Steam's recently hit survival game "Pocket Plug" has been criticized for plagiarizing the "Pokémon" series of games. At the same time, players on social media have accused Pocketpair, the developer of "Pokémon Plug", of having a dark history of using generative AI tools in the past.

Developed by Japanese developer Pocketpair, "Fantasy Parlu" was released in Early Access on PC and Xbox platforms last Friday and was an immediate success. The developer said 2 million units were sold within 24 hours. However, the game's popularity has also reignited previous discussions surrounding the similarities between its character designs and Pokémon.

While Paloo's gameplay is closer to survival games like Ark and Rust than GameFreak's Pokémon series, many social media users have pointed out that its character design is clearly influenced by Pokémon.

After the release of "Phantom Pallu", some users cited the similarities between Pallu and Pokémon and questioned its plagiarism. One user wrote: "It's so obvious to plagiarize, how many things are stolen?" Another user added: "I want to like Paloo, but I don't know if I can accept throwing existing Pokémon into a fusion machine and pretending to be a 'new' IP."

Player X points out plagiarism in character design

In the eyes of some players, Pocketpair's historical relationship with generative AI tools has further deepened suspicions of plagiarism in "Eidolon Parlu". Artist Zaytri pointed out on the

Zaytri also highlighted multiple historical posts by Pocketpair CEO Mizobe on the X platform, in which he seemed to wax lyrical about the potential of AI image generators for content creation.

Mizobe discussed in a 2022 X post that he believes generative AI tools may one day become sophisticated enough to avoid copyright issues. In one of his more controversial posts in 2021, Mizobe showed how AI could be used to generate new Pokémon designs.

Of course, this does not prove that any design in "Eidolon Parlu" was made with the help of AI. However, some believe that if this is indeed the case, this could explain the similarities between its design and the game itself, especially considering that Paloo was made by an inexperienced team, many of whose members were former hobbyists (Mizobe claims that one member of the team even worked at a convenience store before).