The large-scale technology company Tencent wants to hire an ultimate Pokémon fan for its online game a hefty serving of fan disappointment.
Tencent has also come under attack for its illicit data practices. It has even come under the scrutiny of President Donald Trump for its ownership of the online chat service WeChat. This is Tencent's first time working on a game for the Pokémon series. The company has worked on various mobile games in the past, the most notable of which being PUBG Mobile. Pokémon Unite was revealed in its very own Pokémon Presents event, which led to high expectations from fans and, consequently, plenty of frustration.
Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at Niko Partners, tweeted images from Tencent that the company wants to hire a Pokémon consultant, or in more colloquial , a super fan. The job's qualifications require worthy applicants to have cleared all Pokémon games with more than 900 hours of total playtime, watched more than 500 episodes of the anime, have a master ball competitive ranking in Pokémon, and to know the history of Pokémon. Tencent has recently removed the job listing.
Although it's nice to see that Tencent wants to hire someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of Pokémon, this tells fans several things. This indicates that there are many people working on the game who know little about the franchise but that Tencent wants to ensure the game will please fans of the series by hiring the ultimate fan. Even though there was initial outrage upon the announcement of Pokémon Unite, this will could potentially be a big success considering the sheer ubiquity of Pokémon GO.
However, it's impossible to tell whether this game will match the success of Pokémon GO. The latter was a game that fans were genuinely excited for, whereas Pokémon Unite has disappointed plenty of fans before it's even released. Little has been shown about the game, but hopefully, matters will improve if they have the world's ultimate Pokémon fan on their team. But even if the game itself turns out to be interesting, fans should still be wary of Tencent's concerning data practices. As a massive corporation, Tencent has a lot of power, and being accused of illegal data acquisition is a serious situation. With that aside, there's still much to learn about Pokémon Unite.
Source: Daniel Ahmad - Twitter
