During a recent interview with 4Gamer, art director on the Pokémon series Ken Sugimori has explained why DLC has never been included in the Pokémon series. Sugimori said that when it comes to the business side, selling Pokémon for real world money has always been a no go.
“That is something that has been said since the days [Satoshi] Tajiri was completely involved in everything,” he said.
“The reason we don’t simply commercialize [Pokémon], is that it’s a way of protecting the brand, and for this purpose, we have the specialty company called The Pokémon Company.”
“Therefore, suppose we sell a Pokémon for 100 yen, then we must prepare something that is worthy of that 100 yen, along with a reasonable consent for doing so.”
Whilst there may not be any intention to sell Pokémon, legendary and special Pokémon are still given away regularly in events, some of which are paid to enter. These paid to enter events don’t contradict with the values of the series.
“It’s not that we only want to distribute [Pokémon], but we want to give our customers a taste of a ‘new experience’. Whatever we do, we make sure it fits the worldview, and make sure it remains consistent. Those are some of the parts we place a great amount of importance into.”
The most recent event Pokémon is the Wi-Fi distributed Torchic which holds Blazikenite and has the ability Speed Boost for Pokémon X and Y.
What are your thoughts on Ken Sugimori’s decisions for the series? Do you respect him for not wanting to sell Pokémon as DLC? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.