As the video game industry has proven time and time again, if you don’t evolve, you risk getting left behind. It doesn’t matter if you’re a developer or a publisher, all it takes is one wrong move, and you could be sent into the history books instead of being the ones making history. To that end, it’s fair for developers and publishers to take risks to see what “new ideas or trends” might be worth diving into. However, when it comes to things like NFTs and the Metaverse, many people are already turned off by them. This is why The Pokemon Company hiring someone to help them with that is troubling.
The news comes from a job listing for one of their corporate offices. Specifically, it’s the office of the President. It’s the job of that office to look into how to expand the company in meaningful ways and worth with investors to achieve great results.
In the new job listing, they specifically ask for someone with “deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, including blockchain technologies and NFT, and/or metaverse”.
They further ask for someone who has connections with people within that sector of the tech world. Finally, just as troubling, the listing notes that a good candidate would be creative enough to help connect the company’s assets to these potential ventures.
If you can’t tell, all this is rather vague wording over what may or may not be done here. But in the eyes of fans, this will be an immediate red flag. We’ll explain why. The reason is that NFTs and the Metaverse can be described as “fads,” with one of those fads already being in the gutter.
NFTs were the “hot new thing” for some time, mainly because people kept buying and selling them to get enormous amounts of cash. It also helped that numerous celebrities did things like NFTs, and people wanted to get involved or make their own. Eventually, the bubble burst and NFTs are rarely discussed outside of scathing remarks.
Some game companies try to make something work with NFTs, but fans aren’t on board. As for the Metaverse, that could work, but only in theory. Moreover, to make it worthwhile, you’d need millions of people with VR headsets willing to spend plenty of time within that space, which isn’t feasible right now, given low VR sales.
No matter how you slice it, The Pokemon Company must be careful with what they do next in this field, or it could backfire on them.
