PalWorld: Pokemon meets Capitalism

Have you ever looked at a Pokemon and thought "Boy, Id sure like to enslave one of those and put it to work in my factory!", just like Elon and Bezos have? Well congratulations, we have just the game for you! 
Palworld gives you the freedom to run up on adorable critters and smash them with a bat until you capture them and make them submit to your will. Then put them to work building your empire from which all of PalWord will crumble before you. Its also the biggest game in the world right now!
Today we discuss the development and reception of PalWorld, and ask many questions and get many answers. Are Pals just Pokemon ripoffs? Are Pokemon just Dragon Quest ripoffs? Is AI to blame for this? And how the heck does Cryptocurrency regulation tie into all of this? And why the death threats anyway?
Well you better listen to the episode to find out!
We also discuss other things like Bobcat Goldthwait ragging on Dave Chappelle, how jerks ruined multiple Harry Potter releases, and other stuff on this episode of Oft Off Topic

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Transcript

Shaun: 0:13

Pal World, or Pokemon, meets unchecked capitalism, as I like to call it. The computer game everybody is talking about first released, revealed on June 5th 2021 and launched on January 18th 2024. Nate, I've told you a little bit about this game. Does it interest you at all?

Nate: 0:29

It actually does, like I mean, I've never played the Pokemon game. The only Pokemon game I've actually played was Pokemon Snap for like 10 seconds. You know I've never. I play the card game with my daughter, like once or twice, you know, and it was kind of slow going and you know I don't think she's as down to playing the game.

Shaun: 0:48

There's so many rules versus, you know, the video game where, yeah, there's still rules, but at least it's you just run out, hit stuff with a ball and then run away with it.

Nate: 0:57

Right, like the rules are dictated by the game itself, like the end game rules, that's not you going. Okay, you can't play that one. No, you can't do this one. Oh, now I got a bunch of energy things and you know, the card game really did I didn't realize how bad, how intensive it was where you know you have, okay, if you will do this powerful strike, you need to use three turns to add these little cards on there before you do it.

Shaun: 1:18

I mean, I'm that's good, otherwise they would just do like I don't know, nuclear bomb and nuclear bomb but yeah, the video games do take care of a lot of micromanaging you need to do in those sort of games where it's like remember all your little card turns and remember all your placement markers and the such. Only Pokemon I ever really played was the one on the DS which I have no idea which one it was, but it was kind of fun. Pretty basic though. Just run around, catch Pokemon, be like, ooh, I'm going to catch them all going to a dungeon. That's several of them, Like the DS has several. Yeah, I know it did. It was. I think it was the. It was on the three DS. No, it was on the regular DS. I don't know, it's not really that important anymore.

Nate: 1:58

Now it was still like it was against. Still, you know that was a there's several of them.

Shaun: 2:04

I have heard that the Pokemon games have not evolved much since then, though, so there is that, in fact, people have been saying that Pokemon games would go downhill sharply lately, and that's part of the reason this power world is so popular lately. But, anyways, we're going to talk more about power world right now and going into the history on how it was made, which is kind of interesting, and we'll loop around to why people kind of hate this game. Well, this game, this game has some real haters. We'll get into that in a moment. This, yeah, this, this game was made by the company Pocket Pair, which was founded in 2015 by Takuro Mizobi.

Shaun: 2:35

Well, I see some things where it's talking about he founded the company, but then I see other stuff where he's just the CEO, which CEO and founders aren't necessarily the same, but, yeah, before founding Pocket Pair or before CEOing Pocket Pair, he was the CMO chief marketing officer of a cryptocurrency exchange known as Coin Check. Coin Check is mainly known for in January of 2018. It was hacked and approximately $530 million were stolen from its clients. Oh boy, yeah right, that tobacco was so big that it actually caused Japan's like cryptocurrency exchanges to all bond together and like self regulate before the government came down on them. So it was a pretty big deal over there in Japan. Oh yeah, I should say that Pocket Pair it's out of Tokyo, japan, so this is a Japanese company we'll be talking about, okay for some reason I was thinking, like you know, based on nothing.

Nate: 3:23

I assumed it was an American company that kind of swiped the idea of Pokemon Ram with it. But I guess you know.

Shaun: 3:29

I thought it was Chinese right up until like the very end, until I saw it was Tokyo because I just read like Chinese ripoff kind of stuff. But yeah.

Nate: 3:36

Yeah, I mean, it's not like they don't have a reputation of that, yeah right patents and trademark are all just kind of a recommendation, not a law.

Shaun: 3:45

So before they came out with Palo, world Pocket Pair released Craft Topia in 2020, in which many consider to be a breath of the wild ripoff. Apparently, the intro to it is basically identical you like come out on this little cliff and you look over this giant vista and you know there's a castle out in the distance and such and such. It even has basically the same gliders system and hopping off or climbing on walls system and crafting system is breath of the wild. People says pretty blatant knockoff.

Nate: 4:12

Well, I mean, yeah, sure, I mean I agree. But I mean then again it's like at what point time is a ripoff and when point time is at a large game plot? Yeah Well, not even a large, just like a style of game. I mean you theoretically, like Ubisoft. I mean, oh look, there is a small encampment over there full of bad guys. I'm going to go and like wipe much people out and take over it and then eventually we'll find a tower and I climb this tower and now I can see more of the map. I mean that at one point in time that was unique.

Shaun: 4:37

Now it's like, yeah, even those games go all the way back to, like the early PC days if you think about it in one way or another, like the old dagger fall games and the search and even still, like Genshin Impact, they also have the same kind of you climb the wall.

Nate: 4:51

That costs energy, and they also have you jump down, you can glide and instead of having a glider, it's wings, but I think there's some who cares A very similar gameplay of that as well a breath of the wild.

Shaun: 5:04

Yeah, a lot of the haters of Pocket Pal say that Kraftopia was the beginning of their obviously shameful ripoff history. So we'll get more in the haters. In a moment, 2021 and Pal World's first release trailer shows up online. Those who watched it. Opinions are split between looks awesome, looks stupid and cannot tell if this is a joke or not. A lot of people were just like, ok, this obviously has to be like some joke spoof for like a little mini series coming up or something. Nope.

