The Pokemon Company has drawn the ire and attention of many, with a new job posting that is actively seeking employees with experience in uncharted territory for the Pokemon franchise. The hiring page shows that The Pokemon Company International wants to hire staff that has "deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, [...] blockchain technologies, NFT, and/or metaverse. They also appear to be looking for someone who can "connect the relevance of potential partners or technologies with Pokemon's existing assets", which has fans dramatically split between unease and excitement for what this might mean for the future.

The Pokemon Company isn't the first, and definitely won't be the last, in terms of businesses trying to incorporate elements of the blockchain into the video game industry. Despite harsh criticism in the past, Square Enix is still committed to pushing the idea of NFT games. Regardless, outside of the hiring page, nothing involving NFTs has been announced from The Pokemon Company, for now.

Pokémon company posted a job opening that encompasses Blockchain, NFT’s and Web3 technologies.

Oh no, please no 😨 pic.twitter.com/p0XrH0Eat3

— Pory (@pory_leeks) March 12, 2023

 

[Foxi4]

Do you actually think people would commit felony server hacking for cheated pokemon and that this would happen regularly enough that risk of this happening is worth excessive power consumption required to make a decentralized database?

People are routinely uploading Fakemons to Pokémon Home as we speak, what are you even arguing about? There are even guides on how to avoid detection and what are the “plausible” stats for any Pokémon, however statistically unlikely they might be to occur in-game. Your solution already exists and doesn’t work, so the point is moot.

 

[trillspector]

People are routinely uploading Fakemons to Pokémon Home as we speak, what are you even arguing about? There are even guides on how to avoid detection and what are the “plausible” stats for any Pokémon, however statistically unlikely they might be to occur in-game. Your solution already exists and doesn’t work, so the point is moot.

Uploading a pokemon to pokemon home is not the same as doing all the steps you are proposing to make an nft and then just instead of minting it on the blockchain storing it on a locally stored append only database only handled by gamefreak. In this solution in order to add a hacked pokemon you would explicitly need to hack game freaks servers, not use the upload feature they provide.

 

[Foxi4]

Uploading a pokemon to pokemon home is not the same as doing all the steps you are proposing to make an nft and then just instead of minting it on the blockchain storing it on a locally stored append only database only handled by gamefreak. In this solution in order to add a hacked pokemon you would explicitly need to hack game freaks servers, not use the upload feature they provide.

I don’t know what to tell you. I can take a horse to water, but I can’t make it drink - if you don’t see the utility then there’s nothing I can tell you that will change that.

 

[RunePhantom]

Foxi4: digital ownership protocols are the future

You will own nothing, and you will be happy. That's the direction I see Digital Ownership taking us. I'll confess I don't know much about blockchain or NFTs aside from the mass media coverage, so my education is lacking on the subject, but from the perspective of someone who's seen the impact that lazy implementation of the blockchain can have, I simply don't see it being beneficial for awhile yet.

Focusing on TPC using it though, I haven't seen a single example of a games company using blockchain well. SquEnix fucked it up and from what I'm reading they're still trying to use it in, as you call it "the most lazy, stupid and uninspired way". I'm sure you're right. If TPC makes use of blockchain with Pokemon, it'll suck.

Foxi4: It doesn’t take a genius to create a set of assets that get composed into one coherent whole, get a specific skin slapped on it and bam - you have yourself a unique, one-of-a-kind shiny, along with a certificate of ownership that cannot be falsified.

Referencing this however, haven't falsified certs already been problem in the realm of NFTs? (You're essentially describing an NFT pokemon as I understand the term.) I mean shit, wallets are getting hacked (see Ronin Network) often enough that there's just no way I'd ever personally make use of one. Besides, is a truly unique pokemon even really worth the resources that would have to be poured into doing this right? Personally I don't think so. If pokemon implements blockchain, it's going to be little more than a security risk masquerading as something cute.

In my opinion, we're trying to shoehorn this new technology into places where it doesn't belong, rather than evaluating its uses in other applications.

 

[trillspector]

I don’t know what to tell you. I can take a horse to water, but I can’t make it drink - if you don’t see the utility then there’s nothing I can tell you that will change that.

It's not that I don't see the utility in your proposal, it's that I think its horrifically inefficient and shows a complete lack of understanding of the past 30 years of data science. Blockchain technology is a solution looking for a problem and all of those problems were solved decades ago with merkle trees and append only databases. You take your exact idea of minting every single pokemon's unique configuration of IV's and instead of using 1000s of Kwh of power to place it on a public ledger we use 0.1W on a private server and where modifying that server would be illegal to the scale of a gigaleak under the current laws.

