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The Pokemon Company International has filed a lawsuit against an Australian company called “Pokemon Pty Ltd”, which has been advertising a Pokemon NFT game called “Pokeworld”.
According to an Australian court document (via Vooks), the game was planned for release in 2023, however, as of the 21st of December, the Federal Court of Australia has ruled to block the game from being launched and that the company may not sell any NFTs using the Pokemon License.
Pokemon Pty Ltd has been operating under the name Kotiota Studios. The website for the Pokeworld NFT game claims that the title is being made in collaboration between The Pokemon Company and Kotiota. They also claimed that they had previously worked on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and the currently unreleased Pokemon Sleep. With news of a lawsuit, this is clearly not the case.
The Pokemon Company and Nintendo are no strangers to taking third-party companies to court over unlicensed use of their IPs however I doubt this decision will be anywhere near as divisive as prior incidents. The Pokemon Company have also reiterated that they have no intention of making NFTs of any of their Pocket Monsters:
“TPCi, The Pokémon Company, and Nintendo had made a deliberate decision not to launch any Pokémon NFTs”.
According to the court document, no representative of Pokemon Pty Ltd was present at the first court hearing on Wednesday, December 21st, 2022.
The Pokeworld website is currently still running (no we’re not linking to it) however all materials will likely be taken down soon in adherence to the court order.
