Last year in 2022, gamers fought an intense war against the NFT bros who were trying to incorporate the emerging tech into mainstream games. Companies were quite intrigued by the idea of monetizing digital assets and you know that had boardroom meetings lit up. Stockholders were on the edge of their seats for NFTs in the same way that they are this year for A.I. projects. However, most of this momentum was shut down by the gaming community. For once gamers were quick to speak out against this new addition and boycott/criticize any company who stepped up to the plate and publicly announced they were attempting to inject NFTs into their titles. After major wins like Ubisoft’s greedy ass backing off, it became clear to most leadership in the Western industry that the technology was toxic for goodwill and gave up the pursuit of it. Apparently that same backlash did not make it overseas as many huge Japanese corporations are still interested in the idea such as Konami, Square Enix, and now The Pokémon Company.

In an interesting turn of events, The Pokémon Company is actually doing a complete 180. A few months ago in December of 2022, the company shut down a knock-off Pokémon NFT game called PokéWorld and stated at the time that "The Pokémon Company and Nintendo had made a deliberate decision not to launch any Pokémon NFTs." Well obviously that statement aged like fine wine as recently the Internet caught wind of some interesting qualifications for a big job posting. It’s a pretty prominent position that advises the company president and related leadership, so the qualifications are about a mile long. However, what drew scrutiny were the following bullet points: 

• Excellent business sense and ability to connect the relevance of potential partners or technologies with Pokémon’s existing assets. 

• Deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, including blockchain technologies and NFT, and/or metaverse. 

• Deeply connected to a network of investors and entrepreneurs in the technology sectors above (Web3 and metaverse). 

For obvious reasons this set off major red flags as it clearly demonstrates that the company has not given up on monetizing cute little digital Pikachus just yet. You can read the entire application here, but the main takeaway is that this is an impactful position that is supposed to be helping to steer the direction of the company and innovate with fresh ideas, and said position needs to be highly familiar with NFT and related technologies. The dots draw themselves. Since this is merely a job position and not a tangible situation of a Pokémon game utilizing NFTs, I doubt it will receive the attention (or backlash) it probably deserves. So far Japan has yet to hear much outcry about the practice or either doesn’t care enough to backpedal. Only time will tell if one of the world’s biggest franchises will soon be hoping you’ll pay $1 for a Pikachu with a top hat called “Gentlemen Pikachu” so that you can… stare at it on your computer? Or something?

Humanoid Gardevoir? Yep, that's an easy $5.

One thing is certain: for gamers who want to keep the fight up against implementing this kind of monetization into the industry, the war is far from over. It appears that a global rallying will be needed to make the concept unlucrative to executives. Do you think this is an overreaction? Or clear proof that Japanese headquarters are still fascinated by the promises of huge bucks rolling in from NFTs? Are you afraid for the future of Pokémon or still excited? Throw your Pokéball, catch a rare Bulbasaur, and hope this doesn't turn into a CryptoZoo in the comments below!