 

[Foxi4]

It's not that I don't see the utility in your proposal, it's that I think its horrifically inefficient and shows a complete lack of understanding of the past 30 years of data science. Blockchain technology is a solution looking for a problem and all of those problems were solved decades ago with merkle trees and append only databases. You take your exact idea of minting every single pokemon's unique configuration of IV's and instead of using 1000s of Kwh of power to place it on a public ledger we use 0.1W on a private server and make it so modifying that server would be illegal to the scale of a gigaleak.

The fact that it’s on a public ledger *is* the advantage here. On a Nintendo server it’s just data - data that exists only within the Nintendo infrastructure. On a public ledger it becomes a token that can be traded by anyone, with anyone, if they’re so inclined. Heck, you could even cross over the console games, Pokémon Go and the TCG if you put your mind to it - no harm in doing so.

If you’re so concerned about the minting issue, there’s nothing stopping Nintendo from pre-minting a batch of unique Pokémon each time there’s a new release. Hell, that’d make it even *more* compelling, if anything. If you told the Pokémon audience that with the release of the new *insert precious stone or colour here* game you’re releasing X shiny Pokémon into the wild, they’re all unique but *that’s it*, every Pokémon nerd would be in the store Day 1 racing to catch as many shinies as humanly possible, specifically for the purposes of trade.

In my head it makes perfect sense. Take the humble Rattata. It’s nice if you catch a shiny one, that’s rare in and out of itself. Now, if you’re also aware that there’s only, say, X thousand of them out there, and this one’s yours, unique in both looks and stats, and there’ll never be a Rattata quite like this one, *that’s* rare. It makes shinies what they logically should be - a rare anomaly as opposed to a symbol of senseless farming.

 

[Ryab]

I mean out of every company I'm surprised they were not one of the first to try this.

 

[trillspector]

The fact that it’s on a public ledger *is* the advantage here. On a Nintendo server it’s just data - data that exists only within the Nintendo infrastructure. On a public ledger it becomes a token that can be traded by anyone, with anyone, if they’re so inclined. Heck, you could even cross over the console games, Pokémon Go and the TCG if you put your mind to it - no harm in doing so.

If you’re so concerned about the minting issue, there’s nothing stopping Nintendo from pre-minting a batch of unique Pokémon each time there’s a new release. Hell, that’d make it even *more* compelling, if anything. If you told the Pokémon audience that with the release of the new *insert precious stone or colour here* game you’re releasing X shiny Pokémon into the wild, they’re all unique but *that’s it*, every Pokémon nerd would be in the store Day 1 racing to catch as many shinies as humanly possible, specifically for the purposes of trade.

In my head it makes perfect sense. Take the humble Rattata. It’s nice if you catch a shiny one, that’s rare in and out of itself. Now, if you’re also aware that there’s only, say, X thousand of them out there, and this one’s yours, unique in both looks and stats, and there’ll never be a Rattata quite like this one, *that’s* rare. It makes shinies what they logically should be - a rare anomaly as opposed to a symbol of senseless farming.

So you are proposing that we deprive people the joy from catching a shiny pokemon if they buy a game a few years out so we can add horrible scarcity markets to games, this is what you think is worth using more power then my entire neighborhood? Like you know it's still just data on a public blockchain right, absolutely worthless without Game Freak's intellectual property. Aren't games supposed to be fun?

 

[Volttekka]

Listen, I hate NFTs too, but just to play devil's advocate, just because they're looking for individuals with experience in NFT and blockchain fields, doesn't necessarily mean that they're planning to implement those technologies. Maybe they're looking to get a better understanding of their functionality, pick and choose the parts they like and ditch the parts they don't, and implement something adjacent to the concept of NFTs?

 

[Foxi4]

You will own nothing, and you will be happy. That's the direction I see Digital Ownership taking us. I'll confess I don't know much about blockchain or NFTs aside from the mass media coverage, so my education is lacking on the subject, but from the perspective of someone who's seen the impact that lazy implementation of the blockchain can have, I simply don't see it being beneficial for awhile yet.

Focusing on TPC using it though, I haven't seen a single example of a games company using blockchain well. SquEnix fucked it up and from what I'm reading they're still trying to use it in, as you call it "the most lazy, stupid and uninspired way". I'm sure you're right. If TPC makes use of blockchain with Pokemon, it'll suck.

