Just a few months after knocking down a knock-off NFT game, The Pokemon Company is looking for an NFT expert to help drive its future business strategy and lead partnerships with external developers.
The Pokemon Company is looking to hire a business development principal, according to a job listing (opens in a new tab) highlighted by Pory on Twitter (opens in a new tab). This role will join the President and Corporate Development Office, the division that advises on the company’s long-term business strategy. Specifically, this Corporate Development Manager will be responsible for initiatives to brainstorm new types of “Pokemon experiences” outside of the traditional Game Freak RPGs.
Many of the requested qualifications are what you would expect from a corporate job listing, including requirements for a decade of experience and “self-starter” initiative. However, the listing has a few more specific requests, requiring someone with “deep knowledge and understanding of Web3, including blockchain technologies and NFTs, and/or metaverse,” and who is “deeply connected to a network of investors and entrepreneurs” ” in Web3 and the metaverse space It also notes that the successful applicant will “identify, analyze, monitor and build relationships with external co-development partners with unique technology to support the implementation of new ideas.”
The executives of The Pokémon Company are apparently interested in collaborating with outside developers on blockchain-based games, or at least exploring the possibility, either ignoring or unaware of the intense backlash against NFTs from players. In December 2022, the company itself gave a legal smackdown to a knock-off Pokemon NFT game, saying at the time that “The Pokemon Company and Nintendo had made a conscious decision not to release any Pokemon NFTs.” But times may be changing.
While companies like Ubisoft have abandoned the NFT gold rush after the abject failure of experiments like Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s Digits, some Japanese-led game companies in particular seem to be deepening their investments in a technology and business model that everyone outside of Silicon Valley and Wall Street looks to hate. Konami wants NFTs, Square Enix (still) wants NFTs, and now it looks like The Pokémon Company will be on the blockchain too.
We have seen best pokemon gamesand now it’s time to prepare for the worst to descend into an even darker hole.
