Serebii Webmaster Accuses Pokémon Pokopia Companion App of Profiting From Stolen Editorial Content

Serebii's Joe Merrick claims the Pokopedia app is scraping 200 hours of his Pokémon Pokopia research for profit. Developer Duarte admits to using the site.

By: AXL Media

Published: Mar 17, 2026, 11:05 AM EDT

Source: Information for this report was sourced from Kotaku

Allegations of Data Scraping in the Pokémon Community

The launch of Pokémon Pokopia has been overshadowed by a heated dispute between one of the franchise’s most respected archivists and a solo app developer. Joe Merrick, the long-time webmaster of Serebii, went public with claims that a companion app titled Pokopedia has been systematically lifting his site’s data to power its own features. Merrick argues that the app is not merely collecting public information but is directly copying his manual labor, which involved hundreds of hours of gameplay to document monster habitats, recipes, and hidden mechanics. This incident has reignited debates over the ethics of data scraping within the gaming enthusiast community.

The Evidence of Replicated Errors

To support his claims of theft, Merrick pointed to specific anomalies within the Pokopedia app that mirror temporary mistakes made on Serebii. For instance, both the app and the fansite initially failed to list the "Litter" specialty for the Pokémon Snivy and Larvesta. Merrick contends that such identical omissions are highly improbable if the app developer had been conducting independent research. This "fingerprinting" of data suggests that the app’s database was built by scraping Serebii’s live updates during the hectic launch window of the game, rather than through original discovery or official documentation.

Developer Response and Attribution Efforts

The developer behind Pokopedia, Hugo Duarte, has addressed the accusations following a significant backlash on social media. In a statement, Duarte admitted to utilizing Serebii as a "publicly available community source" once the volume of data became too large for a solo creator to manage alone. While he expressed respect for Merrick’s work, Duarte maintained that he began the project using his own observations from trailers and early gameplay. He confirmed that he is currently working on an update to the app that will include proper source attribution to acknowledge the contributions of fansites like Serebii.