Nate: 5:31

Fair enough. I mean, if I saw, I mean I thought it was a ripoff or a joke game or like, oh, just a mod, you know like go back to Doom days where like, oh yeah, I'm killing Barney, you know just or my favorite. My favorite about so far to date.

Shaun: 5:48

I haven't played it, but I've tempted Thomas Tank engine in Skyrim Mm hmm, I've seen that, or yep, or Macho man, randy savages, the dragons in Skyrim. I've seen that. Yeah, that's very funny too. But yeah, mods can make the world go around sometimes if they're done right.

Nate: 6:05

Well, I mean also mods of the kind of that keep all in their toes.

Shaun: 6:08

Yeah, yes, they do. In fact, apparently Part of the problem with was it Starfield that just came out. I guess Bethesda was putting a lot of the onus on the mod community to make the game great and the mod community looked at a game is like, no, yeah, I'm really like literally what the biggest modders for a skyrim started out doing. A Mod package for Starfield made. About a quarter of the way into it, said I don't really want to do this. This game isn't fun for me, and he's just like somebody else want to take over? Go for I'm done. So apparently the mod community in that is kind of Yep.

Shaun: 6:42

November 2022 and pocket pair releases AI art imposter, which is a party game where you get a the AI to draw stuff for you. Not exactly sure about how the game is, multiplayer, kind of dumb, not that popular, but then releasing this will be important later to our story. February 25th 2022 and pocket pal developer or the developer. Pocket pal gives its employees the day after play Elden Ring. I just thought that was kind of. That's the only reason I included it.

Nate: 7:07

I was waiting for their shoes. They let him off to play Elmerine. They're trying to come back in their key. Cars didn't work anymore right Completely replaced.

Shaun: 7:13

You have been replaced with bottom of the barrel workers that was the test.

Nate: 7:16

If you went to play Elden Ring, you're fired.

Shaun: 7:18

If you stayed, a good boy, a girl then you say you have proven your loyalty and your loyalty is found wanting.

Shaun: 7:27

The Pal world development is kind of interesting. It originally started with a budget of about ten thousand dollars in attitude of let's see what this fun idea goes. They started out on the unity engine and when that wasn't working, moved over the unreal engine, both times having to completely learn the engine and how it works, because they really had no idea what they're doing. But by the time the game released it had the cost had ballooned up to six point seven million dollars from the initial $10,000, because they kind of liked what they saw and the head of the company was just like, hey, let's throw more money at this and see where it goes. They wound up having to hire another 40 employees to work on the game and oh, real quick side note. So this game costs six point seven million dollars to make the last of us to cost $220 million. That's a just in case you're wondering how much a triple-a game cost to make nowadays Around 200 million dollars.

Nate: 8:13

I mean, I believe it. I mean the game like last of us actually recoups that, then he has Airswap. This game like oh yeah, come by. This TV show is total shit.

Shaun: 8:22

The crew decided, among other things, they want to put guns in the game because, quote unquote and this is from an interview of them quote unquote Americans like to shoot things.

Shaun: 8:30

They're wrong on that yeah, they are not wrong at all. And as they're developed the development crew is like hey, we want to put this on steam. So they got a hold of steam is like hey, can we put this on there? And steam was like we don't care. Apparently they were shocked and thought they would have to go through all sorts of hoops to get it on list on steam. But apparently steam will pretty much let you list anything and they'll only take it out of enough people complain.

Nate: 8:50

Yeah, I mean I believe that I've seen some games on there. It's like I mean it's basically just rip off. They're like oh hey, it's not 99 for this one game. Sweet, you buy it. Like. This came was just a Reskin of I don't know angry birds, but not even well done, right?

Shaun: 9:06

I hate that kind of stuff. Or back the day when flappy bird made a big and there's just a bunch of reskins of flappy bird which are bad reskins of an already bad game and I can say I've never actually played flappy bird. I've played for about 10 seconds, said this sucks and moved on. Part of the reason people liked it was because it was really bad and because it was badly made. It was really hard. So people were like, hey, if I can get by this really hard game and I get a high score, I must be good at something. Yeah.

Nate: 9:27

I just never understood like enjoying a bad game. No, it's like I get it, you know. It's like, like you just said, like oh yeah, it proves you are good at games. I'm like play if you're not enjoying yourself, then what's the point? I mean, the point of video games is to enjoy yourself indeed, man.

Shaun: 9:43

I guess people watch bad movies, enjoy it, but also I guess that's less of a commitment than a video game to.

Nate: 9:48

It's less of a commitment and also it's not like a bad movie is two hours after your life, you know app, or let's say three, let's go crazy, you know versus a video game which not only are you, you know, you're in for it for longer in two hours, but also it's a shit ton of frustration and anger and this is true, of course.

Shaun: 10:06

It's also easy to wall yourself off in the corner room with the phone, to instead Boe garden the TV for a few hours. Yeah, fair enough.

Nate: 10:12

Yeah.

Shaun: 10:13

Yeah, such as it is, but like you, I don't really like bad games. Oh then maybe playing for five seconds to be like God this is awful and then turn it off, sort of like I did with Redfall, which was an awful game on release. I hope for its sake it got better, because there was nothing redeeming about that game and played it oh God, it was supposed to be Xbox's next big thing. There's gonna like show everybody how great their system was and be like the PlayStation killer. And it was just awful, awful, awful, awful. You hunted vampires. The concept was kind of cool, the intro is kind of okay, but yeah, after that it was just bad, bad, bad. A good example was like the first vampire I saw. I like ran up behind him and started shooting him and he didn't even react until he was almost dead.

Shaun: 10:53

Oh yeah, that was. It was that kind of bad gameplay Okay.

Nate: 10:57

It's like a the Wolverine game not not the one, I think it was the Xbox or ps2 one. It was just. You know, there were times sometimes it was fun, it was hilarious because you'd stealth in front of a guard the garbage dad you would like. You're trying to get around him to like stealth, kill him and you're literally like Bumping into him as you're walking in front of him.

Shaun: 11:18

He's like yeah, they got like no cone of vision or nothing, right? Yeah, that's good coding right there. So we're gonna hop to January 18th 2024 when Powell world is actually officially released into early access at $30. Early access because the developer says it's gonna take about a year to earn out all the bugs and the such. Apparently, they're getting thousands of bug submissions a day soon as Powell was released.

