Pokémon Doubles Down on Decision to Penalize Pro Player

A Pokémon pro who saw his tournament win taken away from him in controversial circumstances will not be getting an official reprieve.

That’s according to a new, official ruling handed down by Play! Pokémon, the team within The Pokémon Company that handles competitive events, which doubles down on the decision to punish Pokémon Go player Firestar73, and levies fresh accusations that he was “shaking the table during gameplay” causing “a disruption to the broadcast experience.”

Earlier this month, both Firestar73 and his opponent spoke out after the player’s grand final victory at the Pokémon Orlando Regionals was taken away, seemingly due to his match win celebration where he stood up, did a fist pump, then shook hands with the other player.

https://twitter.com/TruInfernoPoGo/status/2041039732394631512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Pokémon fans roundly backed Firestar73 and called the decision to take away his victory “embarrassing”, while Firestar73 himself said he had asked to have the decision officially re-examined. That decision has now been made, but has done nothing to calm fan fury over the incident — with many seeing the fresh accusations as simply an attempt to justify the original decision.

“During the Pokémon Go Grand Finals, we would like to share some information which may not be known to the broader community,” Play! Pokémon wrote in its official ruling. “Prior to the final game incident, during game one of the bracket reset series, a player was issued a Warning for the action of hitting and shaking the table during gameplay. Actions such as these can have a negative impact on the experience of participants and disturb the match in progress. Then, during game five, this same player’s behaviour continued to be disruptive, including shaking the table to the point that there was a disruption to the broadcast experience. These repeated infractions resulted in a penalty that was escalated to Game Loss.”

Oddly, there’s now no suggestion that Firestar73’s winning celebration was an issue — only the accusation that he was “disruptive” during the game, something there had been no public discussion of being an issue previously.

“We will uphold the decisions made by the Judges at this event,” Play! Pokémon’s statement continues. “Pokémon Judges are committed to bringing the best possible experience to our players by preserving the competitive integrity of our events. Without them and their commitment to Play! Pokémon, we would not be able to hold events, and it is our expectation that they are treated with the same respect as all people in the community. In the moment of a win, emotions are high, and we recognize that these emotions can lead to energetic reactions celebrating a win. We want to support this authentic, positive reaction, and not discourage this excitement. Celebrations are not an issue, but actions that disrupt or can negatively impact competitive integrity can be.”

The statement has gone down as well as you might expect, with hundreds of angry responses across reddit and social media, where an official post on X/Twitter has been given a Community Note stating that “Firestar wasn’t given an initial warning for shaking the table,” something fans say should have taken place before any action was taken.

Firestar73 himself has also responded and addressed the table shaking accusation.

“The ‘incident’ you are now, for the first time, claiming was the basis of the decision did not affect the gameplay at all, yet decided the whole tournament,” he wrote in a post on X/Twitter. “Section 2.1 requires a ‘clear explanation of any infraction and its penalty” and I was never given this as the basis at all.”

“These table setup’s are extremely uncomfortable with the heavily locked down phone, with a USB-C adapter to hardwire the device,” one fan wrote in a lengthy thread discussing the situation on reddit. “The players are stressing cause its grand finals and are aggressively tapping their phones, of course the table shakes.”

“Play! Pokémon had the perfect opportunity to listen to their community and correct an egregious error, but instead decided to double down to showcase their authority and prop themselves up as infallible,” wrote another. “It wouldn’t be a display of weakness for Play! Pokémon to admit that one of their own made a mistake and override the decision. After all, even though Play! Pokémon is one entity, it’s comprised of hundreds of individuals. People are human. People (even judges) can make mistakes. It happens.”

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social