A new game comes out of the woodwork every few months and grabs the gaming community by the neck. Usually, these games are unique and creative, often offering an experience that few other games can. The past week has introduced a new game taking over the gaming community: “Palworld,” which has sold more than 5 million copies over the past weekend.

Anyone aiming to work in games has likely seen “Palworld” plastered all over their LinkedIn feed. Top voices can’t get enough of this game, some even heralding it as evidence that there’s no longer a crisis in the video game industry. So, what makes “Palworld” so special? What’s the selling point? In the words of my friends who inevitably convinced me to buy the game, it’s “Pokemon with guns.”

I’d be lying if I said “Palworld” isn’t a fun game. There’s nothing quite like it: the sinister premise of a firearm-filled world where players can enslave their Pokemon — or as they’re referred to in the game, “Pals” — is certainly one way to hook players into purchasing a game.

However, “Palworld” has a problem. Sure, I’ve joked about its references to Pokemon, but in reality, this game is eerily similar to other titles. “Palworld” has sparked a debate in the gaming community about where we should draw the line between inspiration and plagiarism.

Like any other creative medium, game production has seen criticism for certain games potentially plagiarizing other titles. The title theme song from “Metal Gear Solid” was copied from classical Russian music, and there have been numerous clones of the strategy series “Civilization.” Even “Fortnite”’s new game mode, “Fortnite Festival,” has been criticized for its striking similarity to the classic rhythm game series “Guitar Hero.”

But what really counts as plagiarism in an industry run by innovation and inspiration? After all, the whole point of an evolving industry is learning from your colleagues and competitors, drawing ideas from their successful products and media. Sure, “Fortnite Festival” may be similar to “Guitar Hero,” but rhythm games have been replicating the “Guitar Hero” formula for decades. If we were to crack down on every game that drew from another, there wouldn’t be any games left.

But clearly, there is an issue of plagiarism. The difficult task at hand is drawing a distinction. “Palworld” draws heavy inspiration from not only “Pokemon,” but also “ARK: Survival Evolved” and “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.”

When making a game, you want to make something that’s both fun and creative. This means drawing from existing media during research and development. Most of the time, these inspirations manifest themselves in-game as overarching mechanics and ideas that propel the game forward. For example, “Palworld” isn’t plagiarizing “Breath of the Wild” just because it too has hazardous hot and cold environments that can be weathered with specific outfits.

At the end of the day, inspiration and imitation are subjective. However, I think the problem of plagiarism arises when specific assets have clearly been drawn from other games. That’s what makes pinning down a plagiarism accusation with “Palworld” so difficult: Anyone can defend the similarities in their designs by saying that the pals were simply inspired by real-world animals.

A sheep-inspired creature is going to look like a sheep and a wolf-inspired creature is going to look like a wolf. So, if two companies are making creatures inspired by the same animals, some of their creatures are bound to look similar. On the other hand, the design similarities between unique creatures like “Palworld”’s Robinquill and Pokemon’s Decidueye are kind of hard to ignore.

This exact dilemma isn’t a new one. Pokemon itself was inspired by “Dragon Quest,” leaving some Pokemon looking quite similar to the creatures in the classic title.

I’m not here to tell you whether or not “Palworld” is plagiarizing. To be honest, I haven’t fully come to a conclusion myself. I think it’s crucial for every person to individually make judgments on this issue. When I started writing this piece, I was 100% in the camp that “Palworld” is plagiarizing. After looking at other opinions and doing research on other examples of plagiarism in games, I’m not so sure.

Whether it’s plagiarizing or not, I do think Palworld will die out within a month or two — it’s just the life cycle of fad games. Even if “Palworld” is plagiarizing, it likely will never have the lasting impact of “Pokemon” or the other games it’s imitating. Games come and go, but originality will always have a far more lasting impact than anything else.

Aubrie Cole is a sophomore writing about video games in her column, “Downloadable Content,” which runs every other Tuesday. She is also an arts & entertainment editor at the Daily Trojan.