On the Mining of Data

All the Pokémon games, especially many of the recent ones, hold a lot of data. Within that collection of data, there stands to be much information to be gained. Enterprising people will likely try to find ways to get into the data and gain the information from them. This process has a name: it's called datamining. It is something that happens with many games containing much data, and it also happens with some Pokémon games.

The Pokémon games that often receive this treatment are the main series games, as the primary source of just about everything related to Pokémon, as well as Pokémon Go, as the most popular mobile installment. Both games are the most feature-packed of any Pokémon game, and consequently they contain a major amount of data that may be of interest to anyone who plays the Pokémon games. It would make sense that they would be targeted for the datamining process, since there would be a great deal of information to be uncovered from them.

On one hand, datamining would reveal a good amount of information that would be rarely seen, such as the Shiny forms of certain Pokémon. In the main series, one would have to be incredibly lucky to encounter some of these forms (in comparison to Pokémon Go, though one has to be sufficiently lucky regardless here as well), and some even exist but are intentionally locked for a variety of reasons; datamining would be useful in this regard. On the other hand, there would be a lot of sensitive information (read: spoilers) that would be uncovered by datamining, or in the case of Pokémon Go, details on features that are already preloaded but not yet released or "live". This could be undesirable for those who haven't played the games or who may not want to know how things work before they are officially released; for Pokémon Go, there is also the possibility that some things may be pulled and never be released, which may be useful yet disappointing in some ways.

That leads to the issue of legality. Since datamining goes deep into a game - even into the parts that can be considered "trade secrets" - it can be considered rather transgressive. By virtue of this, there would be some that frown on the practice, even for non-Pokémon games; some sites even expressly forbid disclosure of information obtained through this practice. Apart from this, there is a small value of utility that can be gained from datamining, so long as information is disclosed appropriately, as in at the right time and for the right purpose. The issue is rather dicey, so I don't want to touch on it too much. But there are obviously considerations for and against the process.

Today's games are packed with more data than ever before, and hiding among the data is a wealth of information waiting to be discovered. As such, it would invite certain people to undertake datamining for that discovery. This too applies for Pokémon games and especially due to their popularity. It is a process that is as legally doubtful as it is quite useful, yet it's something that some are willing to do for a little (or a lot of) inside information about the games they play.

One year ago: Mementos of...

Two years ago: Cosplay Events, Wherefore Art Thou?

Three years ago: Connection Issues?