Noticias de Pokémon

The true story on English Names Revelation

March 15th, 2007

In the same way Serebii didn’t comply with the terms of our little agreement on no attacking myself or my site anymore, I will therefore defend myself. I haven’t said anything until now because I was not willing to fight about this, but people on Serebiiforums and other places have just unnerved me. First of all, if you want to read the logs, read them, and remember, Serebii posted these logs without my consent, which could be considered as an unlawful practice. I’m still not ashamed of what I told him, and so I give them to you. Read them, and you will partly know what the game is all about.

Everything started last Friday. I already knew all the Pokémon names by then, by an independent source than Serebii’s (that is to say, he didn’t copy me at all, nor did I). As Serebii, I didn’t want to make use of such an information because I did not have permission from my source. But, as Serebii, I want to be given credit when I reveal some information I got as an exclusive. The fact is that my site is a little one, it’s in Spanish, and factually nobody would dare to give me credit at all. All what Serebii had to do is check my site back every hour and update his site with new Pokémon names, and so I could make no use of such an information even as I had it published before. As I don’t consider myself inferior to the self-called Head Honcho of Pokémon, I wanted to compete against him. But I knew that was just not possible. He is one of the most well-known Pokémon webmasters on the Internet, whereas I wasn’t known at all in the English Community.

Did I have to shut my mouth up and to give up competing with him knowing it was just not fair to have the same information but no opportunity to make use of it? The answer is no. As far as I know, I have the same rights as he has to be considered as a source when I post something new on my site. But, as it is easy to understand, other webmasters actually visited Serebii more often than my site (if they even visited it), so the one who would be given credit for the new names was Serebii, even though I had them published before.

This leads me to why I tried to reach an agreement. I knew what Serebii was doing. I knew Serebii had contacts inside Nintendo of America, and was given all the names with the condition not to publish them until Nintendo wanted. Yes, this means Nintendo actually prefers Serebii over other English speaking sites, fair or not, that’s real. I wouldn’t blame Serebii but Nintendo for playing with us like we were puppets. How did I know it? Webmaster Nil from Pokémon Safari told me, perhaps breaking the trust deposited by Serebii on him, but I will talk about this later on.

But I knew more things of him, and the way he would behavior in this situation was one of them. I knew he could just not abandon the chance to maintain his leading position in the revelation of names, and that’s what I gave him. As I kept telling him during the entire conversation, I just considered it a game, and it didn’t have to do with me competing against him, but with his psyche.

All I had to do was telling him I would reveal all the Pokémon names if he didn’t somehow link my site up on his news. This way I would attain to his plans, to Nintendo’s plans, and he would keep everything back in order. This agreement was actually suitable for him, since I had the power to destroy his exclusive by publishing the names, or, as things would have gone if he had broken the agreement later, to give the entire list simultaneously to any webmaster in the World who would trust me. I’m no good enemy to face up, but what I hate most is betrayal. And, of course, it was suitable for me, not for hits that would disappear within some weeks, as has been suggested, but for credit, as I explained above. As a counterpart, and to make people think my site was not the unique source, I placed a link back to Serebii on my updates.

But, still, Serebii had a chance to choose. This was no blackmail because he could have rejected to accept the agreement and to risk me having the news first. If he thinks he would go into so much trouble with Nintendo if he revealed the names, why did he still reveal them even though some other sources had done so? Why didn’t he let me publish all the names and get alone into trouble with Nintendo? Because he wanted to keep the exclusive. So, this agrement was freely accepted by him, and the only reason is because he could perfectly have rejected.

The cost of this was having to put a link back to my Spanish little website, something completely normal in the No-Serebii World normal people live in, but unacceptable by someone who is known in the Internet to have a bigger ego than Mount Everest. Yes, this is so unfair, somebody daring to actually face his ego, and to claim for his rights even against him.

The best part of this all is to be said now, and I’m coming back to the psyche game: I would have never published the entire list on my own because I didn’t have permission to do so, and because I consider that friends are more important to some stupid Pokémon website. All I told Serebii was that I could publish them, making him go nervous, and putting him in a bad position which only allowed him two ways: To accept the agreement and go back to normal reveals, or not to accept the agreement and, from his own perspective, risk to go into trouble if he, completely freely, decided to post all the names after me. In short terms, I did never even consider to publish the entire list on my own, but considered that Serebii would think so, and therefore accept the agreement.

