The Video Games
A lot of events were held in Pokemon Platinum over the years, but perhaps the most obscure one of all time offered a reward for just 20 Japanese players – in the form of an otherwise unused (but wholly underwhelming) feature.
As documented by YouTube creator Etchy (below), the event in question took place in Platinum’s Wi-Fi Plaza – the now defunct online feature which allowed you to join a room with other players, participate in minigames, and level up “tap toys,” which were activated using the touch screen and produced different sound and visual effects. The devs at Game Freak seemingly had more ideas in mind for the Wi-Fi Plaza that weren’t widely implemented, however, including “VIP” players.
Being granted VIP status would mean a few things for players. For one, when others interacted with them in the Wi-Fi Plaza, they’d see a special golden trainer card instead of the regular ol’ blue and red ones, and others would know to look for them, too, because the news board would announce that a “very special guest has arrived.” Otherwise, VIPs would immediately enter the plaza with a maximum-level tap toy – something which you otherwise had to (for some reason) grind to every time you entered the online hub.
Generally, VIP status sounds rather underwhelming, but that makes the exclusivity of it even more bizarre. Etchy has discovered that, despite there being basically no other mention of Wi-Fi Plaza VIPs on the internet, back in 2008, an event was held in Japan that gave players the chance to earn the status for themselves. This was a Pokemon Daisuki Club (a Japanese Pokemon fan club site) event, where the site’s staff members appeared in the Wi-Fi Plaza as VIPs themselves. Speaking to them gave you unique passwords, which could be entered along with their trainer’s name into the Daisuki Club website in order to enter players into a lottery.
The prize was, you guessed it, VIP status – a reward only offered to 20 lucky winners. Etchy also found an old Pokemon blog post explaining that players would, in addition, receive a “wonderful gift,” but what this gift was seems to be information lost to time.
According to the YouTuber’s research, no other official blog posts since mentioned the VIP feature, seemingly making this a wholly unique one-off timed event. It was only available for a very limited time, too – players had the chance of encountering the Daisuki Club staff members between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. for five days, between October 27 and October 31, 2008.
Notably, those are all weekdays, too, so players weren’t even given the chance to take part on a day that they were likely to be off from work or school.
According to some archived Nintendo financial results, as of March 2010, Pokemon Platinum sold around 7.06 million copies worldwide. If we were to assume these sales accounted for all players ever (which for multiple reasons, like people buying pre-owned copies, isn’t entirely accurate), that’d mean just 0.00028% of players ever unlocked the VIP feature.
It was certainly exclusive, but that makes the fact that it actually offered so little all the more baffling.
While you’re here, be sure to check out our roundup of the best Pokemon games.
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