Petition for In-game Chinese Support in Pokémon Video Games

August 2014

Dear Mr. Tsunekazu Ishihara, Mr. Junichi Masuda, and staff from Nintendo, Creatures Inc., Game Freak and The Pokémon Company,

Konnichiwa!

Thank you all for introducing us to the wondrous world of Pokémon, and creating infinite encounters and smiles around our world. Today in Washington, D.C., I have another miraculous encounter at the 2014 Pokémon World Championships, which I believe will make my dream come true.

On the other side of this planet, countless enthusiastic Pokémon fans from the Greater China region are watching this tournament online via Twitch. While most of us cannot come here, we share one long-cherished dream that we want you to know -- adding in-game Chinese support in Pokémon video games.

Pokémon is a highly recognized franchise in the Greater China region. The anime and manga gained remarkable popularity here since late 1990s, fostering a fanbase even larger than Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda series. While Pokémon video games haven’t officially been released at mainland China, hundreds of thousands fans still spare no effort to buy Nintendo consoles and Pokémon games overseas. We follow the development of this franchise moment by moment, and we share the same excitement whenever major Pokémon news breaks out. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, all the Pokémon official events are popular among the fans. Just in the past few days, fans in Taiwan had been rushing to purchase the pre-sale tickets of Pokémon Movie 17 to get their Darkrai and Diancie. However, we all believe that what the franchise has achieved in the Greater China region is far away from its potential capacity. We continuously introduce Pokémon games to our companions to have more fun battling, trading and collecting together, but there is an obvious barrier to bring more players in -- there is no in-game Chinese support. Many potential consumers of Pokémon games in the Greater China region cannot read foreign languages. Even for the senior fans like us, playing Pokémon games in our native language and having deeper understanding to the beautiful Pokémon universe is our biggest dream all the time. As time goes by, we desire to introduce Pokémon games to more Youngsters, and Baton Pass our passion and love for Pokémon generation to generation.

We understand the fact that there were difficulties in localizing the Pokémon video games into Chinese over the years. However, as time goes by, most obstacles melt away and it is the ideal opportunity for developing the full potential of the Greater China region.

Piracy Threats. Thanks to the rapid economic development at mainland China, most consumers now can afford the price of genuine copies of Pokémon games. Meanwhile, the consensus of selecting genuine copies is getting stronger among the people. Actually, just in the past July, the government agency reemphasized it would strength copyright protection for video games. It is obvious that the industry ecology has substantially improved at mainland China. On the other hand, due to Nintendo’s effective Anti-Piracy measures on its 3DS consoles, so far there is no widespread piracy threat. The genuine copies of Pokémon games have already become the dominant choice among the current fans. They will also be the top choice for the potential consumers who would be attracted to the Pokémon games with In-game Chinese support.

Policy Restrictions. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, the policies and sales channels have been well established for the video game sale. As you must have noticed, mainland China also loosens the restrictions on video games recently. Both Microsoft and Sony are entering the mainland China through partnerships with local vendors, and you can also consider a direct sales channel supported by the powerful e-commerce platforms in China. Even if the games won’t be officially released in mainland China shortly, the planned Chinese support can still enhance the franchise’s existence in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and draw potential consumers who root for the Chinese support into purchasing the games. This Move will boost the games’ gross sale and Nintendo’s financial performance. When the opportunity arises and the timing is right, the inroads in the Greater China region made by Nintendo earlier will lead to high market Return for the franchise; but as we all know, it’s important to firstly build and nurture its Friendship with fans in the Greater China region, and we believe adding in-game Chinese-support is the most effective measure.

Translation Costs. Since the anime and the manga have been introduced in the Greater China region for more than a decade, fans are already familiar with the official Chinese names of Pokémon, moves, locations and other in-game terminologies. It might be a technology difficulty to update the existing Pokémon games with in-game Chinese support, but we sincerely hope that in the future Pokémon games, Chinese could be the eighth in-game language option. As Chinese is the native language spoken by most people in the world, adding in-game Chinese support will take the franchise’s worldwide success to new heights.

This is a very brief overview of our thoughts on the major issues. We are still collecting information to support our petition, and will be continuously publishing all the campaign activities and industry analyses on a Chinese-language Pokémon fansite http://www.52poke.com. You can click the set-top box to visit our petition website and look through all the artworks and voices made by fans in the Greater China region for this petition. If you have any insights for the possibility of adding in-game Chinese support in the Pokémon video games, please feel free to contact us via sylvia1jay@yahoo.co.jp, i@mudkip.me, and byg@qq.com. We will make our best effort to wholeheartedly assist in localizing the Pokémon video games.

Pokémon is a miracle in our lives. We Pokémon fans worldwide share our adventures, discoveries and dreams together. We catch, raise, battle and trade our Pokémon with love. I believe we would create an even better world together, when the language spoken by one fifth of this world’s population comes into the games. We dream one day, we can bring our children to a Pokémon World Championships hosted at our homeland. We are full of appreciation and anticipation.

With Regards,

Pokémon fans from the Greater China region