Events didn’t go on as they should. Many envious people started to claim the entire list inmediately, even though Serebii’s reason not to publish the list was well founded, and the same as mine’s. There was even an user on Serebiiforums posting up all the names and having fun for it, and who was inmediately discovered by an efficient Habunake.

Serebii’s attitude wasn’t pleasant at all, nor did I wait that from him. He wanted to deceive me by telling me he could not wait for me to publish the names each day, and therefore publishing the names when I was not online, so I could only have the update some hours later. This may not sound logical, as I still had the ghost power I exhibited when making him the proposal, but, to be true, I did not want to take that much advantage from Serebii’s weak position, and wanted to be fair: I already had what I wanted.

This last Wednesday everything changed. Not only could people on BMG confirm 4 more names from ShinySquirrel’s guesses on Serebiiforums, but Nil and Serebii joined up to avoid the latter having to comply with the agreement. This way, Nil was given two names, either by Serebii or another source, and he did told Serebii he had published them. Of course, as Nil allowed me to publish two more names without breaking the agreement, I published them, along with the ones Serebii had already published.

This allowed Nil to become more in the nuclear centre of all this mess. He would now supposedly have all the names, so he could now have the same power we both Serebii and I had. Nil had been in bad ways with me since all this started on Friday, either because he was envious, deceived at me for not counting on him on my plans, or convinced by Serebii’s libels. But, as I said, there’s nothing bigger for me than friendship, and I wanted to become friends with him again.

It seems I was way too naïve. Instead of a real friendship confirmation, he used my faith on him to approach to me and gather information of what I knew on GameFaqs issues, so he could tell Serebii without Serebii having to tell me. I still thought it was normal that he was talking to Serebii at the same time we were talking. But his post as Kento on Serebiiforums some hours later confirmed me the betrayal (same thread linked above). If he had been a friend of mine, he would have considered not to post there, even if he thought I was wrong. Friends are there to support you, even if you seem to fail them.

What I expect from friends is knowing they are with me, and that they are not going to betray me. I don’t ask them to be perfect, and this is the reason I accepted Nil becoming in bad ways with me after Friday events. I knew him, and kept telling him to chat in a more relaxed way rather than so aggressive on Poke&Play’s blog. This is the reason I accepted him behaving as a little kid when he had to fire half of his Administration board some months ago, even though they are friends of mine as well. Nobody is perfect, so he could be wrong, or right, who cares. I cannot continue to trust on him for obvious reasons, he has luck to maintain such a great community, and such a great website.

Finally, I want to confirm it wasn’t I the one who leaked the information. I’m in fact no little 10-year old playing to shout out names, so it should have been stupid from me to reveal the entire list, and therefore losing my convenient agreement and perhaps getting into trouble with Nintendo and my source. Anyway, if I had done it, why wouldn’t I have revealed them directly on my site and instead risk that people would give that GameFaqs guy all the credit? To end up with this confusion, I allow CJayC from GameFaqs and Archaic from BMG to compare my IP direction on BMG (user: Melkor) with that of the user who posted the entire list on his own (here), and to tell the result of the comparison to Serebii and Nintendo (not the IP).

I wasn’t even first to Serebii in publishing the entire Pokémon names list. As I wanted to be fair, I waited Serebii for an hour to publish the update, even after knowing some more forums had already echoed that list. He instead acted as if he was obtaining Nintendo’s permission. I still kept checking his site every 30 seconds, cause I’m no retarded. So, in the end, my update was published 30 seconds later than Serebii’s, so Nintendo cannot blame me at all. Even Pokémon Safari’s list was revealed some seconds earlier, those may have been his 30 silver coins.

The only single thing it makes all the story not worth it is me losing what I considered a friend, and what my supposed friend considered a mere medium. I don’t care about what he thinks about me right now, I just feel to have been used as a medium.

Oh, and perhaps I should beg you pardon for not telling you the names before, but now you know my reasons you may understand them. I coincide it wasn’t fair for the Pokémon Community, but I could really do nothing. Some others claim to defend Community’s interests while betraying them, I at least can recognize it and try to justify it.

But, on the other hand, I got the recognition I wanted, and obtained it in a fair way, however libels would Serebii tell you. In fact, some of you will hate me, go on if you want, that won’t make you wiser. But for the rest of you, I’ve become some more known. And I managed to get Serebii down to where he should always been stayed: Down to Earth.

PD: Serebii, you can quit the link to my site from your site. I’m bored of this. I’m not doing this for you, but for me: I’ve lost too much time with all this chitchat going on. Game Over.