Pixelmon had managed to avoid The Pokemon Company’s typically overbearing legal arm by creating all of its own assets within its own community. Every single Pikachu, Charizard, and PokeCenter was hand-crafted by a player of Pixelmon since The Pokemon Company would be quick to smite any mod that uses official Pokemon assets. The mod is also freely available, because profiting off another’s intellectual property is also a legal no-no for mods. All things considered, Pixelmon is about as optimal a fan-made project as a mod can get.
However, companies don’t like it when fan projects compete with their own. Up until now, Pixelmon has offered a 3D Pokemon experience that The Pokemon Company hasn’t targeted on its own, as it has preferred to focus on 2D handheld games and 3D spin-offs like Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Colosseum. While speculative, it’s likely that things have changed with the announcement of a main franchise Pokemon game for the Nintendo Switch.
Pixelmon’s developers have responded to The Pokemon Company’s shut down request with poise, as has its community. Pixelmon creator MrMasochism posted the news and an apology earlier today, part of which is as follows:
MrMasochism goes on to encourage his community to go out and find other great projects to support, as he is clearly indebted and grateful to his team and to players for what they’ve each put in Pixelmon and its community. The replies to his post are filled with appreciative fans thanking the Pixelmon developers for all their hard work, as well as memories of their favorite Pixelmon experiences. There’s certainly some anger and frustration as well, but in a rare occurrence, the positivity seems to be winning out.
Pixelmon development has ended in Minecraft, effective immediately, and all official downloads of the mod have been pulled. Fans have created a petition requesting The Pokemon Company allow Pixelmon development to continue, in the interim.
Source: Pixelmon
