While the gaming community as a whole sees these games as a way to pay homage to these massive franchises, the owners of these franchises may have a different point of view on the matter.
Such is the case with YouTuber and aspiring game developer Dragon_GameDev2, who has begun development on a first-person shooter based on the Pokémon franchise.
While the term “Pokémon Snap” may come to mind when thinking of first-person Pokémon games, Dragon GameDev2’s take on the concept had players firing at Pokémon with assault rifles and guns.
Despite the fact that Dragon_GameDev2 had been working on this project for well over a month, The Pokémon Company began removing any videos of it from the internet, beginning with copyright claims on Dragon GameDev2’s Twitter and YouTube pages.
The only video of this project that is still available is the one posted by Dragon_GameDev2 on the r/unrealgaming sub-Reddit in the first place. Even at that point, many people predicted that Nintendo and The Pokémon Company would discontinue this particular game’s existence.
It is unclear whether the use of Pokémon game assets by Dragon_GameDev2 or the fact that the developer put a violent spin on a children’s video game prompted the Pokémon franchise’s owners to take legal action.
A cautionary tale for any aspiring amateur game developer who wants to create their own projects based on any Nintendo franchise, this is unquestionably true. Previous attempts, such as Pokémon Uranium or AM2R, are examples of fan-made projects that have been removed from the internet.
In contrast to Dragon_GameDev2’s Pokémon FPS, however, those games were actually released for a period of time before being taken down, whereas the Pokémon FPS is not even playable by members of the general public at this time.
In any case, by this point, most people are well aware of the dangers of messing with Nintendo and their associated franchises. Fortunately, companies such as Sega and Capcom have a much more positive attitude toward fan-made projects, with games such as Street Fighter X MegaMan and Sonic Mania serving as excellent examples.
The future of Dragon_GameDev2’s Pokémon first-person shooter is currently unknown, and it is also unclear whether the game’s Pokémon elements will be replaced with something less specific.
