Community vs. Central Management

The great thing about Pokémon is that many people, including yours truly, really enjoy it in all its forms. That leads to the formation of many communities that are focused on making the current Pokémon situation a good one. At the same time, Pokémon is also an important property of three entities, so the brand has to be managed centrally somehow to preserve its importance. The issue of management between these two areas becomes an interesting one to discuss based on the twists and turns involved.

It is true that "community" management is pretty much considered unofficial management, but the results of that management may just aid or illustrate a possible direction for official central management. In my local TCG scene, for example, one person has gone out of the person's way to provide as much info as possible on what goes on with the TCG, so much so that the person is now effectively considered the brand ambassador by some. Meanwhile, for Pokémon Go, The Silph Road is unrivaled in the way that it manages aspects of Pokémon Go that even the game itself doesn't manage. Its systems (in particular its tournament system) also appear to be continuously improving. These are great things, of course, even if they remain unofficial; eventually they may have to be embraced.

As for the central amounting-to-official management, certainly it has to respond to happenings in the scene of the games. Continuing the mentioned game examples, one of the things that the person helped for players is the declaration and replacement of cards with "errata" on them, one of the things that plagued the launch of the localized cards; the fact that these cards are being taken care of shows great responsibility and management. Over on the Pokémon Go side, an example is for Community Day, in particular the recent one: while everyone else enjoyed the festivities, Japan didn't, for a typhoon swept its way on the same day, and the festivities there were called off. I'd say that's good management too, although just recently that management seemed to have erred a bit - more details soon.

With Pokémon being so big today, many things can and do happen. There has to be some kind of management to respond to those things. Fortunately, many of those in the communities seem up to the task of making sure that does happen, while the central management does its thing to continue serving Pokémon goodness to everyone. That being considered, both are necessary to check and balance each other regarding the things that have been put forth. In that way, we all really can enjoy everything Pokémon.

One year ago: Cosplay: Akatsuki no Matsuri
Two years ago: Never Stop Exploring