English Name Awards

Alternate title: "Internet Throhs Party As Nintendo Lawyers Fail To Put A Sawk In It"

Before we get onto name theory, there's something I forgot for my Gray requests, so we'll call it #8:
All elemental stones available for purchase in a shop during the game.
This is pretty much the only thing Red/Blue got right - having the element stones available during the game is a Pokedex completionist's dream, and there was a tease for it in Black City at grossly inflated prices. Maybe put them in the 5th badge city next to the guy who sells the bitter medicines.

As more and more of the English names get confirmed by outlets such as Nintendo Power and IGN, it's becoming more obvious that the image I linked in the last post is the nearly-full list of localized Pokemon names. The only thing we don't have is the event legends, and those will probably be found by March 8 and not released until next year anyway.

And lemme tell ya, there are some real winners in this bunch.

My requests for Gray

First off, my brother-from-another-mother/heterosexual life partner Ryan has actually started blogging. Check him out here and let's all hope he updates more than I do. Everything about the bus is true, by the way.

Someone asked recently if a mid-tier Pokemon in the tier listing (specifically, Solosis/Yuniran) is worth using. I should clarify: Just because something was "Mid" in the tier list doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, and if I was adding Upper-Mid and Lower-Mid to the listing Yuniran would've been the former. Especially since it can do things Sigilyph/Shinbora can't (like use Electric moves and Psycho Shock before the endgame). And I might have to re-evaluate that list since it turns out Rankurusu/Reuniclus is going through a Smogon suspect process right now. We all know what that means.

Having taken a few weeks off to grind Dragon Quests before VI comes out (BUY IT, YOU FOOLS!), I've begun to consider the inevitable 3rd version, which will undoubtedly be called Pokemon Gray and feature Kyurem as its version mascot. But that wouldn't justify me spending $35 on the remake.

But these things would.

Where's Sakurai?

After some sober second thoughts, I stand by what I said about the leaks. If by some fluke they are real, I'll definitely mea culpa publicly, but I don't suspect that will be a problem.

The Spanish guy with the apparent leaked copy of B/W has spent the last couple of days "leaking" the new Pokedex order, which I won't link because he doesn't deserve the hits. But there's a couple of things that I want to know about the project:

1) How come anyone even remotely connected to Black and White hasn't signed an NDA that makes the Platinum guide look tiny?
2) Why don't they have the equivalent of a Smash Bros Dojo for the Pokemon series?

I suspect the answer to #1 is "they are, but someone is willing to break". So if I was in charge of the marketing, such as say, a community manager, I'd first remind everyone of the NDA and get them to sign off again. That should theoretically stop the leaks, especially if they're threatened by loss of face or (more likely) their job.

If not, and the leaks continue, it's time for a false flag operation.

I'd mock up a screenshot showing something that would cause the entire community to collectively cream - for the sake of example, a mock screenshot of Charizard with the types showing Fire/Dragon instead of Fire/Flying. After narrowing down who might be leaking, I'd provide them with the shot and give it 24 hours. If the shot comes out on 2ch, they're fired for violating the NDA. All you need is one horror story and the rest of the company will fall in line.

And yes, I have personal experience on this. I worked for a technology company that I'd prefer not to mention and was put in a Gray Powell position for several months. I never saw a leak, but that's probably because they threatened to sue us out of existence if we didn't stay in line.

So now that we've shot the leaker out of a metaphorical cannon, we need an official source for news. And the answer actually played out really well for Nintendo a couple of years ago in the form of the Smash Brothers Dojo.

The audience who would follow leaks would be the ones who would refresh the site every night at Japan Time, waiting for the things that were CONFIRMED FOR BRAWL~! and cursing the name of Masahiro Sakurai whenever something wasn't up to their standards. Hell, that's why the US Brawl site got so much heat when they included the phrase "Real men use items" in a random screenshot - Smashboards just about lost their minds.

The main thing is that it keeps the game in the news not just on your fansites, but you'll get a boatload of people submitting the updates to sites like Joystiq or Nintendo World Report, which means it'll get published if only to shut people up. That means more free marketing for you. And considering Nintendo went to the trouble of buying a 40 in Famitsu, a little free marketing is always worth it.