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Cease and desist
The Pokémon Company has taken an Australian crypto company to court over the unauthorised use of characters from the Pokémon franchise in an NFT game.
As reported by Vooks, an Australian company called ‘Pokémon Pty Ltd’ (also known as Kotiota Studios) had set up a website advertising an upcoming NFT title called PokéWorld. In addition, Pokémon Pty Ltd had claimed to have worked on official Pokémon titles such as Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Pokémon HOME, and Pokémon Sleep, however The Pokémon Company has clarified that the company is not a contractor for it.
The game itself essentially allows you to choose a starting Pokémon from a sparse list including Pikachu, Charmander, and Eevee. You can then participate in battles to earn recources and “$POKESHARD” currency to assist in the creature’s care. in-game items like clothing, poisons, amulets, and food are minted as NFTs for players to trade on the marketplace. Sounds like an absolute nightmare, if you ask us.
Here’s some more “official” info:
“PokeWorld is a metaverse P2E game filled with fascinating Pokemon that players can collect as pets. Enjoy raising your Pokemon by feeding and evolving them, or watch them take on others in exciting battles! This metaverse has a player-owned economy where players can truly own, buy, sell, and trade in-game resources earned through skilled gameplay and ecosystem contributions.
“Getting started in the game requires researching all available Pokemon to choose the one that you feel the closest to. Remember, it will become your beloved pet that needs care! If you don’t care for its needs, you will doom it to unhappiness, just like a real pet. With your fates now closely intertwined, it is up to you to seek out your Pokemon, bond with it, train, and eventually fulfill your mutual destinies. You’ll only reach the top together, so protect and enrich your Pokemon’s life. The path ahead may be challenging, but you can count on it to be fulfilling!”
Naturally, none of this sat particularly well with The Pokémon Company, who was allegedly tipped off when Pokémon Pty Ltd had the audacity to approach media outlets in an effort to drum up support. The first court hearing occurred on December 21st, 2022 with representatives for The Pokémon Company in attendance, however no one from Pokémon Pty Ltd turned up. Says a lot really, doesn’t it?
Nevertheless, Pokémon Pty Ltd has effectively been barred from using officially licensed Pokémon characters from the media franchise, releasing Pokémon-branded NFTs, and for misrepresenting its relationship with The Pokémon Company.
What do you make of this news? Are you in any way surprised? Let us know with a comment!
[source classic.austlii.edu.au, via vooks.net]
About Ollie Reynolds
Nintendo Life’s resident horror fanatic, when he’s not knee-deep in Resident Evil and Silent Hill lore, Ollie likes to dive into a good horror book while nursing a lovely cup of tea. He also enjoys long walks and listens to everything from Motorhead to BB King.
Comments (42)
Good, destroy all NFT and crypto thieves!
Hopefully it doesn’t give Game Freak an idea though….
I nearly had a heart attack reading that headline since I initially thought it read ‘Pokemon Starts Crypto Company with NFTs’ and quite frankly I don’t think I would’ve been able to handle a blow to my childhood that severe.
I saw this particular NFT be advertised all across sites like Twitter and my immediate first thought was ‘how the hell did they get away with this?’. Glad to see TPCI taking action against stuff like this though (the less NFTs that exist, the better).
Very mixed feelings for those who dislike TPC
Jokes aside, good. Give me an Indeedee or Dedene over an Eneftee or Ayeye PiPi anyday
@martynstuff Yes, I’m aware Clefairys JP name is PiPi
NFT should be annihilated.
Take this!
This time around, I wouldn’t mind if the Nintendo ninja’s strike extra hard.
@martynstuff They didn’t say the magic words of claiming they’re just big fans of Pokemon. That this is TPC just hating the fans.
Because that tends to be the goto excuse for IP theft.
I can’t believe how blatantly this NFT-company was trying brake ALL the trademark rules! They got balls, gotta give them that. Very legally expensive Pokéballs.
I remember a time not so long ago when a few users on here would be defending NFTs as the future. Wonder where they are now. Probably too busy holding the bag to leave comments.
Still can‘t figure out why anyone would consider buying NFTs. Glorified jpegs that are nothing more than a free wallpaper back in 2006. I can‘t imagine anyone picking out an old USB stick from 20 years ago and telling their kids: "Hey, let‘s look at some old NFTs I bought!" – "Yeah dad, p*ss off, I got my VR-suit ready for me."
Did they seriously think Nintendo and TPC were just going to be cool with this?
