The Pokemon Company launched a new community forum for Pokemon fans on Monday, and it was quickly taken over by trolls and shitposters. Evidently there wasn’t much moderation going on at first, because the list of hot topics quickly filled up with posts about forklifts, 9/11, Tsareena’s feet, and of course, lots and lots of posts about having sex with Pokemon. I’m not above that sort of thing, but there’s a time and place for it. If you to see horny weirdos talk about PILFs (Pokemon I’d Like To… you get it) then TheGamer’s got you covered. I’m not saying “which Pokemon would keep their sanity the longest while trapped in a sensory deprivation chamber” isn’t a valid question (it’s obviously Snorlax) but I can see why Pokemon doesn’t want those kinds of conversations on its official forums.
Luckily, common sense kicked in and by Monday night the place was cleaned up. If you look at it today, it’s just a normal message board where people can go to have normal conversations about Pokemon, and only about Pokemon. The chaos is over and things have gotten a lot more boring, but it’s for the best. Instead of “Which gym leader’s farts smell the best?”, people are talking about their favorite duck Pokemon, predicting which deck will win the Pokemon World Championships, and complaining about Pokemon TCG Live.
A lot of the conversations happening on the general Pokemon boards are pretty banal, as you might expect, but digging deeper into the more niche categories reveals how useful these message boards can be. There’s an entire section dedicated to Pokemon Unite, where players can discuss strategies, flag bugs, provide feedback, and vent their frustrations. There’s also a page for news and announcements where all of the patch notes are cataloged, which is useful because those haven’t always been easy to find. This is the first time Unite players have had a way that they can communicate through official channels, other than spamming replies to Pokemon Unite’s Twitter account, and if used correctly it could do a lot to bolster the community and help solve the communication issue that had always loomed over the game. As a scorned Unite player, this feels like a great opportunity for players.
I’m also interested to see what kind of use the Play! Pokemon channel gets, which so far has had no activity. Creating a space for players to talk about the organized play program that’s completely disconnected from the game itself could lead to some interesting discussions and insights about how The Pokemon Company operates, and how players would like to see it improve. I hope that the forums aren’t just a place for fans to talk to each other, but also a place where Pokemon can talk directly to the players about the specific concerns and ideas that they have.
The other channels are for the TCG, TCG Live, video games, mobile games, and anime. I’m surprised that Pokemon Go doesn’t have its own channel, but maybe TPC saw the way people talk about that game on Reddit and decided not to encourage them to bring that energy here. I hope as new Pokemon games launch the forum will be quick to create a new channel for them, because it’s a great way to build a community and give players a voice - even if they sometimes use that voice to talk about Tsareena’s feet.