‘Palworld’ deny Game Awards snub: “Not everything is a conspiracy”

Some fans think the zero nominations is due to the ongoing legal battle with Nintendo

The nominees for The Game Awards 2024 were announced last week – and Palworld wasn’t mentioned in any of the 30 categories.

• READ MORE: Pocketpair Inc’s CEO: “We don’t want ‘Palworld’ to be beautiful and perfect. We want to inject elements of darker themes, including exploitation and violence”

The Game Awards 2024 are set to take place December 13 and honour achievements in the video game industry. Astro Bot and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth are heading up this year’s contest with seven nominations each while Balatro, Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree and Metaphor: ReFantazio have also been shortlisted for Game Of The Year.

Despite Palworld being one of the most talked about and successful games of 2024, the open-world survival game isn’t up for any awards at this year’s ceremony. And, fans aren’t happy about the snub. “No mention of Palworld at The Game Awards is insane,” wrote one player with another calling it “crazy”.

“I think the reason why Palworld was never gonna be in the Nominees for this year’s Game Awards is because of the legal battle between them and Nintendo,” said another fan. In September, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company shared a joint statement that confirmed they had filed a lawsuit against Palworld developers Pocketpair over copyright infringement.

Pocketpair called the lawsuit “truly unfortunate” and earlier this month, claimed Nintendo wanted Palworld shut down until the legal battle was resolved.

Responding to the lack of Game Award nominees, Palworld global community manager Bucky wrote: “No, I don’t think Palworld was snubbed. Twitter has become such a banterless place. Stop being so over dramatic gamers. Not everything is a conspiracy.“

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Others have argued that because Palworld is still in Early Access, it wasn’t eligible for the 2024 awards anyway. However, Bucky did point out that fellow Early Access title Manor Lords had been nominated for two different categories.

Despite the ongoing legal battle with Nintendo, Palworld recently launched on PlayStation and has confirmed plans for a mobile version.

In other news, it’s been reported that PlayStation is working on a handheld console to rival the Nintendo Switch. Earlier this month, Xbox confirmed it was also working on a portable console ahead of the Switch 2 launch next year.