Pokémon Clone Pickmos Yanked from Steam Amid Controversy

A monster-catching game called Pickmos has been pulled from Steam, with the developer citing plans to "revise the game to ensure a controversy-free experience." The removal happened this week and has stirred up the expected debate about originality, IP similarity, and how close is too close in the increasingly crowded monster-catching space.

What Was Pickmos?

Pickmos was an indie monster-collecting RPG that sat firmly in Pokémon-clone territory. Like its inspirations, it featured catching creatures, assembling a team, and battling through a world built around that loop. In broad strokes, that description fits dozens of games that have launched in the past few years — but Pickmos apparently crossed a line somewhere that got it enough attention to become a problem.

The game appeared on Steam relatively recently and never reached mainstream visibility, but it accumulated enough community traction — and enough criticism — to become a topic of conversation before it was ultimately removed.

Why Did It Get Pulled?

The developer's statement is deliberately vague. "Revising the game to ensure a controversy-free experience" doesn't spell out whether the issue was visual design, gameplay mechanics, specific creature designs that looked too similar to existing Pokémon, or some combination of all three.

The gaming community has been pointing to two likely culprits. First, visual similarities to established Pokémon designs — this is the most common criticism aimed at games in this space, and it's the kind of thing that can attract legal attention fast. Second, gameplay mechanics that some players felt were lifted without enough originality to justify calling it a distinct product.

Whether Nintendo sent any kind of legal notice or whether this was a preemptive move by the developer is unknown. Nintendo has historically been extremely aggressive about protecting its IP — it's gone after fan games, ROM sites, and emulators with equal enthusiasm — but there's no public confirmation that this removal was legally motivated rather than the developer getting ahead of potential trouble.

The Palworld Effect

Palworld proved in January 2024 that a Pokémon-adjacent game could be a massive commercial success. It sold millions of copies in its first week and became one of Steam's biggest launches ever. That success opened the floodgates — since then, dozens of similar games have appeared on Steam trying to ride that wave.

Most have faded into obscurity. A handful have drawn controversy for design similarities. And Nintendo, which spent most of 2024 watching Palworld's success without taking immediate action, eventually filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair later in the year.

That legal development changed the calculus for developers working in this space. If Nintendo was willing to go after Palworld — a game with a massive audience and deep pockets — smaller developers making games that looked like Pokémon knockoffs started looking a lot more exposed.

The Genre's Originality Problem

The monster-catching genre is genuinely popular and genuinely growing, but it's also in a difficult spot. Pokémon has such a strong identity — the visual design language of its creatures, the structure of its battles, the gym-and-badge progression — that almost any game in the space risks looking derivative.

The games that have succeeded on their own terms did so by bringing something distinct. Temtem leaned into cooperative online play and a more competitive battle system. Cassette Beasts built a unique fusion mechanic and a surreal British aesthetic. Coromon went deep on classic RPG mechanics and challenge modes. All three found audiences precisely because they weren't just Pokémon with a coat of paint.

Games that skip that creative work and go straight for the Pokémon aesthetic get called out fast. Steam's review system and gaming communities on Reddit and Twitter are ruthless about this — and a wave of negative attention is often worse for a small studio than any legal threat.

What Happens Next for Pickmos?

The developer says the game will return after revisions. What exactly those revisions involve is unclear. It could mean redesigning the creature roster, overhauling the game's visual style, rethinking mechanics, or all of the above. Depending on how deep the changes need to go, a revised version could take months — and there's no guarantee the relaunched game will generate meaningful interest.

In the meantime, Pickmos joins a growing list of games that got a little too close to the sun in a genre defined by one of the most protective IP holders in entertainment. In the post-Palworld-lawsuit era, the message to monster-catching developers is getting clearer: bring something original, or bring a lawyer.