Nate: 11:43

Hmm, my question about that is like, how often are early really early access, really early access, or like, no, it's the release, but we're just, we're Slapping early access name on there that way that they'll forgive us for like all the bugs and fuck ups.

Shaun: 11:57

It's like okay, you know what, that second one, the latter one, it's it's always about we know we're releasing something buggy, so we'll call it early access. That way we can add features later. Yeah, although I have heard it's actually a good thing for smaller developers, because they can release a game, pocket some money and then build off of what they have sold, you know, to that point. So maybe that's what Powell world is doing, because it sounds like, even though they got some money, they aren't exactly a huge studio fair enough to.

Nate: 12:22

I mean, I'm not not so much a dick like no, you're not allowed to do this.

Shaun: 12:26

I mean, if it's actually legit, yeah, fair enough anyways, powell world gets released onto steam and onto Xbox game pass and and the first eight hours of early access. On January 19th it sold over a million copies, which rose to two million copies in the first 24 hours and three million copies in the first 40 hours.

Nate: 12:45

They were correct.

Shaun: 12:46

Yes, love guns, they love guns and they love Pokemon. The game would end up selling five million copies within the first three days of early access, at a rate of 86,000 copies per hour. It also reached over 1.5 million concurrent players on steam making, like the third highest played game on steam ever at any one time behind pubg, and like Sits behind Counter-Strike and pubg battlegrounds. Pubg battlegrounds has 3.2 million concurrent players and Counter-Strike 2 had 1.82 million concurrent players. Damn, yeah, the games that it has beaten out. It has had more players than a Dota 2 lost Ark, cyberpunk 2077, elden Ring, hogwarts legacy and Baldur's Gate 3. Baldur's Gate 3 only 875 thousand concern current players at one time, which I mean that's kind of a niche game, so that doesn't really surprise me, I suppose. Yeah, granted.

Nate: 13:35

You know that I'm more impressed with the Hogwarts because, even though you know everyone, there was a brief period like let's Boycott this because of her transgender views. But the problem is like 10 seconds. Yeah, people might hate her trans, her transgender views. I mean, I'm not exactly huge fan of me either that, but they love, they love Harry Potter more.

Shaun: 13:54

Yeah, it's Harry Potter.

Nate: 13:55

Yeah you're a hard-pressed to go against Harry Potter.

Shaun: 13:59

One kind jerk thing about that Harry Potter game was people are going around spoiling the ending in the comments on like Facebook and Instagram and stuff, just to be douchebags talk about the game or the books. The game Like, hey, here's the spoiler of the end of the game because I guess there was kind of like a whoo, what a twist at the end and people were just like going around spoiling. Be like there, now you don't have to play this.

Nate: 14:17

Yeah.

Nate: 14:17

I mean I remember that happen in books. When I actually went to one of the I think was the last book launch Midnight, showing a middle launch of that, and Jenny, I, we, well, we didn't go specifically for the launch we actually went To. It was downtown Louisville and there was a video game Concert, like they were playing video game music and we had gone to that and on our way out it still happened to coincide with the midnight launch of video of Harry Potter books. They're like, yeah, fuck it, we'll stay here and do this too. Why not be a fun experience? Anyway, the whole reason why I brought that up was like they were people in cars. I heard of news of people driving around cars who had purchased the book early and on a megaphone like yelling out the ending of the book.

Shaun: 14:57

That's not cool.

Nate: 14:58

Yeah, that's not cool. I mean I don't know, I love being an anarchist spoiler, but you mean these are children. You know, yeah, they were absolutely adults out there Hell, I was out there, but you know it's for children and you're going out there doing that.

Shaun: 15:11

Yeah, it's just dick move, man Bird. Person culture is called a dick move, exactly so remember I was talking about the last of us two costing $220 million to make. Well, in his first three days it only sold three million copies. Pal world sold five million copies. So, granted, a Pal world does cost half of what Last of Us 2 did, but it outsold Last of Us 2 by quite a bit.

Shaun: 15:33

And also, too, these sales numbers. They actually don't count the Game Pass players on Xbox, because this game got released free on Game Pass. So if you've got a Game Pass subscription you can play it for free and that doesn't count towards the sales. And a lot of people are playing on Game Pass 2, so the actual number of players is pretty high because those concurrent numbers. That was just on Steam. It's also available on the XCloud, the cloud streaming version of Game Pass 2, which is where I played it. When I first fired up I had to sit there for 20 minutes and wait at the loading screen for it to load. I guess it was so popular they actually had to put up a queue that made people wait 15 to 20 minutes to get in. I can see, yeah.

Shaun: 16:05

Yeah, yeah, I didn't even know that though. So the first time I tried to load up, I'm like obviously servers down. So I went, checked another game, like oh, this one's up. Then off to the Googles I went.

Nate: 16:14

Tell me Google what's going on Like don't worry. Citizen.

Shaun: 16:17

Yeah, oh, great, oracle, google which kind of a weird thing to say, since Oracle is also an operating system. Anyways, so not long after the game gets released, we get controversy. Firstly, pokemon's fans are not happy about their beloved franchise getting ripped off. Apparently, there are a lot of Pokefans out there simping for the billion-dollar corporation that is Nintendo and the such. Be like leave my Pokemon alone.

Nate: 16:40

And I actually. I heard about that and I actually sent you something through the chat. Have you seen that picture I sent you. No, I have not Pokemon's ripoff of Dragon Quest.

Shaun: 16:52

Oh, actually, I have heard that before. Yeah, I kind of go with that.

Nate: 16:55

It's pretty fucking obvious Once you look at the monsters, it is there's no question. It's absolutely a ripoff, like the design, the monsters from Pokemon and Dragon Quest. If one holds up the other one, you're like, oh yep, I see it. No, it's not one-to-one. I mean it's not like an exact, but it's like you can't. I mean, you just can't deny it. If you look at them side-by-side, you're like, oh wow, yeah, they straight up looked at Toriyama's artwork.

Shaun: 17:24

I can totally see it. On all those, I mean, yeah, they're not necessarily one-for-one. It's kind of like the people complaining about Palvrol to hear I mean, a lot of the characters on it, yeah, you can tell there's inspiration from it, but they're not necessarily a one-on-one. People are like, oh look, they both have round-looking sheep characters. It's like, well, yeah, I mean, sheep are kind of round in real life too.

