The morality of profiting off of Pokemon

[Gridelin]

I recently got into this discussion with someone on discord and it made me wonder what the community-at-large feels about this.

We started talking about the morality of selling Pokemon services on websites like reddit, twitch, ebay etc... This was mainly about selling pokemon genning/cloning services, but the discussion expanded into profiting off things like giving away pokemon on Twitch (much in the way that AuSLove does), reselling free Gamestop event codes, and even scalping Pokemon Plushes/Amiibos.

Without putting any of my input into the discussion I would like to know what you all think of this. Do you think it is morally right to sell things like PokeGenning services on somewhere like reddit/ebay (with full disclosure the pokemon are hacked/cloned), or to resell free serial codes, or to profit off of a twitch stream dedicated to 'giving away' pokemon?

I would love to know what you all think, thank you!

[wrathsoffire76]

I personally feel like it's never right. I payed for the game, why do I have to pay more.

[jojo12100]

I think it's a really good question.

Do paying for genning Pokemon especially with the audience of the franchise is something disgusting and revolting.

While distrib (if Pokemon are 100% legal) can be a good thing.

Some Pokemon are definitively too rare, not counting shinies.

Another disgusting pratice is official paying event like the LGPE Mew one.

 

Because yeah at first the real problem is Nintendo/GF politics about event pokemon.

[Gridelin]

13 minutes ago, wrathsoffire76 said:

I personally feel like it's never right. I payed for the game, why do I have to pay more.

What about paying for an extremely rare event pokemon or something of that nature?

[theSLAYER]

On 6/13/2018 at 4:26 AM, jojo12100 said:

Another disgusting pratice is official paying event like the LGPE Mew one.

I feel as though disgusting is too strong a word to use here.

Plus, people can choose to not buy it and simply transfer a Mew from Pokemon Go, which is effectively free and everyone can obtain it in P-Go without hacking

Anyhow, they've always sold special promotional packages for even less, like stupid Items -.-
At least the Ball dongle is actually usable.

-------

Now talking about the entire "selling/profiting off" category; It's unavoidable.

Whenever you (in this case GF and TPCi) restrict/limit something to make it rare, people will end up trading something else in order to obtain it.
Be it cards, in-game Pokemon, or money.

I think trades on forums/subreddits between codes and Pokemon makes sense, money and events not desirable but tolerable.
If we think of it as any other scenario (not Pokemon), if there's something rare you want, and see it on eBay,
they'll probably just buy it. It's not something abnormal or out of place.

Paid genning services gets on my nerves, tho.
Granted, I understand that some people don't have access to genning, and frankly not too many people are keen to reply constant requests to gen stuff for free,
so if you're going to spend your time helping others, a small fee isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does feel a bit scummy.
I'm glad that paid for gen practice isn't a thing allowed here.

[Gridelin]

10 minutes ago, jojo12100 said:

I think it's a really good question.

Do paying for genning Pokemon especially with the audience of the franchise is something disgusting and revolting.

While distrib (if Pokemon are 100% legal) can be a good thing.

Some Pokemon are definitively too rare, not counting shinies.

Another disgusting pratice is official paying event like the LGPE Mew one.

 

Because yeah at first the real problem is Nintendo/GF politics about event pokemon.

I think you bring up a good point about how the main market of a lot of these things is children, and that the morality of that is a question in and of itself.

[theSLAYER]

2 minutes ago, Gridelin said:

I think you bring up a good point about how the main market of a lot of these things is children, and that the morality of that is a question in and of itself.

If so, might as well question the purpose of selling games and movies to children that have arguably no educational worth? lol.

People buy stuff cause they like it.

[InsaneNutter]

I'm neutral, selling genned / cloned Pokemon is not something i'd personally ever do. However the people who are selling stuff are offering a service, if people are willing to pay for that service then that's their choice. All the information is out there for someone to do it themselves, anyone paying is paying for someone else's time because they don't want to lean how to do it themselves.

Personally I don't believe in genning Pokemon, I think that spoils the game. Especially as GTS / Wondertrades are full of hacked / genned Pokemon, if your doing that you should be respectful of other players and keep it offline or to private trades. Don't do it in public or use these Pokemon in public battles.

If your playing offline I believe your free to play the game how you enjoy it the most. Some people might be against injecting / sharing / preserving event Pokemon. Personally i'm all for that, so it's really what you find acceptable when playing the game. People enjoy the games for different reasons.

 

Edited June 12, 2018 by InsaneNutter

[Gridelin]

2 minutes ago, theSLAYER said:

I feel as though disgusting is too strong a word to use here.

Plus, people can choose to not buy it and simply transfer a Mew from Pokemon Go, which is effectively free and everyone can obtain it in P-Go without hacking

Anyhow, they've always sold special promotional packages for even less, like stupid Items -.-
At least the Ball dongle is actually usable.

-------

Now talking about the entire "selling/profiting off" category; It's unavoidable.

Whenever you (in this case GF and TPCi) restrict/limit something to make it rare, people will end up trading something else in order to obtain it.
Be it cards, in-game Pokemon, or money.