Digital ownership is a stand-in for a notary - nothing more, nothing less. A deed for a house is a thousand times more secure on the blockchain in a secure physical wallet than it is on a piece of paper that can be forged or stolen. Whether we like it or not, the proof of ownership of goods both digital and physical will eventually be digitised, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Referencing this however, haven't falsified certs already been problem in the realm of NFTs? (You're essentially describing an NFT pokemon as I understand the term.) I mean shit, wallets are getting hacked (see Ronin Network) often enough that there's just no way I'd ever personally make use of one. Besides, is a truly unique pokemon even really worth the resources that would have to be poured into doing this right? Personally I don't think so. If pokemon implements blockchain, it's going to be little more than a security risk masquerading as something cute.

In my opinion, we're trying to shoehorn this new technology into places where it doesn't belong, rather than evaluating its uses in other applications.

The blockchain guarantees authenticity which can be verified with relative ease. There absolutely are “fake NFT’s” out there, but that’s more a matter of copyright ownership than anything else. I can take any set of images and mint them into NFT’s, that doesn’t mean I owned those images in the first place. I can also just copy an existing NFT and “mint” that, but ultimately I’m just a copycat - anyone can verify the authenticity of the asset. It cannot be falsified, misappropriated or changed.

So you are proposing that we deprive people the joy from catching a shiny pokemon if they buy a game a few years out so we can add horrible scarcity markets to games, this is what you think is worth using more power then my entire neighborhood? Like you know it's still just data on a public blockchain right, absolutely worthless without Game Freak's intellectual property. Aren't games supposed to be fun?

How is making shinies more rare and more unique less fun? If you really want shinies to be a bottomless pit (which is counterintuitive and contrary to the entire point of a shiny) the game can simply revert to the bog standard shiny form once all unique ones are depleted. This is a non-issue to me - you can mint as many as you need, and periodically re-supply. If anything, it’s incentive for players to hunt for shinies while the pool is nice and big, as the odds of catching one will progressively decrease… you know, just like in real life, with real animals. Why *should* there be an unlimited amount of shinies? Something with an unlimited supply is, by definition, not rare. Shinies as implemented now are annoying at best.

 

[porkiewpyne]

I am under the impression that PTCGLive will be the main focus. Perhaps they might push for the scene to move digitally.

 

[Foxi4]

I am under the impression that PTCGLive will be the main focus. Perhaps they might push for the scene to move digitally.

The TCG is by far the easiest to implement and could benefit from it. Pokémon card trading IRL is bigger than ever, logically it makes sense for the Pokémon company to cash in (and skim a little bit off the top) in the digital realm as well. Every Pokémon booster pack already comes with a code to add Pokémon to the digital version, making them unique tokens is the obvious next step.

 

[trillspector]

Digital ownership is a stand-in for a notary - nothing more, nothing less. A deed for a house is a thousand times more secure on the blockchain is a secure physical wallet than it is on a piece of paper that can be forged or stolen. Whether we like it or not, the proof of ownership of goods both digital and physical will eventually be digitised, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

So my house deed is forged on the blockchain, there is mine and some other parties both there. Or even more confusingly mine is solana and the other parties is on ethereum. Wouldn't this be sorted out in a court of law, exactly like with a forged deed? What's the benefit there?

How is making shinies more rare and more unique less fun? If you really want shinies to be a bottomless pit (which is counterintuitive and contrary to the entire point of a shiny) the game can simply revert to the bog standard shiny form once all unique ones are depleted. This is a non-issue to me - you can mint as many as you need, and periodically re-supply. If anything, it’s incentive for players to hunt for shinies while the pool is nice and big, as the odds of catching one will progressively decrease… you know, just like in real life, with real animals. Why *should* there be an unlimited amount of shinies? Something with an unlimited supply is, by definition, not rare. Shinies as implemented now are annoying at best.

I would much rather my shinies be slightly less scarce if it means every person has a chance to encounter one in their casual playthru, for people who aren't terminally online they might see one or two shinies in all their games and thats exciting and fun for them. That number rapidly approaches zero if you make it a degenerate gambling thing where its tied to real world markets. Like seriously when i caught my shiny zubat in leaf green as a kid i wasn't thinking "oh well its only a 1/8124 chance thats not that rare :/" i was geeked as hell. Thats also ignoring the fact that the last company that made "pokemon but blockchain" wound up with everyone exploiting labor in third world countries to get rare Axies, which I would call the definition of unfun

 

[Foxi4]

So my house deed is forged on the blockchain, there is mine and some other parties both there. Or even more confusingly mine is solana and the other parties is on ethereum. Wouldn't this be sorted out in a court of law, exactly like with a forged deed? What's the benefit there?

