I don't quite understand why IP is such a big concern all of the sudden. Of all the Disney, anime, Cartoon Network, and even other Pokemon keycaps to come before this, why are we only having this discussion now, in this thread?
Because the hobby has gotten bigger and new people have been introduced to it? And those people (*raises hand*) care about these things.
I'll also say that I wasn't around for Gengar or Koffing, but the folks here are going beyond the characters' names and are advertising them as Pokemon and using official Pokemon logos. Did Gengar or Koffing artisans do that?
Look, I was one of the people that originally asked about the license given that of all the companies you mention, Nintendo is probably the most litigious. And the artisan folks gave an honest answer ("we've reached out, not haven't heard back"). I, for myself, was going to forgo these, as cool as they are, because that's the right choice for me. I wasn't going to say anything other than my original ask about the license - if other people are ok with that, who am I to judge? Then the makers had the security issue with their website. I still didn't say anything because it didn't affect me.
But then someone chirped up asking why people were nervous all of a sudden so I felt it was appropriate to point out a) the makers didn't have a license b) this is the company's first GB and c) they had security issues. Any one of these is sufficient for me to be at least a little skeptical. Given that there are three red flags here, I spoke up to point that out. That's all.
I hope the GB goes well, nobody gets sued, everybody gets and loves their keycaps. Really, I do. But I think artisansin general need to be concerned about infringing IP as the hobby gets bigger and attracts more attention/scrutiny.
