Pokeprincxss is a popular TikTok and Twitch streamer with more than 1.9 million followers who enjoy her gaming content and her love of all things Pokemon. However, the 23-year-old from the United States is now being sued by Nintendo, Pokemon’s parent company and it’s making a lot of streamers very uneasy about the economics of the gaming industry.
Admittedly, Pokeprincxss, now going by digitalprincxss due to the lawsuit with Nintendo, has come out saying that the lawsuit is her fault. To go even further, she’s spoken out claiming that people shouldn’t be mad at Nintendo, because she was impetuous in her use of their products for her logos and merchandise. It was a youthful mistake, and digitalprincxss is all about putting it behind her, and wants everyone to still continue loving Nintendo and what they create.
Having the person being sued come out and accept responsibility for their actions should put gamers at ease, because it’s easy to see the pitfalls that can be avoided for other online influencers. Unfortunately, it puts a lot of people on edge, because Nintendo has sued one influencer, so now may be looking more closely at any accounts that are using anything even close to resembling their products. This may force a lot of gamer sites to reevaluate whether their products and logos too closely resemble any existing products.
To be clear, Nintendo isn’t in the wrong for its lawsuit. The images being used were directly taken from their products, and are all trademarked or copyrighted. It does mean that gamer sites and influencers will need to be more careful, because now a trend is being set, but it also means that people will need to get more creative. While it does create a bit of paranoia around any trademarked or copyrighted images, it also means that everyone is going to have to think outside the box when coming up with images for their own branding.
At the end of the day, if you’re worried that the images you’re using for your own personal brand are too close to the images of an established company, then get back to the drawing board. It’s not worth chancing a lawsuit with a company as large as Nintendo, because you’re going to carry the burden of proof that you didn’t rip them off originally.