Story Time!
So I am an official Pokemon Tournament Organizer. They call us Pokemon Professors. I even have Pokemon lab coat they sent me. To do this I had to go through a background check and take a test to get registered. I've volunteered at larger Pokemon Tournaments like States, Regionals and Nationals. Working for the Pokemon Company at these events has shown me how goofy they can be. It's an odd company to say the least. They're organizational practices baffle me sometimes. They're sense of their fans is certainly skewed.
Had the guy throwing the party had someone who had jumped through all the hoops to become a Tournament Organizer, he probably could have avoided all the legal trouble. The problem that isn't widely known. He didn't know that. Pokemon should take that into consideration and drop the whole thing. He didn't harm the brand. If anything they're harming themselves by creating this sue happy image. Not exactly the best PR.
I've gone to conventions and parties just to be the "Pokemon guy" so that it can be official. Stupid, I know, but that's how they work. I think PETA's Pokemon Black and Blue parody games where Pokemon attack people for "enslaving them"
did more harm than any fan could do.
http://features.peta.org/pokemon-black-and-white-parody/ (Possibly NSFW due to cartoon blood)
That all being said, I don't thinks it's fair to lump Nintendo and Pokemon together. Nintendo is more of the publisher of Pokemon, while Game Freak and Creatures Inc are the creators of Pokemon. I think of Nintendo as "Disney" and Pokemon as "Marvel" in this situation. Game Freak isn't tied to Nintendo. Their latest game
Tembo the Badass Elephant wasn't even released on any Nintendo console.
The Pokemon Company is more of the brand manager. Someone explains it way better than I can here if you're interested.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1008721 Now I'm not trying to defend The Pokemon Company or Nintendo here. They're both really bizarre companies that give off a sense of greed sometimes. I agree that Nintendo is but a shadow of what greatness it used to be. But Nintendo isn't the one to blame in this situation, at least not wholly. The Pokemon Company is overly protective of anything Pokemon. A few years back they almost took down two of the biggest fan sites (Pokebeach and Serebii.net) for posting pictures of Pokemon Black and White which was already out in Japan but not in the States.
Now I'm not really sure where I was going with all this
but figured I'd throw in some of my knowledge.
TLDR; Pokemon and Nintendo are separate. The Pokemon Company is overly protective and treats their brand like a prize winning show dog.