Nate: 17:41

So yeah, I'll give them. The style is very, very similar because, yeah, you know that's what they were going for, but you can't say it's a rip-off.

Shaun: 17:53

Yeah, because I mean, yeah, like you said, pokemon obviously rip-off of Dragon Quest because it's you know. So, yeah, that's actually a very good point to bring up. However, I don't think you're going to talk any sense to the Pokemon fans because apparently they are so mad about this. They have been sending death threats to the developers at Pocket Pal. Oh, that's the next one. Yeah, that's not cool. The CEO, who's been doing all the tweeting about this, literally put out to be like hey, stop it please. This isn't cool, guys, and it really isn't. And a lot of Pokemon fans are saying this is destroying the series because they made it quote unquote Pokemon for the 4chan Edgelord crowds. Yeah, they're just like, this is just for the Edgelords and the people who just pro-slavery people they do have a lot of slavery in this game kind of.

Nate: 18:34

They do have a lot of slavery, yeah, like whether they intend to or not.

Shaun: 18:38

Well, it's less slavery and it's more like late-stage capitalism, I feel like, because at first they're hostile, but once you hit them with your little pal sphere and capture them, then they're perfectly happy to work for you. Well, I'm working with them, They'll work for you while you slaughter their friends, and then they'll be like well, at least it wasn't me so.

Nate: 18:53

I'm actually thinking more about the humans, because you could absolutely capture and slave and put to work human. Yes, you can I have a couple of humans wandering around my base, do you? Yes, I do I?

Shaun: 19:03

once I realized you can capture them whenever they invade my base, I just start chucking pokeballs at them. I'm just like I'm going to catch one of you guys and then I don't know what I'm going to do with. Just have a person, a little ball for fun.

Nate: 19:12

I saw one stream where he captured a human and he had the opportunity to sell the human.

Shaun: 19:16

He's like no, I'm not going to sell you, You're going to work for me, I have yet to get my salesman walking through, because there's like this rambling traveling salesman who just wander through your camp. I've only seen him once, and when he did it was very beginning of the game, so there's nothing I can do. But yeah, now that I have some humans I could sell off. Oh, I tried butchering a human too, and I didn't get any organs off of them. I just got some ammo for a gun that I don't know, yeah, because.

Shaun: 19:39

I said to the video of that animal getting butchered, right where it like paced, lace it all out and the person just lays on the ground. I was like stab, stab, stab, right, right, it does the exact same thing with the human. You just lay them on the ground and you just go to carving them up. Well, they just kind of lay there submissively. It's as they should, yes, as they should. They know what they're in for. So yeah, basically, pokemon fans not a big fan of this game. For the most part, they think it's destroying their little community. Fans of Pal world return retort by saying hey, f off Pokemon fans. This is literally the game that we've been asking the Pokemon people to make for us for years. Like a more mature one or something that had more than just like wandering around, talking and throwing balls.

Nate: 20:18

I mean, yeah, people are like also people are saying this like hey.

Shaun: 20:21

part of the reason this game is so big is because the Pokemon franchises take is such a shit nose dive recently too, because they don't care. They got no competition Really, I mean, did you monogaz?

Nate: 20:30

I guess I mean it. Just get over it Seriously. Just get over it it's. It's fine, there's plenty of room for all of us. They, you know, they, you know people want to enslave Pokemon and like make them work on their camps. Let them.

Shaun: 20:44

Yeah, they're smiling when they do it, I will tell you that much. And they do make cute happy noises. When you like, throw them a pizza party and stuff. I would say they do make happy noises when you beat them. Uh no, they actually scream when you butcher them, I believe.

Nate: 20:58

But they beg for their lives.

Shaun: 21:01

They're poor, sad, pitiful lives. Yep hey, at least I was a nice guy and I took them outside of camp to butcher them. I didn't do in front of their friends.

Nate: 21:10

That reminds me of a line I heard from the was that it's Oz, it's wicked, you know, remember that play wicked, oh yes, based on the wicked witch in the West. Well, that's. That's actually based off a book. In the book, you know, because in Oz the animals can actually talk and speak and whatever, which is the same thing, but you know, they actually they're sent to you. And there's a line in the book where one the one that, like sheep or whatever, they're talking to someone, like I really wish they would take my children like out of ear shot when they killed them, because it's I hate listening to my kids beg for their lives and they get slaughtered. My damn, that's dark yeah.

Shaun: 21:50

It also might be true too. Some of these animals are a little more sentient than I think farmers give them credit for yeah, or they just don't want to think about it. They say, yeah, pigs are quite smart. Yep, smarter than dogs. Yeah, yeah, smarter than some people too. Yeah, they're not smart too, but we don't really farm them. No, they're too smart to be farmed.

Shaun: 22:10

So if you want to go to the other extreme of the pro pal world people, some of the people are saying that, hey, this game is perfect because it is obviously. They made this game to be the anti woke video game and to break people from the conditioning and the wussification that Pokemon brought us. Oh, whatever, yeah. And so there's basically people being like, hey, this game is horribly cruel. And then there's people on the other side being like, yeah, if you, we want to enslave people, you woke bastards. So it's like it's like a big fight between, like two of the more insufferable groups of humans. Yeah, I mean, they're here. I stuck in the middle being like well, I like the game. I don't need a political message behind it. Yeah, why does it be?

Nate: 22:47

political. Can we just enjoy slaughtering a Pokemon and slaving people?

Shaun: 22:50

Yeah, Because if you make it political, then you can make it us versus them, and then everybody's like we're on a team and then that way you know you can be like hey, they're against us, that's why things aren't going the way we want it Life's better when you can be the play yourself the victim.

Shaun: 23:02

Oh, of course, yeah, it's better for some people. Some people don't like doing that. Those are called decent people, right? Second reason people really disliked a Powell world is because that CEO was head of that coin check debacle and I don't really care. But people are like, well, it's based off cryptocurrency, or this game is built by cryptocurrency. We know how evil cryptocurrency is, although I did have a thought that this game costs about 16 to make and 550 million did go missing during that scandal. So that's very true.

Nate: 23:31

Yeah, not saying that.

Shaun: 23:32

Yeah, that's what happened, but I think I'm the only person to like put two and two together on that, because I haven't heard anybody else mention those two numbers.

