The Pokémon TCG came under fire this last week as fans noticed that a new card seems to be based on traced fan art that was stolen by the company and replicated. The company released a statement that made things worse, as they called it a “production error” rather than directly apologizing.
Over the last few years, the Pokémon Trading Card Game has become one of the most popular games in the world. It’s being stocked in vending machines across America, and hobby shops can’t keep new sets in stock. Usually, TCGs die or dwindle after years, but this one keeps going strong, bucking all the trends.
A new set is dropping, and fans noticed that a card of Ho-Oh EX seemed to have been traced from fan-art material rather than making original art. The same was the case with Lugia EX. Since fan-art is non-copyrightable, and it’s inherently owned by the parent company that owns the rights, there are no legal ramifications to this, but most people do view there being a moral problem with taking someone’s art and tracing it for a professional product.
Fans outcried about this, which caused the official Pokémon account to make a response on the matter.
They posted:
Notice Regarding New Illustrations
Thank you for your continued support and passion for Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket.
We want to share an important update regarding the upcoming expansion, Wisdom of Sea and Sky. It has come to our attention that there was a production issue regarding the illustration of Ho-Oh featured in the immersive card artwork for Ho-Oh EX (3-Star) and Lugia EX (3-Star).
After internal review, we discovered that the card production team provided incorrect reference materials as official documents to the illustrator commissioned to create these cards. As a result, both cards have been replaced with a temporary placeholder that the team is actively working to replace with new artwork as soon as it's ready.
We are also conducting a broader investigation to ensure no similar issues exist elsewhere in the game.
To all our players who have been looking forward to this expansion, and to the talented illustrators who bring the Pokémon world to life, we deeply apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. We take this matter very seriously and are committed to strengthening our quality control processes to prevent this from happening again.
Thank you for your understanding, patience, and continued support of Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket. We remain dedicated to delivering an experience that you can enjoy.
This caused more fan outcry in the comments as they didn’t take responsibility for it and simply apologize, but instead called the situation “incorrect reference materials” in their apology. They claim they’re committed to preventing it from happening again, but it’s clear that their process controls are not robust when it comes to producing so much art for a game.
That said, the company immediately moved and changed the art on the card for their latest digital expansion:
What do you think of the Pokémon Trading Card Game tracing fan art? Leave a comment and let us know.
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Why do they pay for art? There is a massive fan base. Host a fan art site. "We may use any all or none of the art posted on cards. Atribution only."
People act as of Pokemon isn’t the most low effort franchise ever that never bucks trends, always plays it safe, are litigious and will begrudgingly improve when things finally start slowing down. I absolutely hate the Pokemon Company and the fans deserve the slop they pump out