The gaming community has erupted over the newly announced creature-collecting game PickMon. As per the critics, this game crosses every line. In just hours of its Stream trailer debut, the title, coming from PocketGame, drew fire for its designs that appear to lift not just from Pokémon but Palworld and some independent fan artists who never gave their explicit permission.
Social media erupts over PickMon’s brazen design thefts and more
The Nintendo fans did not hold back as they flooded social media with some side-by-side comparisons, highlighting what they called brazen theft. “This game will be sued into oblivion,” said one of the X users, capturing the sentiment that’s spreading across social media. The backlash started to gain momentum and grow stronger as gamers started spotting what they called “blatant copies.” A creature which resembled Charizard riding alongside what looked like a Pikachu reskin, while another monster had a striking resemblance to Ceruledge—Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
This controversy started to deepen as artists spotted their work in the trailer. RJ Palmer pointed out that the creature that is there on the cover of the game PickMon matched with one of the fan-made Mega Meganium designs by el.psy.fake, an Instagram artist, perfectly—down to antennae movement. A comment clearly captured his emotion, suggesting, “Not content to just steal from the real deal, this game is also ripping off fan designs.”
Another artist named jayjay_mons identified that their Mega Ceruledge fan art was within the footage of this game. As per the artist, “It’s literally my fan design stolen right there.” The worst was that neither the artists received their credit nor did developers try to contact the artists.
All these criticisms did not come to an end. Many players spotted some creatures that resembled Anubis and Mammorest from Palworld, plus what looked like Final Fantasy XIV’s aetheryte crystals and also the protagonist as Breath of the Wild, reminiscent. “Bro not only they stole pals from palworld they literally grabbed the aetheryte from FFXIV 😭 is there anything original in this game lmaooo.”
Upcoming release PickMon faces extreme controversies
This entire situation has been drawing some inevitable comparisons to Palworld, a survival game that had to face the legal team of Nintendo over patent infringement. The developer name of PickMon, PocketGame, even echoes Palworld studio Pocketpair. The capture system in-game, which captures creatures, is designed to sidestep monster-catching patents currently at the center of the Nintendo and Palworld lawsuit.
Industry observers note that all these art theft scandals damage games before their releases. They cited the recent plagiarism of Marathon. However, the situation of PickMon compounds multiple issues—alleged Palworld asset flips, Nintendo IP violations and also uncredited fan art, all in just one trailer release. As per observers, if no action is taken, it is a huge slap on Nintendo’s face.
The Steam page, as of now, is live, and the demo of the game is available. Even the wishlist of this game is growing despite all the outcry. Even PocketGame has teased more game trailers while choosing to stay silent over the current allegations. Meanwhile, the calls are mounting for Steam to review the content of the game. Many are even predicting that the legal team of Nintendo is already prepping for some action. As an X user put it, “this genuinely feels like it was created for the sole purpose of ragebaiting Nintendo.”