Nate: 23:40

So well, that's like the whole thing about. Was it Claudia Sanders restaurant over here?

Shaun: 23:45

It's like no one actually accused them of doing that, yeah but everybody looked each other, nodding, was like, mm-hmm, yeah, just had to be nobody around that night. Nobody saw a thing. And one other reason why people really, really hate this is, basically, a lot of people swear if and down. This game was premade with all AI, AI, like they basically just sent AI after and was like rip off all these Pokemon frozen. Come up with all these Pokemon ideas.

Shaun: 24:10

They came up with this theory because the CEO of the Powell world he basically made a bunch of tweets several years ago about how good AI is and how AI is gonna change everything, and Including one tweet where he had like AI generated Pokemon next to like regular Pokemon's. Like I can't tell the difference. Isn't that cool? You can just make Pokemon or knock offs anytime you want. So people are like obviously they are using AI art for this. The CEO he denies this. However, he's just like no, and I think part of his argument is yeah, these are lazy AI or these are kind of like lazy ripoffs, but they're. So it's lazy ripoffs that. Why would we need AI to do it? I mean, it doesn't really take. It's not that hard to make a Pokemon knockoff.

Nate: 24:51

I'm sorry, it just isn't you know, like you copy Pokemon and then you change a couple of aspects of it. Like, there you go.

Shaun: 24:59

Yeah right, it's not like you and I are gonna sit down, be like hey, we need to make off note knockoff Pokemon Boy. That's gonna be hard, we need to figure, ask AI to do it for us. It's like no, you just literally steal something off the list and change a little bit or merge two things together.

Nate: 25:11

I mean, I agree, like as an artist, I don't necessarily want AI to take over, because you know I don't want them still my job. But, yeah, I'll tell you what though it is, it is it, it's nice. Yeah, I'm still trying to use the, find the best way to use AI Because, I'll be honest, like some of the advertising I do for this like sticker business I have I just said I'd, after banging my head against the wall few times, I'm like, hey, ai, give me some, give me, give me some option. Yeah, I Didn't use it whole cloth, I took one of the suggestions and kind of made it my own, but it was a good like starting point.

Shaun: 25:42

Yeah, it's a good search engine aggregate if you need some absolutely.

Nate: 25:45

And then was it? I'm starting a small, not my main novel, but I'm like a smaller, kind of like prequel novel. I'm trying to make this guy get fresh back into writing. I just couldn't think of an opening line. So I just finally said, hey, ai, I'm, here's what I want. Give me some options. And they gave me some options. And again, I did not take that line. Yeah, cloth, I, I absolutely know this is for the record. I absolutely Changed it, but it was. It definitely kind of helped my brain go Okay, this is great opening, because I I have tried 50 different iterations and none of it smacks right and I was only using it for the opening line and the rest is all me. Yeah, like it definitely. Kind of like okay, awesome, I'm taking this and I'm making my own, and then kind of set the tone.

Shaun: 26:28

Honestly, that's really no different than you know texting me and be like, hey, I need an opening line and me, give me advice. So, hmm, and I'll admit, there's a couple of times I've used AI for stuff too, or it's just like, well, I could either like spend some time googling and finding the answer in the reddit forums, or I could just hit AI and see what it says. Oh yeah, sometimes AI is wrong, though I will let you know that yeah.

Nate: 26:46

Yeah, yeah it even says like on the AI. They're like hey, by the way, if I, I'll ask them like, give me some advice on this. They're like look, I, this is an AI Bot, you know. Please be aware this is not like the answer right, yeah, um, I actually saw something too.

Shaun: 27:01

This is several months ago, but I guess when they were like changing over to more advanced AI systems that scraped the internet better they're actually cut, the AI was actually coming up with Worse and more wrong answers, because it was like scraping deeper in the internet and getting more crazy, weird, loony conspiracy theories and stuff. So yeah, basically humans were like dumbing down AI to our level.

Nate: 27:20

Yeah, it's like the AI that got super racist when they said it was for a while.

Shaun: 27:23

Yep, yeah, the Microsoft Twitter AI. Yeah, we're like, within like two days. They had to shut it down because it was just like spouting off Hitler Remarks and they're about rounding up the Jews and putting them in camps. Yeah, good times. Good times for.

Shaun: 27:36

Yeah, yes, indeed, and also to the, as other people said to, even if you do use AI to come up with a Pokemon knockoff ideas, you still gotta have somebody import a wireframe models and this and that and like actually transfer into the 3d realm. Which Kind of brings me on to another point, because this last Sunday, plagiarism accusations from an anonymous user on Twitter, clay did some rips of the most recent, I think it's like Pokemon, ruby or Sapphire, whatever it is that just came out on the switch and according to him, he had some screenshots that the wire models were identical in the Perspectives and shapes and dimensions. Everything were identical. So obviously they ripped him off, which got a lot of people talking. You know it was like, hey, these do look identical the other people, pokemon people did the rip off or the the Pal world guys did the rip off, okay, okay.

Shaun: 28:24

Yeah, basically the people are like, hey, these pal world guys very obviously just literally stole the assets out of the game because these wireframe models look the same, don't they look the same? Everybody's like who they do. But then also other people like basically did the same thing to compare and they're like Well, they look the same if you look at them from this one angle, but then they're like, if you spin this model around, it looks totally different from different angles. So, yeah, it feels like people are stretching to find, try to find as much plagiarism as they could.

Nate: 28:48

Well, that's the whole thing about like confirmation bias. You know like, oh, they didn't, they didn't want to look any further. They looked at one angle, like it's true, and they're like don't show me anymore, don't even yeah.

Shaun: 28:58

Yeah, and one of the other ones are really stupid too is like I think it was two Pokemon or a Pokemon and a pal. They looked vaguely kind of like and they're like, look, both of these ads, their ears being droopy, isn't that kind of suspicious? I'm like, oh, shut up. Yeah, yeah, be better. Yeah, right, at least try a little bit harder. One interesting thing that came out to about a, the pocket pair company that made Pal world, is, I guess, their net. They had only have one network and interest infrastructure engineer that handles the games and they have 1.5 million users all over the world. Yes, and they have like one 24 year old dude that's running their network. Damn, that's kind of impressive. Yep, I I don't know if that's necessarily a good idea or not, but it's impressive.

