Why It Makes Sense for Pokémon to Use NFTs
Pokémon and blockchain technology is a natural evolution.
Pokémon Means Innovation
I grew up in the 90s, so Pokémon played a big role during my childhood. I remember playing Pokémon Red several times on my Game Boy — Charmander was my starter every time. Since then, I’ve been impressed by how innovative, and creative the Pokémon world was and continues to be.
I was a very quiet kid, but I liked spending most of my recess time trading Pokémon cards, collecting stickers to complete my album, and exchanging pokémon with my classmates using the link cable. I had all sorts of Pokémon merch, toys and created short fanmade comics and unexisting pokémon that somehow made their way into these stories.
Some days ago, Pokémon became 25 years old. I also saw this article that positions Pokémon as the highest-grossing media franchise of all time — above Hello Kitty and Winnie the Pooh. In a recent video posted to celebrate the 25th anniversary, the company displayed a series of merch and toys across their two and a half decades, including figurines, plush toys, and trading cards.
Even so, the video below assembles a history of innovations The Pokémon Company has offered: step counters, devices that transition from the real to the virtual worlds, AR (augmented reality) through Pokémon Go, among many others. It suddenly struck me. The games have embraced innovations all-round with impossible to imagine technologies such as the pokéballs and a pokédex. But the company didn’t just leave things to imagination — they have been innovating in the real world and leveraging the newest technologies available. So, is it time for Pokémon to use NFTs and blockchain technology?
What Are NFTs?
Blockchain explained
Before talking about NFTs, it makes sense to talk about what blockchain is. Blockchain is one of the technologies in industry 4.0 and is transforming the way we interact, work, and trust each other. A blockchain is a distributed ledger that registers transactions. Once a transaction is registered, it can’t be altered by anyone else. This means that, once we agreed on something, it is set in stone — unless we create a new registry to reverse such a transaction. A blockchain enhances trust among users because we’re certain no one will change anything without my consent.
Blockchain was initially introduced by the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the first use case of blockchain technology. Similar to other currencies, it represents a way of value exchange. For instance, someone can make a transfer to another person by requesting it to the network in the form of a “block” of data. This block must be verified by a network of computer users known as “nodes” that will validate if the transaction can be made — i.e., that the first person has enough funds and that the second one can receive the value. Once the transaction is approved, it is executed and added to the blockchain chronologically. The name “blockchain” comes from this chronological chain of blocks that grows in size with every new transaction.
In fact, blockchain is nothing new to the gaming industry. In this blog post I wrote, you can find some great examples of blockchain applied to gaming. For instance, Microsoft XBox reduced payment processing costs for creators by encoding their IP rights and improving royalties distribution. Ubisoft and Ultra are developing a platform to enable users to earn digital currency and trade digitally bought games. However, one of the most popular use cases is Cryptokitties. Cryptokitties lets you collect and breed digital cats as NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Each NFT has distinctive “cattributes,” and when breeding cats with different features, the kitty would be rare and more exclusive.
Digital assets and NFTs
Now, what does this have to do with Pokémon? Understanding the basics of blockchain can help us think about new ways to implement this technology. If we can register data in a chain and we’re 100% sure that no one will delete this record, doesn’t it make sense to use this power to register value that is not only represented as currency?
What am I trying to say? First things first. We live in a digital world. Every day, we log in to social media, check our email, talk to friends through our smartphone, and the pandemic has even translated our daily job to a virtual office where we communicate through a screen with our coworkers. The digital world feels alive and exciting!
Same as the real world, there are “assets” or goods in the virtual world. What kind of assets? For example, images, audio content, documents, videos, or any other kind of digital file created and existing in a digital storage. These are known as “digital assets.” Cryptokitties are digital assets in the form of NFTs. Recently, an artist sold a digital art piece as an NFT for US$69M. But, what exactly are NFTs?