Imagine thinking you wouldn’t go bankrupt from this stunt.
Readers having an existential crisis because they don’t know whether to bash NFTs or the Pokemon Company
@Fazermint Why not both?
And all of this not even somewhere deep in China where foreign IP lawsuits may still seem comparatively dismissable, but… in Australia? How long did they even expect to go on?
YOU DESERVE IT
five claps
YOU DESERVE IT
@Dr_Lugae I cannot lol at this comment enough. I’m wheezing!!!
Though I’m sure even an NFT based "fan game" may still get people’s pitchforks out.
@martynstuff To be precise Clefairy is called ピッピ Pippi in Japanese, consonant length matters in that language unlike in English.
Anyway yeah, not surprised The Pokémon Company took this to court and I’d say it’s a good thing in every possible way.
@Wexter We kind of had that with Axie Infinity, which crashed and burned hilariously, as do all things NFT. I do have to wonder when people will stop trying to make NFTs a thing, given the massive track record of failure they have.
NFT Brós Gotta Grift Em All
Its just neo pets but with battling and NFTs
These people must have had no idea about Nintendo’s/ TPC’s track record with IP protection, they probably went for PKM thinking it’d be low-level enough for nobody to bother.
This shows the amateurishness of the NFT industry.
Either they’re just plain dumb, or they’re a full pack of stupid in thinking they’d get sympathy & support from the community like the fan projects who deliberately get in the line of legal fire. Even the most ardent of Nintendo law critics probably won’t go to bat for the NFT grift.
Trying to decide if their currency is poke-shard or pokes hard.
Either is appropriate, I suppose.
Destroy them.
Ha! That’ll make them think twice before doing something like that.
@NielsNL That’s not who they sent out. They sent out TPC Greninjas. 
NFT madness aside, what were they thinking doing… Any of this?! This is as mind-bogglingly stupid as Rocket continuing to sell Cooking Mama: Cookstar after being explicitly told to stop. They called their company Pokémon Pty Ltd and their "game" PokeWorld?! What the actual heck made them think they could get away with this?
“The Pokémon Company Takes Crypto Company To Court”
Oh boy, who are they bullying again?
“Over NFT Game”
Never mind. This is a W
https://youtu.be/pPd67CEL54E
I know who to call
NFT has to end, for better or for worse!
I can’t believe these "NFT bros" would try to soil Pokémon like this! Good job on the Pokémon Company for taking them to court! I hope the NFT gang LOSES ò_ó
If that speculation about the Gen X games being set in pseudo-Australia is true, they might have some inspiration for the enemy team now.
Well it was nice knowing them for second but if you’re a start-up company why would you even use copyright materials let alone support NFTs?
The one time where people are hoping that Nintendo and TPC goes through with legal action and it’s against nfts. Guess that just goes to show how much people hate NFTS.
(Though I guess people wouldn’t mind if they sue a company for making a blatant rip off of Pokémon. Like just ripping off the designs of the Pokémon and by blatant I mean not even bothering to change the designs of the mon’s)
Gyarados, use Hyper Beam!
@Duffman92
Because you own your unique NFT and it directs you to the Picture/Skin/etc… until the Servers are down, than you have your NFT without anything.
Can’t comprehend it how People fall for it.
This isn’t even the most blatant one. That one goes to “Animoon”, an NFT project that basically had creatures that were literal recolors of Gen 1 Pokémon like Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Pikachu, but with random spikes added. It drummed up artificial scarcity by having the first fifteen of its NFT mint be “Legendaries” that would have guaranteed a passive income of $2,500 per month for life. (This was changed from $2,500 to royalties of proceeds from the game they were making, as if the notoriously litigious Nintendo and TPC would have even allowed such a thing.) It was also shilled by the Logan brothers, Jake and Paul.
The “best” part of it was that it falsely claimed it had a “signed NDA” (whatever that means) with The Pokémon Company, and its disclaimer mentioned Niantic, TPC, and Nintendo, but not Game Freak or Creatures, Inc. It was so obvious it was a scam, and unsurprisingly, it rug-pulled soon after launch.
So what was the gameplan here? Run off with investor money? Hope the legal battle won’t eat all their profit? I can’t imagine why they would waste the time doing this. Well I guess TPC lawyers need a bird case every now and then.
@Ryu_Niiyama Presumably the plan is to grift as much as they can while the grifting is good, then hide the money in some dodgy crypto hole while their company inevitibly gets sued out of existence.
So I probably shouldn’t create NFTingle currency?
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