Nate: 29:39

How would I can imagine I mean what if I mean one guy like even just in Timmy?

Shaun: 29:45

got in a car wreck on his way to work today and is dead Right. Anybody knows passwords. Nope, nope. Do you know? No, no, no, secure. Yeah, I guess we're fine. Yeah, he always bright. There's 72 numbers long too, so he was like data from that Star Trek episode.

Nate: 30:01

Just started spouting off all these numbers.

Shaun: 30:04

I know Pie to 300th place. So basically that's where the kind of the controversy stands of the game. Everybody's just like, hey, pokemon is being ripped off. How dare they? Well, let's send death threats. Not cool, not cool. I guess success breeds haters, though.

Nate: 30:18

It always comes down to death threats.

Shaun: 30:20

Yeah, I know it's just lazy and unoriginal. At least it feels lazy and unoriginal to me. I don't know. Come up with something different.

Nate: 30:27

How you're accusing the people ripping off Pokemon. Now you're ripping off Just I don't know Assholes, yeah, haha.

Shaun: 30:34

As for the actual game itself, I've been kind of enjoying it. You know it's the story isn't exactly deep. You wake up and there's like this little piece of paper, your head's like, hey, welcome to Powell world, have fun. And you know you start building your base. You walk up to somebody's like here, have some stuff to build some things. And you know you get a club and well, right out the back they gave you a baseball bat and you just run around, you just start beating Pokemon to death you want, or pals, because if you want resources out of them, you can either catch them or you can literally just beat them to death of the baseball bat and take their stuff. It's kind of neat that way. And eventually you know you can upgrade to nicer weapons, better weapons, better ways to farm stuff, harvest stuff, because it is that thing where it's like you got to pick up wood to build you don't know your sheds, or you got to pick up certain rocks to make oars, to do this or that.

Shaun: 31:17

However, one thing this game does that I do like that other games do that. I hate that makes it. But you know those crafting games where it's like, hey, first of all you need to buy or find a 10 woods to build yourself a sawmill and you're like, ok, now get 20 woods to build yourself one wooden plank. You're like, ok, now get 10 wooden planks to build yourself a pallet, now get 10 pallets to build yourself a wall. And actually, you know, you're basically just harvesting like 50,000 pieces of wood to build one thing. You know it kind of gets exponential a little too fast. This one doesn't do that, actually, it's stays pretty basic for the most part, like yeah, minimal amounts of like resources and stuff.

Shaun: 31:54

And also you can put your pals to like actually harvest items for you to collect resources, like. Eventually you can like build a little mine in your town and just go send the Pokemon off to work in that Sorry, pals Like hey, pals, go do some slave labor for me, and they will happily do that too. Hey, pikachu, we need some silver. Here's a pickaxe. Yep, basically actually in the mines that I had working were a bunch of cat pals, like little weird cat pals, and then one of them eventually did actually get lazy because it'll have like this little status on site will show your pals working and eventually someone will be like this one is exceptionally hungry, or this one's feeling lazy, or maybe this one's not a hard worker. I did take the one hard worker and I beat him death of the baseball bat in front of everybody. I found that, yeah, fuck.

Nate: 32:34

Well, it happens. I didn't want to do this, but I needed to express like this is what happens if you turn lazy.

Shaun: 32:44

Yes, exactly, I just did the old mob boss thing where you just like walking around the table and be like one of you is disappointed me. Whap, it was you Also, I guess you can play the game co-op with up to 30 other people and it's not procedurally generated. You get the same like landmass every time and when you start up, if I recall, you get a pick where you start off and it's like a bunch. It's like one big landmass but it's like several little continents on there and you can pick where you want to and like. Some places have more or less Pokemon, some have more or less resources, some are more hostile, some are less hostile. Basically, you know beginner of medium advanced areas. But I guess what happens if I want to, I could like have my world and then I can send out invite codes to it and send, like you, an invite code and you could just like hop into my world and just play along with me and do stuff and help build your base in my world as well, which sounds kind of fun.

Nate: 33:30

Well, it sounds fun, but can you fuck up? Fuck with somebody like go in there and start stealing the resources or, you know, messing their stuff up.

Shaun: 33:37

That? I do not know. That's a good question. There are enemy bases you get to invade, though, because during the game there's actually a PETA group that comes through and tries to liberate all your pals from you, because they're just like hey, you're in slaving pals, we're here to liberate them, and you know so. Peta attacks, and of course, you got to fight them off, and you can even capture the PETA people too, if you'd like, and give them a taste of medicine and then enslave them.

Nate: 33:59

index the people they're trying to save.

Shaun: 34:01

Yes, exactly, and, although I don't know, maybe it wasn't the PETA guys, maybe because there's also this one called the crime syndicate that wanders around and attacks you every once in a while, and at one point I just watched a really pissed off pal like take out about 10 of them at once. So I don't know, maybe they don't like the PETA people, who knows? Also, this game does do a good job of teasing you with really big pals off and this is like you'll be walking along. Some of those just be like this giant wooly mammoth off to the side is like level 35. And you're like, hmm, I don't think I can take that, but someday, someday soon, kind of breadcrumbs you really well to be like hey, look at all the cool stuff you can get.

Shaun: 34:34

Eventually I did. I did try that level 35 mammoth because I had a whole base full of strong Pokemon. I was like, well, obviously we'll be able to do some damage to him. No, he just ran through, stomped everything death and left, including me, quite humiliating, the humility. It was quite humiliating. There are also bosses to. You know also one thing that this game really rips off from Pokemon. You play Pokemon, though right For a minute.

Shaun: 34:58

Yeah well, whatever you try to catch a Pokemon, in that you know you have Pokeball hits and does like this little three shake thing before it actually tells you if a cotton or not, to build up anticipation. This game does the exact same thing. You hit some of the Pokeball like hovers in the air, is like did it, did it, did it, did it, did it. And you're like it gives you the same dopamine hit that Pokemon does. Okay, oh, there you go, yeah. Yeah, it's designed to do the exact same thing and also much like Pokemon too. When you do like pet your curters, they make the cutest noises ever and, you know, do a little dance. So you're just like. It's like having a real pet, but when you don't have to feed her, putting the cat box on. So, as it is, that's kind of pretty much where we're at here.