So, what would happen if we register digital assets into a blockchain? One term that has been the talk of the town recently is NFTs or non-fungible tokens. NFTs are unique, rare, and indivisible cryptographic tokens representing collectibles, digital artwork, tickets to an event, in-game items, etc registered in a blockchain. Cryptokitties is a game that allows a user to own and breed digital cats. If you’ve played Pokémon games, you probably know where this is going…
NFTs — Gotta catch ’em all!
Now that we know what NFTs are, it’s easy to imagine all the possibilities that Pokémon has to leverage blockchain technology. Let’s make a count of some goods related to the franchise that you can actually own: trading cards (some are valued at thousands of USD!), toys, or the physical version of video games.
It requires a little bit more imagination to think of ways to own Pokémon-related digital goods. But NFTs might help bridge the gap between imagination and reality. If you’re familiar with Pokémon Go, a mobile phone game that uses AR (augmented reality), you probably have captured some kind of digital asset. In the Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! Nintendo Switch series, a player can transfer a pokémon caught from Pokémon Go and use them in the Switch games.
Moreover, Pokémon Home, a mobile or Switch app, lets a player transfer their pokémon to a cloud-based storage platform. It’s easy to think of this storage platform as a wallet of some sort — referring to cryptocurrency wallets that store crypto for users. If you transfer a pokémon from Pokémon Go to Pokémon Home, you can then transfer it to a Pokémon Sword or Pokémon Shield Switch game. You’re transferring a digital asset from one platform to another!
Going back to NFTs, these represent unique assets with unique attributes (again, such as Cryptokitties). When I catch a Magikarp, it is unique. It has its own attributes. I know exactly where I caught it, at what time, and the level it currently is. Probably, it only has the Splash move, and once it evolves to Gyarados, it has been by my side during my gameplay and has learned new moves such as Hyper Beam.
Trading pokémon has been here for years. As I said, I used a link cable decades ago to trade pokémon from one Game Boy to another. We know that trading pokémon is nothing new, so what do NFTs and blockchain have to offer? Let’s say Pokémon Home goes offline someday. All the pokémon I had stored in the cloud service might be gone. However, if I stored my pokémon on a blockchain, these digital assets will live forever in a decentralized network. This means that all the nodes or computers that have the records of my pokémon must remain offline at the same time for me to lose my pokémon, and that is very unlikely.
Also, blockchain technology may represent for The Pokémon Company an opportunity to cut some costs related to centralized databases. A blockchain may enable more efficient transactions, and distributed networks can help prevent cybersecurity breaches. On that note, blockchain may be the next big move for The Pokémon Company besides their new open-world game Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
Through NFTs, I could say that I own that shiny Charizard or that very rare Mew. In fact, since I own those pokémon, I could do whatever I want with them. I can print merch and t-shirts using this unique pokémon and show them off to the world. Also, thinking forward, I could participate safely in an in-game economy in the Pokémon world where I could sell my rare pokémon for real money. Think of this how the Pokémon cards increase the price over time. Will we see this phenomenon in the future but with digital pokémon? Also, would The Pokémon Company start selling pokémon as NFTs instead of just making their users catch them every time?
In the Pokémon world, trainers catch their pokémon and store them in pokéballs where they rest and live waiting for the next battle. Then, you can manage your caught pokémon using a next-gen computer where they are stored in some sort of cloud-based system and you can transfer them to Professor Oak in a matter of seconds. Wouldn’t NFTs be the safe bet to translate this unique feeling into the real world? NFTs are pokémon and my collection of NFTs equals this in-game storage system. The possibilities are endless and the tech is ready for evolution!
Last Words
NFTs and blockchain technology are opening new opportunities for innovators. Pokémon is a franchise that has embraced innovation and developed new technologies — both in-game and in the outer world — to captivate millions of fans across their 25 years of existence. The essence of Pokémon is to capture and train rare creatures and play with them on incredible adventures. Now, it’s time for Pokémon to let their fans own their digital creatures and continue blurring the line between fiction and reality.
