Nintendo Sues Palword's Owner Pocketpair, Claiming Game Violates Patent Rights

 

Some of you may have heard about the game "Palworld." Palworld has some survival game elements, such as base-building and weaponmaking. But you also go out and tame critters, and have them combat player-owned critters. That you can arm the creatures has gotten the game the nickname "Pokemon with guns." The game was an overnight success, and brought the small indie company millions. But Nintendo wasn't very happy, and recently announced it was filing a lawsuit, saying the game violated a number of patents. 

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games. 

Cartoon of the Day: AFK Pokeball

 Taken at the Happy Vixen. The problem with taking a couple moments away from keyboard to take care of something, you never know what someone will throw your way.

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at Club Cutlass

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at the Happy Vixen's Pokemon event.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Pokemonsters

Gemma Cleanslate has been playing a new game in Second Life ... well, sort of new: "Pokemonsters." Based on a familiar game, the objective in this one created by Addict Algoma and Rems57, one has to capture the critters using bait along with pokeballs. So did Gemma "catch them all" yet?

Read Gemma's story in Design.

Pokemon GO Numbers In Decline

Pokemon GO was the game of the summer. The number of users of the mobile ap augmented reality game skyrocketed since it's release on July 5th to close to 45 million in about two weeks. But that's as far as it's numbers got, and it late July and August was steadily getting smaller. More than 12 million have stopped playing, "Data from Sensor Tower, SurveyMonkey, and Apptopia," stated Luke Kawa in Bloomberg, "show that Pokemon Go's daily active users, downloads, engagement, and time spent on the app per day are all well off their peaks and on a downward trend."

So why the decline? Over the weeks there have been a number of cautionary stories in the news about careless Pokemon players getting into accidents or getting robbed. But the real reasons for the decline appear to be shortcomings in the game itself, not much you can do with critters once they're caught, no quests, no way for players to duel, the gameplay seemed to be centered on capturing "gyms" that were held by monsters that were of a level unrealistic to reach by casual players. There have also apparently been server issues that have been quite irritating to players.

Hamlet Au predicted that eventually the userbase will settle to a dedicated core of about fifteen to five million. Certainly not a bad number for a game, but he felt Pokemon GO's decline would have a negative impact on the augmented gaming market that it had earlier sparked interest in, To succeed in a truly massive way, an AR game needs to be linked with a massive, well-established brand that has a 'fantastic, invisible parallel world' premise well-integrated into its branding."

Kawa suggested that over the long term, the augmented reality market would remain smaller than the one for virtual worlds, citing one analyst, "The Google Trends data is already showing declining interest in augmented reality, whereas interest in virtual reality remains high."


Sources: New World Notes, Bloomberg, Yahoo, PC Mag, Arstechnica 

Bixyl Shuftan

The Pokemon Sim of Ravenlock

Pokemon has been around in a number of forms over the past 20 years: video and computer games, cartoons, an animated movie, and recently the handheld ap "augmented reality" game "Pokemon GO" which has became an instant huge hit just weeks ago. As it turns out, there's been a Pokemon sim in Second Life for a number of years: Ravenlock. Second Life Newser recently went there to talk to it's owner Mindy Runo and one of her two other teammates, Ivy Steampunk.

Read more in Design.

Announcement: "Faith Filled Furries" Dance at Club Remnants

Sunday at 8PM SL time is the monthly "Faith-Filled Furries" dance at Club Remnants, a club for a Christian group, TRF Ministries, and their friends, "Not your daddies night club. Real people, Real Faith, Real Christians."

As it turns out, one of the members has a birthday this weekend. So they're making it in part a birthday party. There's also a contest for the best Pokemon look. 

Dreamworld Pirate (192, 69, 22)

Coming Soon: Pokemon Sim in Second Life

With the "Pokemon Go" game all the rage, one might ask if there's a place in Second Life where one can play something similar. In the sim of Ravenlock there's a Pokemon game which has been going on for quite some time. The sim and game are run by a team headed by Mindy Runo. Mindy had to work this weekend, so the article will have to wait. For now if you want to try out the game, bead to Ravenlock (128, 127, 144).

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Video: "Pokemon GO / Second Life"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

From Mistell Production Film on July 15, a Second Life video of someone playing the popular "Pokemon GO" mobile app game.

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au  

Cartoon of the Day: Pokemon GO

Taken at Furry Fashion. Okay, technically a Renamon is a "Digimon" and not a Pokemon, but how many who don't play the games would know or care that much? And for those whose "significant others" play the game a little too much, wouldn't you like to turn the tables on him/her in a rather ironic way? ;-)

By Bixyl Shuftan

At the Relay

 As this is being posted, it's the middle of the Relay Walk, the 24 hour event that is the high point of the Relay Weekend.

Following the Opening Ceremony, the various teams gathered onto the Track.

While cancer is  a serious subject, there's been much funnery on the Track. Team Ragtag poked fun at the "Pokemon GO" craze by putting a pikachu on their camp.

 At the American Cancer Society sim, there was a spontaneous gathering of people.

When Stingray Raymaker went AFK, people decided to poke fun at him by rezzing things on and around him. Then Maddona, with her cockroach arms after her "Nightmare" challenge decided to stand behind him so he was between me and the camera ...

Poor Stingray. He never gets a break.

That's all for now from the Relay. Stand by for more.

Bixyl Shuftan

Ravenlock's Xmas Zone

Reporter Locke Esgal is back with a Christmas story. This one is with a gaming twist. In his latest article, he writes about the Pokemon-themed Ravenlock sim's own holiday area. So just what does one catch when you mix Christmas with Pokeman?

Read Lock's story in Places.