Only the elimination of several steps, and I’m not entirely sure how you’d even “forge something” on the blockchain if all deeds were digitised. You can’t have a duplicate asset on the blockchain - the pool of “houses” is limited by the actual number of houses. A random person can’t add more assets to a controlled pool, the existing assets can only change hands. Heck, buying a house would be simplified by leaps and bounds.

I would much rather my shinies be slightly less scarce if it means every person has a chance to encounter one in their casual playthru, for people who aren't terminally online they might see one or two shinies in all their games and thats exciting and fun for them. That number rapidly approaches zero if you make it a degenerate gambling thing where its tied to real world markets. Like seriously when i caught my shiny zubat in leaf green as a kid i wasn't thinking "oh well its only a 1/8124 chance thats not that rare :/" i was geeked as hell. Thats also ignoring the fact that the last company that made "pokemon but blockchain" wound up with everyone exploiting labor in third world countries, which I would call the definition of unfun

Boring. That’s a boring mindset. You can own a thousand prints of a painting, but there’s only one original painting, and that’s the only one anybody cares about. A truly unique shiny, along with a certificate of authenticity, and one that can be traded across any game, or in fact independently of the game, is orders of magnitude more interesting than a Pokémon with a slight tint to it that you’ve wasted tens of hours on. A box full of shinies is just a box full of shinies if everybody can have one. Just the trading aspect alone would be so much more interesting if every shiny was unique. Hey, maybe you caught a reddish Pikachu with a heart-shaped tail, and somebody else caught a blue-ish one with a lightning-shaped mark. You like his, he likes yours, you strike a deal and you trade. Now both of you are happy, and both of you know that out of the gajillion of Pikachus out there, you own one that is unique, and one that you got out of your way to acquire. Sounds like fun to me, a renewed impetus to participate in GTS.

 

[Xzi]

That's one way to circumvent child labor laws. Guess modern Pokemon games already felt like a job/chore to play anyway, might as well make it official.

 

[Rabbid4240]

IT IS SO FUCKING OVER BROS

 

[trillspector]

Only the elimination of several steps, and I’m not entirely sure how you’d even “forge something” on the blockchain if all deeds were digitised. You can’t have a duplicate asset on the blockchain - the pool of “houses” is limited by the actual number of houses. A random person can’t add more assets to a controlled pool, the existing assets can only change hands. Heck, buying a house would be simplified by leaps and bounds.

So what body is controlling the deed minting and what prevents them from doing it on a public append only database? Who determines what blockchain we are using. This code is law nonsense always falls apart because in the real world law is law and nothing else.

Boring. That’s a boring mindset. You can own a thousand prints of a painting, but there’s only one original painting, and that’s the only one anybody cares about. A truly unique shiny, along with a certificate of authenticity, and one that can be traded across any game, or in fact independently of the game, is orders of magnitude more interesting than a Pokémon with a slight tint to it that you’ve wasted tens of hours on. A box full of shinies is just a box full of shinies if everybody can have one. Just the trading aspect alone would be so much more interesting if every shiny was unique. Hey, maybe you caught a reddish Pikachu with a heart-shaped tail, and somebody else caught a blue-ish one with a lightning-shaped mark. You like his, he likes yours, you strike a deal and you trade. Now both of you are happy, and both of you know that out of the gajillion of Pikachus out there, you own one that is unique, and one that you got out of your way to acquire. Sounds like fun to me, a renewed impetus to participate in GTS.

It's boring to want games to be a game and not a science fiction hellscape of unregistered securities and underpaid workers farming digital assets in third party countries? Like to be clear to anyone else reading this, the majority of this post is pure speculative science fiction of the procedurally generated Pikachu's so I don't think any of that is worth addressing, like it could happen theoretically but will never happen in practice. When NFT bros go on about silly nonsense like "you'll get your fortnite skin in darksouls" or any of that they have zero understanding of database technology, game development or economics, and this is no different.

 

[Foxi4]

So what body is controlling the deed minting and what prevents them from doing it on a public append only database? Who determines what blockchain we are using. This code is law nonsense always falls apart because in the real world law is law and nothing else.

What body is controlling it now? You’re just asking silly questions at this point. I hope it won’t come as a surprise to you that governments worldwide are *very* interested in digitising currency - CBDC is actively discussed as we speak. That’s step one - other assets will follow suit, physical or digital. Most of our money’s already digital as it is - it’s a number on an account in an endless spiral of quantitive easing, we’re all using fiat currency, we just happen to also issue a physical representation of money that is in no way representative of actual money supply.

It's boring to want games to be a game and not a science fiction hellscape of unregistered securities and underpaid workers farming digital assets in third party countries?

Yes.