Shaun: 35:36

I've been playing the game. I've been enjoying it. I don't know how long I'm going to enjoy it for, because I mean you can play it all alone or with friends, but since I don't have any friends to play it, I don't. It might get kind of old being single player, because I was watching other people play it and it looks like for some of the big bosses it kind of helps to have friends with, because what it is is like every little area you're in there's like this boss tower and you go in there is literally like just like you versus one person in their pal, like some ginormous pal, like the first one I fought was like some I don't remember what it was, but anyways, huge battle takes forever Kind of hard. Basically, what I wound up doing is I just sort of like ran around circles while chase me while my pal followed them and just hit them from behind. Yeah, you know that old, cheesy way of doing it.

Shaun: 36:16

Have you got the lucky with the machine gun yet? Actually, yes, I do. I just got him and I just made the machine gun last night, but I haven't had a chance to use him yet. Yeah, and he has one of the greatest descriptions ever for a pal. I sent you that one, didn't I? Yes, it was like, hey, he used to use sticks and stones to fight his battles until he met humans. Now, you know, has something better guns and I almost wonder if that one's based off of. Did you ever see that footage? I don't know if it's real or not, but like these soldiers in Cambodia. Give a machine gun to like a chimpanzee and it just immediately starts firing the gun.

Nate: 36:46

I've seen I mean I saw play the ace, but that's not yeah, real.

Shaun: 36:50

Yeah, this might have actually been seen from plenty of the Ace beyonds, because I Know it didn't look real. But also, yeah, it's one of those things. I just saw a quick video of it on YouTube or on a gift and I was like, yeah, neat, monkey shooting gun. But yeah, as soon as I saw that pal, I was like a half monkey shooting good. Right, this game's popularity is pretty popular too, because I saw a mysterious tweet from the CEO, kind of making it seem like there might be a Pokemon s card game coming out for it too already. Might as well strike where the irons hot on that one, I guess. Yeah, I mean definitely.

Nate: 37:20

Yeah, especially with how, how much people are digging it. You know. Go for it, yeah, yeah.

Shaun: 37:27

Oh, another thing too if you played on game pass, you can't name your own character, or when you play on game class cloud, you can't name your own character. It just gives you a number. So my character's name is player zero two seven, which is I don't know. I guess that's cool. Somehow, I doubt I'm the 27th person to log in, though, so who knows where that number comes from.

Nate: 37:46

Yeah, random dislike, whatever just here take it, yep.

Shaun: 37:50

A lot of people are wondering if Nintendo is going to sue because of you know, obvious reasons. But from what I've seen, most people say that Nintendo really can't sue because I mean there's already stuff like digimon and the such out there which you know apes on pokemon pretty hard. Well, what's digital on first, or pokemon first? Uh, pokemon was first I think, but I could be wrong on that. But also one thing that I guess might be saving pocket pair from getting sued by Nintendo is the fact that they gave the pokemon guns and they made it really dark and murry and stuff. So that means that it doesn't really have the same tone as like pokemon. They can say that's not marketed to the same people as pokemon. There's no pokemon. They could be like hey, it is obviously marketed. Tenon under ours has guns and murder. We're marketed at 13 and over.

Nate: 38:31

Looks like digimon came out a year after pokemon. So I'm not sure, but you know that was when it came out, not necessarily when it was in idea form, right. So I mean, I don't know. It's Of course there's, there's key differences, you know, whereas digimon is digital creatures versus pokemon, which are pokemon creatures, pocket monster and I don't know. I mean I don't really see how they have a leg stand on. It was enough differences. They, first of all, none of them are exactly. Yeah, again, just like I said earlier about the dragon quest being, you know, pokemon taking inspirate, quote-quote, inspiration off dragon quest, and you know so they don't really have a leg. If they were whole, still unique, no one like all the designs. There was no way that could be correlated to anything else. Maybe, but just it's like the thing. It's like if you're, if you're kind of a ripoff yourself, can't exactly go off someone else from ripping off what you have also ripped off.

Nate: 39:25

I mean you can't rip off what we've ripped off, fair and square right, it's like they that they spell thing where, like he was, uh, he dressed up as prince and then prince released an album cover of day chappell dressed as prince and day Chappell's like that's, check me right there. Yeah, I, I Dressed as him and then I stole his look and then he took that image. He's like what a you know, what am I supposed to do with that? I didn't really look like he wanted to. A digital had any inclination of suing him for that, but just yeah, no.

Shaun: 39:57

He has now. I don't think Dave Chappell would have come out looking like the good guy out of that Absolutely not that he would have come out the poor for that one.

Nate: 40:03

Yeah, yeah, I like Dave Chappell, but this is recently. He's just been like I think we were talking about earlier, just the whole trans thing.

Nate: 40:11

I mean, yeah, bob any subject any subject you talk about, not necessarily a trans thing, any subject where it's just like let's talk about like hardback versus paperback books. You know that that's something that's innocuous, like if someone had like four different specials, like Raging on hardback books, adventures like come on man, yeah, move on from the hardback books. Can we talk about I don't know, spaghetti, anything else, just anything else having that point too hard.

Shaun: 40:43

Yeah, some people, though, can't get enough of that kind of talk, though Sadly, I mean, yeah, there's not in sport.

Nate: 40:47

You know, absolutely there.

Shaun: 40:48

And those ones are and they have pockets full of money too, apparently, yeah because, if it, wasn't profitable, he wouldn't still be doing it.

Nate: 40:55

Yeah, I mean it's in that. There it is, but just I don't know like I really I have a problem with any comedian or anybody harping on a certain certain subject for Way too long. Yeah, yeah Times where it's just way too long, because.

Shaun: 41:08

I. It's like you made your point.

Nate: 41:09

Now move on. Yeah, I mean it's an initial special way talked about that. I didn't have a problem with it, like whatever. It was funny, you know he was. It wasn't even he was focusing on them. He dropped a couple of lines on them and then he moved the fuck on and then you know they had a problem with it. That make him mad. So he wore they got mad and that's that's.

Shaun: 41:25

That's no controversy, which stoked sales.

Nate: 41:27

Yeah, so he was like well, you want some controversy?

Shaun: 41:30

Yeah, I mean.

