NFTs. Blockchain. The other way around. It happened other game companies, and it could also happen with a Nintendo property – in fact, it just could. Last week, The Pokémon Company posted a job on LinkedIn that requires experience with NFT, blockchain and the metaverse. When it comes to Pokémon, I wanted to catch them all. But not this way.
The list spends a lot of words describing the vague duties of a “business development director” who paid six figures to earn an advanced business degree. But if you read the candidate’s requirements, you’ll see what this is really all about: NFTs. The head of business development must have “deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, including blockchain technologies and NFT, and/or metaverse.” The ideal candidate is “deeply connected to a network of investors and entrepreneurs in the above technology sectors (Web3 and metaverse).”
Meh. I wouldn’t worry about this if this was a minor gig at some experimental engineering department that’s going out of business in a year. But this role has the direct ear of the executive leadership team and works just two levels below the president. TPC isn’t just looking for a clown. It’s hiring a clown teacher to turn the company into a circus. Kotaku contacted TPC to inquire whether or not this job is reflective of the company’s future priorities, but received no response at time of publication.
Perhaps we should have foreseen this long ago. Neopets, a pet collecting franchise, had been experimenting with crypto collectibles last year. Axie Infinity was a pokemon clone where financial bros exploited low-paid workers farming resources. Logan Paul’s fans have lost thousands of dollars on cryptozoo, a game where players hatch NFT eggs and trade exotic digital animals. Even within the Pokémon community itself, players have been buying and selling Shiny Pokémon through eBay for years. Other people saw the NFT potential of collectible pokemon before TPC did. So perhaps it was inevitable that the executives came up with the idea of creating one of their own. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a crazy idea. Associating the child-friendly IP with an ecosystem full of fraud and scams would cause significant damage pokemon‘s public image. Did I mention that the NFT community that TPC is trying to take to court is filled scammers And hackers?
I don’t want to buy the image of an ugly Charizard to play a Pokémon game, and neither do most Pokémon fans. Hopefully TPC realizes that before they lose at a lot of money on metaverse nonsense.