Like to be clear to anyone else reading this, the majority of this post is pure science fiction of the procedurally generated Pikachu's so I don't think any of that is worth addressing. When NFT bros go on about silly nonsense like "you'll get your fortnite skin in darksouls" or any of that they have zero understanding of database technology, game development or economics, and this is no different.

You were literally asking me about examples of how the blockchain could be utilised in a way we haven’t seen from the current server infrastructure and now you’re complaining that I made up an example. Seriously, decide what you want me to tell you. This is precisely why I said that I won’t be able to change your mind no matter what I say - you’ve made your mind up before we even started talking. There’s absolutely *nothing* wrong with *one* person owning a specific Pokémon, in the same way that there’s nothing wrong with one person owning one specific toothbrush. You don’t have to participate, you can get your own toothbrush.

 

[RunePhantom]

Boring. That’s a boring mindset. You can own a thousand prints of a painting, but there’s only one original painting, and that’s the only one anybody cares about. A truly unique shiny, along with a certificate of authenticity, and one that can be traded across any game, or in fact independently of the game, is orders of magnitude more interesting than a Pokémon with a slight tint to it that you’ve wasted tens of hours on. A box full of shinies is just a box full of shinies if everybody can have one. Just the trading aspect alone would be so much more interesting if every shiny was unique. Hey, maybe you caught a reddish Pikachu with a heart-shaped tail, and somebody else caught a blue-ish one with a lightning-shaped mark. You like his, he likes yours, you strike a deal and you trade. Now both of you are happy, and both of you know that out of the gajillion of Pikachus out there, you own one that is unique, and one that you got out of your way to acquire. Sounds like fun to me, a renewed impetus to participate in GTS.

I don't give a shit about the fake 'value' of anything I find in a game. As a pokemon player, I don't give a shit if my shiny pikachu is the same as someone else's, because at the end of the day my shiny is still mine despite being virtually identical. You yourself have already admitted that the implementation of this would be sloppy at best.

The blockchain guarantees authenticity which can be verified with relative ease. There absolutely are “fake NFT’s” out there, but that’s more a matter of copyright ownership than anything else. I can take any set of images and mint them into NFT’s, that doesn’t mean I owned those images in the first place. I can also just copy an existing NFT and “mint” that, but ultimately I’m just a copycat - anyone can verify the authenticity of the asset. It cannot be falsified, misappropriated or changed.

But how does it guarantee authenticity? Fake NFTs are still a problem. Someone took the entire discography GHOST DATA_ and turned it into an NFT, reaping value from someone else's work. If that can be done as easily as it seems, with millions being made from work that the owner of the Certificate didn't create then all the blockchain has done is become yet another way to exploit people.

I've got to be honest with you Foxi, all our conversation is doing is turning me further away from this tech in general. I'm sure it does have valid uses, but I've found myself agreeing with @trillspector, that this is a solution that's looking for problems, but there just aren't a lot of ways to safely implement this tech in general, let alone in the video games industry.

 

[Foxi4]

I don't give a shit about the fake 'value' of anything I find in a game. As a pokemon player, I don't give a shit if my shiny pikachu is the same as someone else's, because at the end of the day my shiny is still mine despite being virtually identical. You yourself have already admitted that the implementation of this would be sloppy at best.

It’s the same as every other shiny out there. There’s nothing unique or special that differentiates it from the pack. That could be changed, but likely won’t because that’d take work, and work is unfamiliar to the Pokémon company.

But how does it guarantee authenticity? Fake NFTs are still a problem. Someone took the entire discography GHOST DATA_ and turned it into an NFT, reaping value from someone else's work. If that can be done as easily as it seems, with millions being made from work that the owner of the Certificate didn't create then all the blockchain has done is become yet another way to exploit people.

I've got to be honest with you Foxi, all our conversation is doing is turning me further away from this tech in general. I'm sure it does have valid uses, but I've found myself agreeing with @trillspector, that this is a solution that's looking for problems, but there just aren't a lot of ways to safely implement this tech in general, let alone in the video games industry.

Read your example and figure out why it’s silly. You’re just a dude on the Internet and *you* know those NFT’s are not authentic. If you approached me at a convention stall and I offered you a convincing enough physical discography of just about anyone, you’d have no clue. Guess who’d be minting official Pokémon, making them (very easily) verifiable? This is a rhetorical question, you don’t have to answer. It’s almost as if this tech was literally invented to create unfalsifiable certificates of authenticity. The issue you’re touching upon here is that of copyright, which is wholly irrelevant to the conversation. I can mint Pokémon-themed NFT’s right now, but there’s only *one* (theoretical) official pool, and no force in heaven or earth can change or modify it in any way. Once they’re minted, they’re minted.