The Pokemon Company International has published a new job listing which has raised some eyebrows in the community.

The official job listing can be found here, and is for the position of “Corporate Development Principal”, which involves managing the company’s corporate strategy, company relations, as well as development and innovation. Although the contents of the listing are fairly standard, one part of it stands out: one of the requirements is “deep knowledge” of Web3, NFTs, and the metaverse.

What you’ll bring

• …
• Deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, including blockchain technologies and NFT, and/or metaverse.
• Deeply connected to a network of investors and entrepreneurs in the technology sectors above (Web3 and metaverse)
• …

The listing seems to suggest that the Pokemon Company has some interest in exploring the NFT and metaverse space with the Pokemon brand. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that they seem like a natural fit for the brand. Many aspects such as the collection of in-game Pokemon and physical trading cards already bear some similarity to NFTs as a concept, and an online metaverse-esque Pokemon game is an idea often tossed around amongst fans.

That said, this potential interest has naturally led to some discourse within the Pokemon community. Although NFTs still enjoy a degree of popularity among hardcore adherents, they have a poor reputation in the gaming space due to their negative impact on the environment and perception that they lead to a drop in quality in favor of chasing short-term profit. The latter is also something the Pokemon company is actively being criticized for following the buggy launch of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet.

That said, others have pointed out that this listing doesn’t necessarily confirm that a Pokemon NFT project is on the way. Given the prominence of Web3 in the tech space and the high level nature of the position, it would inevitably require familiarity with the concepts, if only to explain to investors why they are not moving into NFTs. It is also worth pointing out that the Pokemon Company tried to sue a crypto company for using their brand in the past.

Regardless, the Pokemon Company has yet to make any official announcement for any NFTs or metaverse projects at the time of this writing. Stay tuned for more information as it comes.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.