Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are no strangers to shutting down fan made games that use their IP. In this case, The Pokémon Company has asked popular Minecraft mod Pixelmon to shut down according to a forum post from the Pixelmon forums.
In a post titled “It’s Been A Gréat Ride,” Pixelmon administrator MrMasochism writes that the Pixelmon team decided to shut down Pixelmon after The Pokémon Company asked them to (probably in a cease and desist letter, since The Pokémon Company is no stranger to using that).
“It’s Been a Gréat Ride
With much sadness, but keeping all our fond memories, we must announce that Pixelmon is ending its development. We have had a great time making this mod and creating such a wonderful community but after a request from the Pokémon company we will be shutting our doors. I’m sorry for the disappointment this will cause but let’s remember all the great times we had playing Pixelmon, discussing Pokémon, making awesome things inside this mod and everything else that we’ve done.
All good things come to an end eventually and now is our time. However there are always more things to do, to be a part of and to enjoy. Keep going out there to find fun projects to be a part of and other great things to invest your time and enthusiasm into.
Farewell,
The Pixelmon Team”
Players on the forum are sad to see the game go, and while some people were expecting The Pokémon Company to shut down the game, others were angered since this mod was considered a parody of the game and not an actual remake of the game itself.
Two fan made Pokémon games that had been previously shut down are Pokémon Uranium and Pokémon Prism, which were both directly involved with using The Pokémon Company’s IP to create their games (one game used Pokémon Gold as a base to create their game). But, this is one of the first times that a Pokémon mod built for another game has been shut down.
In another forum post, when a user asked what exactly will happen to Pixelmon, Pixelmon supporter SKy2008 said that any further development of Pixelmon has permanently stopped and Pixelmon will stop distribution within the next few weeks (players won’t be able to download the mod any more).
They continue saying that while technically, players would still be able to download the mod before it gets removed and play it in single player mode, but the multiplayer servers of Pixelmon can no longer run. Pixelmon plans to uphold these servers until Mojang asks them to shut down (the servers no longer comply with the Minecraft End User Agreement because The Pokémon Company asked Pixelmon to shut down).
What sucks most about this shut down is that Pixelmon had an incredibly dedicated team filled with administrators, moderators, animators, artists, translators, and even a composer and voice actor who wanted to be involved with the mod. You can learn more about the Pixelmon team here.
Isi, an administrator for Pixelmon, speculates that the reason why the mod was shut down now was because a Pokémon game is being developed for the Nintendo Switch, according to Kotaku. Also, the current version has anywhere from 50,000 to 450,000 downloads, which helps to prove the sheer popularity of this Minecraft mod.
Unfortunately, Isi has also told Kotaku that most of the Pixelmon team will be leaving Minecraft permanently following the shut down of Pixelmon. I was hoping to see more awesome mods from the Pixelmon team, but I understand why they would want to leave Minecraft after this devastating blow.
Featured image via the Pixelmon official forum.