I think trades on forums/subreddits between codes and Pokemon makes sense, money and events not desirable but tolerable.
If we think of it as any other scenario (not Pokemon), if there's something rare you want, and see it on eBay,
they'll probably just buy it. It's not something abnormal or out of place.

Paid genning services gets on my nerves, tho.
Granted, I understand that some people don't have access to genning, and frankly not too many people are keen to reply constant requests to gen stuff for free,
so if you're going to spend your time helping others, a small fee isn't necessary a bad thing, but it does feel a bit scummy.
I'm glad that paid for gen practice isn't a thing allowed here.

4 minutes ago, InsaneNutter said:

I'm neutral, selling genned / cloned Pokemon is not something i'd personally ever do. However the people who are selling stuff are offering a service, if people are willing to pay for that service then that's their choice. All the information is out there for someone to do it themselves, anyone paying is paying for someone else's time because they don't want to lean how to do it themselves.

I have a similar mindset to this as far as genning goes. I see the small fee as more of a "You are paying $0.50 per pokemon so that you don't have to hack your 3DS and learn how to use all of these tools yourself" kind of thing. And you are completely right about when you make things rare/limited quantity people will be willing to pay for them, its just supply and demand. 

2 minutes ago, theSLAYER said:

If so, might as well question the purpose of selling games to children that have arguably no educational worth? lol.

People buy stuff cause they like it.

That's true, I was more getting at things like twitch streams targeted at getting kids to donate to get rare pokemon and little children begging their parents for the credit card to buy "all of the shiny pokemon" on ebay type of thing.

 

[jojo12100]

9 minutes ago, theSLAYER said:

People buy stuff cause they like it.

Not only: by mimicry most of the time, to get an advantage (hello Mew) or because they were forced to.

 

I'll repeat myself but the real problem is GF/Nintendo politics. I really don't understand their hipocrisy even during Pokemon Worlds!!!

[theSLAYER]

2 minutes ago, jojo12100 said:

Not only: by mimicry most of the time, to get an advantage (hello Mew) or because they were forced to.

that is true. but I don't see how that is a problem.

Plus anyhow, Mew was announced after they announced the product.
So people who already decided to get the product, gets the Mew as a bonus.

People who don't want to buy it but want the Mew, can just trade for it.

How is that such a bad thing?

5 minutes ago, jojo12100 said:

I'll repeat myself but the real problem is GF/Nintendo politics. I really don't understand their hipocrisy even during Pokemon Worlds!!! 

what's the problem with this, I'm curious? :3 (I feel like I'm missing certain backstory here)

[jojo12100]

1 minute ago, theSLAYER said:

what's the problem with this, I'm curious? :3 (I feel like I'm missing certain backstory here)

The Junior Champion won thanks to the Event Bounce Magikarp last year (distributed for Singapour New Year at very limited quantity), the high number of hacked Pokemon used during it, the fact they restrict accesses to the event and other stuffs like that.

How fair is that?

[theSLAYER]

Just now, jojo12100 said:

The Junior Champion won thanks to the Event Bounce Magikarp last year (distributed for Singapour New Year at very limited quantity), the high number of hacked Pokemon used during it, the fact they restrict accesses to the event and other stuffs like that.

How fair is that?

The Event Bounce Magikarp was distributed across Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan as well (not just Singapore), and the codes could be used on every device besides Korean,
so technically anyone could have traded for the code. (I have to note, the redemption period itself was indeed VERY tight, which indeed is ridiculous)
Furthermore, using it was within the rules (it was, right?) so I don't see that being a problem.

Granted, it could be an oversight that they didn't block it, since not everyone has access to it,
but then again, I'm pretty sure playing with a Magikarp is pretty risky business, so that evens it out?
Additionally, players should always pay attention to the ball and ball animation.
Along that line, there aren't that many event Magikarp in Gen 7.

Having poorly implemented hack checks and blocking Legal event Pokemon, that is unfair to players.

[jojo12100]

2 minutes ago, theSLAYER said:

Granted, it could be an oversight that they didn't block it, since not everyone has access to it,
but then again, I'm pretty sure playing with a Magikarp is pretty risky business, so that evens it out?
Additionally, players should always pay attention to the ball and ball animation.
Along that line, there aren't that many event Magikarp in Gen 7.

Gyarados Z-Bounce was really strong in VGC 2017.

[theSLAYER]

6 minutes ago, jojo12100 said:

Gyarados Z-Bounce was really strong in VGC 2017.

Yeah, I figured the problem was Z-Bounce.

While it feels like an unfair strategy, since it's not something easily accessible,
I feel like it dangerously toes the line cause it's not completely inaccessible to the rest of the world.

If you were aware and had contacts, you would have gotten one.
VGC players have to always stay up to date with the news and changing landscape of the games, if they want to win.
It's their responsibility to make sure their strategy works, not anyone elses.

Do know I'm not completely disagreeing with you. I agree to an extent that it feels like it broke unhealthily shifted the balance in some way.
Enforcing event bans would probably be a nightmare for them tho. They can't even enforce getting the correct events in right ><