For several years, starting in 2019, Pokémon TCG (Trading Card Game) has hosted an illustration contest, in which artists and Pokémon fans can submit their art to potentially be made into a real life Pokémon card.
This year’s contest has “Magical Pokémon Moments” as its theme, and submissions were accepted from artists in Japan, US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Entrants were asked to create art featuring a set list of Pokémon: Pikachu, Charizard, Eevee, Feraligatr, Flygon, Koraidon, Absol, Bidoof, Melmetal and Amped Form Toxtricity.
This year however, has become embroiled in controversy, due to what appears to be a series of AI created entries that have somehow made it into the top 300. Several of the entries that are believed to be AI also appear to have been potentially submitted by the same person, using very similar names with usage of the letters V & K, in order to get around the rules that you can only submit three entries.
Many Pokémon fans online noticed that there were around 6 entries that appeared to be AI generated, featuring Pikachu and Eevee. As some of the more popular Pokémon, AI generators will have scraped more information on them, so they are easier to produce AI art of. It was noted that certain aspects of Pikachu and Eevee didn’t make sense for an artist to have created, such as strange lumps in their outlines, inconsistencies in how the Pokémon featured in the entries art styles look, odd limbs, wonky lines, and patterns that are not uniform, all classic AI signs.
Today Pokémon TCG acknowledged these entrants, and have confirmed that entries that have violated the rules have now been disqualified. They also confirm that other entries will be chosen to replace those that have been disqualified.
At the time of writing, the alleged AI entries and entries that seem to be submissions done under slightly different pseudonyms in order to breach the rules on entries are still listed on the Pokémon TCG website. Potentially TCG may not want to remove the entries until they have chosen their replacements.
We hope that if this contest is hosted again, more vigorous examination of images will be done before the top 300 are announced in order to avoid AI entries and other rule breaking to slip through the cracks.
We do highly suggest you check out the top 300, there are some absolutely incredible entries here, and the top 100 is going to be an incredibly difficult job for the judges!
Here are just some of the excited top 300 artists sharing their pieces on social media:
aaah im excited my pieces got accepted, browsing the entries is so inspiring, I want to enter again next time too and make something even better! https://t.co/89cLWJqbsB pic.twitter.com/kT89C6PaQH
— Devin (@DevinElleKurtz) June 14, 2024
THIS IS MY PIECE dude!!!! it doesn’t have my name on it for reasons that are currently unclear to me but yeah i drew this thing!!! might cry about it #PTCGIC2024 https://t.co/22IXySAFTc pic.twitter.com/znPuzQFN9i
— gecko? (@g3ckomancer) June 15, 2024
My Feraligatr made it to the top 300😳
オーダイルで通過できた！やったー！！
#PTCGIC2024 https://t.co/DAMfYqzmkK pic.twitter.com/jsZ5F3p04p— ☺︎ (@nikochandayeee) June 15, 2024
