Although video games were once seen as a solitary experience, that continues to be a bucked trend and stereotype. With online gaming more accessible than ever, and the video game industry being valued at over £4.6 billion in 2024, it’s open to more people than ever – and it’s growing.
This is old news to Pokémon fans, who earlier this month flocked to Anaheim, California for the annual World Championships. There, tens of thousands of fans attended to watch thousands of players play hundreds of match ups in Pokémon unite, Pokémon Scarlet & Violet and the Pokémon trading card game across the weekend.
Each year, the Pokémon World Championships bring the best players from continental leagues to one world stage to determine the best Pokémon trainer of the year.
This year was no different – but it was also somewhat unrecognisable. For the first time, the final matches of the three pillar events were held at an arena. The three day event was capped off with almost 12 hours of competition on a stage at the ACC Arena. There, the prospective champions played, battled, wept and ultimately celebrated before the victors were crowned as this year’s Pokémon masters.
Finally, the 8,000-capacity venue welcomed President and CEO of The Pokémon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara, to the stage to make some show-stopping announcements – after some closing ceremony performances, that is (the less said about these, the far, far better).
Despite the final piece of the Pokémon World Championships experience becoming a glorified advertisement of what’s to come, this didn’t detract from the countless happy faces, joyous squeals and abundance of laughter across the three days.
While the Pokémon games may be about building teams and catching them all, its infectious community is all about connection. At least, that’s what Pokémon’s director of global esports & events producer Chris Brown believes.
“We’re working towards trying to create one Pokémon community,” he said. “So there’s not a separate video game community, a separate trading card game community, a separate Pokémon Go community… We get to these big events, [and] we try to bring everyone together under one roof.”
Brown explained that, while putting the show together, it was important for them to include ways for people to get together comfortably. He noted they provided “around 10,000 chairs across the show floor”. “You can find that space to sit across from somebody during your show, day to day, and that’s super important. Because when you’re able to make friends with people you’re able to have this conversation.”
“I think also people today are just looking for more connections,” he added. “More human connections. There’s a lot of groups in the digital space because–hey, it’s easy, it’s inexpensive to create digital communities–but the in-person communities you can only get with live events like [the Pokémon World Championships].
“It’s so special to be able to make those friendships, to be able make those connections with people. And you know, those last a long time if you’re able to do that.”
His mantra wasn’t all talk either. Pokémon Worlds 2025 encouraged its attendees to really connect with one another with new additions to the line-up such as the pin rally (an opportunity for people to talk, swap pins of their favourite creatures, and perhaps make new friends along the way). It also expanded on the formal talk-panels across the event, something first introduced at this year’s European International Championships (EUIC), placing popular Pokémon creators on stages in front of hordes of fans for the first time.
And all of this is without even mentioning the boom in economy Pokémon brings. 2024’s World Championships were hosted in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the event was praised for bringing fresh influxes of cash to the community. So then, it’s easy to see why online searches of “super rare Pokemon cards” surged by more than 5000 percent just before Worlds kicked off (via Journalistic).
And Pokémon are not planning on stopping anytime soon, either. Next year Pokémon’s 2026 World Championship is due to be even bigger and will be held in San Francisco, USA, with the final matches being hosted at the truly enormous Chase Center with a capacity of around 20,000 people.
Where does it end? The O2 Arena? Wembley Stadium? This may sound a little farfetched but, at the rate the shows are growing, it’s more inevitable than absurd. And whether the Pokémon World Championships keep growing or simply plateau, the events are still home to thousands of fans looking for somewhere to hang out with their friends. And frankly, that can’t be a bad thing.