his YouTube channel (IGN translated the key parts; and yes, the AI auto-dub is apparently useless). The video had 709 likes to 479 dislikes the last time a YouTube plugin tallied it, so the audience is split.

His position: Palworld crossed a line, and it should not be normalized while it is in active legal trouble. He ties it directly to Nintendo’s ongoing lawsuit over alleged patent infringement.

'By playing the game you are supporting it, so please don’t buy it.'

He also argues that if Pocketpair settles with Nintendo, then it would be 'officially fine to play.' But as long as it is being sued, he calls it unacceptable. And then, the kicker: he admits he has not played Palworld and has no plans to.

The line he drew is... oddly drawn

This is a strange hill to die on. Lots of devs get sued and later beat those cases. One read on Okamoto’s stance is: if you are being sued, you are guilty enough to boycott. He goes further and warns that if Pocketpair wins, it could make this kind of thing seem acceptable — which pretty clearly frames Palworld as a knockoff in his mind.

Here’s where it gets more inside baseball: Okamoto apparently talks about copyright infringement, but the Palworld case is about patents. Commenters (via machine translation) pointed this out. That distinction matters, a lot.

Why the lawsuit surprised Pocketpair

Pocketpair’s communications director and publishing manager John Buckley said earlier this year that patent infringement was not even on their radar during pre-release legal checks. Those checks, in Japan, were cleared.

'We were pretty vocal before Palworld released that we did legal checks before the game released, and they were all cleared – in Japan.'

'So obviously, when the lawsuit was announced, we were all like, 'What?''

It is not clear if Okamoto is predicting a settlement (money, concessions, or both), but that is the implication when he says a settlement would make it 'officially fine.'

Where the case stands

Pocketpair has made small tweaks to Palworld to steer clear of certain similarities, but a Japanese patent attorney has said that is not an admission of infringement. Pocketpair is adamant that Palworld does not infringe and has even challenged the validity of some or all of the Nintendo patents at issue.

Legal and IP folks have questioned parts of the patent web around this case. A separate, very broad Nintendo patent covering combat mechanics recently drew heat too. IP expert and longtime games watcher Florian Mueller did not mince words:

'This Nintendo patent was apparently granted without a patent examiner looking at a single game.'

The backlash to Okamoto

IGN notes that some of the pushback came from a partially self-censored line many interpreted as labeling Pocketpair an 'anti-social force' — basically suggesting ties to unsavory or gray-area groups. That is a loaded phrase in Japan, and it did not go over well.

Other Japanese commenters pointed out the obvious hypocrisy risk: plenty of games Okamoto worked on — and not just the Capcom stuff — borrowed from or iterated on earlier ideas. Art builds on art. If his new line is simply 'this one drew a lawsuit,' that is not much of a line.

Meanwhile, in creature-collector land...

Because the universe likes a punchline, The Pokemon Company and Pocketpair both announced new creature-collector life sims within two weeks of each other, and both have clearly been in development for a while. After Pokemon: Pokopia was revealed, conspiracy theorists claimed Pocketpair rushed out Palworld: Palfarm in a week. Buckley clapped back at that with appropriate sarcasm about 'wizard-level developers able to make a game in 1 week.'

What is next for Palworld

Despite Nintendo’s lawsuit, Pocketpair says Palworld 1.0 is scheduled for 'next year' with 'a truly massive amount of content planned.' And they are 'also working on some other things.'

• Sept 27: Okamoto posts the Japanese-only video; IGN translates; the auto-dub is no help; likes/dislikes split 709/479 via plugin.
• Okamoto says Palworld 'crossed a line,' calls for a boycott while the lawsuit is active, and admits he has not played it.
• Patent vs copyright mix-up: commenters note the suit is about patents, not copyrights.
• Earlier this year: Pocketpair’s John Buckley says pre-release legal checks in Japan cleared Palworld; the patent suit blindsided them.
• Pocketpair tweaks some content but denies infringement and challenges certain Nintendo patents; IP experts question related patents, including a separate, broad combat patent criticized by Florian Mueller.
• Recent irony: Pokemon: Pokopia and Palworld: Palfarm announced weeks apart; Pocketpair mocks the 'made-in-a-week' accusations.
• Palworld 1.0 planned for next year with lots of new content, lawsuit pending.