The Pokemon Company International has made a new job listing on their Linkedin for a ‘Corporate Development Principal’ and one of the listed skill requirements is that the candidate is knowledgeable about NFTs and blockchain.
In the post, they describe the central duties of the Corporate Development Principal as advising The Pokemon Company President and executive leadership team on long-term strategic development as well as maintaining synergy between the companies’ affiliates including The Pokemon Company Japan, Gamefreak, Creatures Inc, and others.
In the “What You’ll Bring” section of the job listing is a bullet point asking for the candidate to have “Deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, including blockchain technologies and NFT, and/or metaverse” as well as “Deeply connected to a network of investors and entrepreneurs in the technology sectors above (Web3 and metaverse)”.
While the above points may seem concerning, The Pokemon Company has not actually confirmed that they are going to develop NFTs. Only two out of the thirteen bullet points on required skills actually mention the subject of blockchain with other skills including general corporate development experience and a deep interest in the Pokemon brand. It does however imply that the company is looking into the technology to some extent.
We should also note that in 2022 The Pokemon Company International attempted to sue an unlicensed Australian studio for launching a Pokemon NFT game. In the court documents for the lawsuit, they stated that “TPCi, The Pokemon Company, and Nintendo had made a deliberate decision not to launch any Pokémon NFTs”.
At this point, we cannot confirm what The Pokemon Company’s position on NFTs is. This is my opinion, but considering the majority of crypto gaming projects have failed, and the market for NFTs has crashed, we can only hope that whoever takes up this new role will advise The Pokemon Company to wisely stay clear of Web3 altogether.