Nate: 41:32

I appreciate that too. I appreciate that like, if you're you, you fighting against controversy with more controversy, fine, but again it's like, eventually. It's like, can we move on the hardback books and talk about anything else?

Shaun: 41:43

Yeah, that's kind of what bobcat was going on when he rented, because it's not bobcat gold's weight over the weekend. He's like dude three specials where he just ran rag on trans people's. Write a joke for a change, come on.

Nate: 41:53

Yeah, I mean, and again, Dave Chappelle is. I want to say I like Dave Chappelle as.

Shaun: 42:00

That's kind of what makes it sad, is he does have the potential to be funny on anything. But yeah, he really does I?

Nate: 42:05

I love how I tell stories, I love his humor. I just I really do like Dave Chappelle's comedian, just that that particular subject matter. It's like okay, man, the horse is dead, can you please stop now, move on.

Shaun: 42:17

Yeah, I like bobcat's line, though Apparently he's like you know, dave Chappelle is growing boobs. I guess you really do turn into what you hate, which I don't know. I haven't actually seen a picture of Dave Chappelle, really, or I haven't stared at one, but well, I know he's got buff.

Nate: 42:30

I haven't seen him like, maybe that's what he's talking about. Does he got a buff, you know? Uh yeah, I don't think I, I don't think I'd say that he has had boobs, but I mean he has pecs, I guess, and then again we all do, hey hell, I hate to say this, but the other day I was like, oh man, I'm trying to get it.

Shaun: 42:50

I started Skipping down the road and all of a sudden you're just like, oh god, my chest is flopping.

Nate: 42:54

Yeah, I was like, because I was, uh, I was starting to do diet and exercise, really started to watch it, and then I got laid off and so I'm not exactly using that excuse to start eating like shit, but I definitely like Stopped a little bit.

Shaun: 43:06

Yeah, you need some sort of comfort food there, for a moment at least.

Nate: 43:09

Yeah, I mean it has he. It was like what's been? I guess I'm two weeks in now so I really started doing some. But I mean, yeah, I walk two miles a day minimum walking my dog, so it's not like I'm not doing. I'm not doing nothing.

Shaun: 43:20

Yeah, that's not bad.

Nate: 43:21

Yeah, I mean I need to do more.

Shaun: 43:24

Yeah, I do about eight miles a day at work.

Nate: 43:27

Yeah, see that's the thing. Like you know I, I definitely would prefer, um, I would prefer an office job to replace it with. You know I, if I do get hired a Starbucks manager, I'll I'll be on my feet a lot more and walk.

Shaun: 43:39

Yeah, yeah, I'd imagine, because they seem like people are behind the counter a lot making sure everything's going fine.

Nate: 43:43

Yeah, it's a lot. There's some pros and cons on that.

Shaun: 43:45

Yeah, you'll be out in the public, though, dealing with people. That'll be awesome, won't it again? Ha, it'll be refreshing for a few minutes. You'll be like, hey look, I can deal with people that I hate now.

Nate: 43:56

I will admit, though I do, you know, even going into the office fight. Yes, other job I was looking at where it's hybrid three days a week and then threw out two out. Um, Even that, dealing with people, I mean, it's just, it's better than just like me being at home all the time. I did like it, but I, I definitely was socially starved. You know it's that. You know jay would come home. I just like word bombing it all over. She's uh, you know her being a therapist. She's like I haven't talked to people all day at me, all day, just back the f off here like yeah.

Shaun: 44:24

I'm lonely and I have nobody here.

Nate: 44:26

Right, I mean.

Shaun: 44:27

I talk to girls but my girl is just like they're, just like you're, our dad. We don't want to talk to you.

Nate: 44:32

Well, they something. Don't talk to me. That's they asked. Just don't care about the things I care about. Yeah, I find it. It's just frustrating, you know, like even there's very few things that we share interests on. There's definitely interest we share when you talk about, but like I don't know after a while.

Shaun: 44:46

It's kind of sounds like your average adult child relationship, though.

Nate: 44:49

Yeah.

Shaun: 44:49

I mean it's fine. Yeah, most kids don't really like much what their parents are into, right? Yeah, such as life, such as it has been and always, exactly, exactly, indubitably so. There's our episode on pal world, a game that's super popular, and we decided to do an episode on to try to capture some of that popularity and maybe get some listen to. So if you came, in yeah yeah, try it out.

Shaun: 45:11

Honestly, dude, try it out. It's pretty good. Uh, if you got a game pass account, try it out for free on there, because that's what I did and it was good. Uh, otherwise it's 30 dollars on steam, which, yeah, you know I spent more than that on.

Shaun: 45:23

You know stupid stuff before, so oh absolutely yeah, and I mean I've already probably gotten a good like eight hours of game time out of it. Grant that I was going really slow Because I had no idea what I was doing for the most part. The very beginning the game was kind of a slog for me because I'm like I don't know what I'm doing and then like all of a sudden, what do you have to? Got make your own pokeballs and you're just like randomly hitting them, because it's really easy to hit the R but the right bumper button and throw your pokeballs accidentally. Yeah. So it's kind of a but when you got like three pokeballs left and you just accidentally wing them at somebody trying to attack them, Can you?

Shaun: 45:52

pick them up, or was? He no once you throw them there gone, that is the one sucks. Yeah, uh. So that actually took me a while. And also, too, I realized that you don't kill the pokemon and pokeball and you got pokeball. The mold is still alive Because yeah, I assume that makes sense.

Shaun: 46:05

Yeah well, I assumed you're supposed to beat them with a baseball bat until I stop Moving and then catch them. No, that's not the way to do it. They are dead by that point, not unconscious. So the key is don't kill them first. Do not kill them first, you have to beat them into submission. That's how that works.

Shaun: 46:22

That's awesome, so definitely go, yep, go check it out, see what you think of it. Maybe we'll talk about more later if more info comes out, because or somebody actually, or somebody acts on those death threats heaven forbid, yay, yay.

Nate: 46:32

Yay, I'm a thief. No, yeah.

Shaun: 46:38

Watching the news and there'll be like a murder show back. Yay, yep, so too is coming up. All right, talk to you later, and that's our episode on the making of pow world. Perhaps when I play it some more, we will revisit the game and do a more in-depth review on the actual game itself. Until next time, this has been off to off topic. Thank you for listening.