PokéBeach

PokéBeach
Language	English
Status	Active
Run	2003 - Present
Date opened	July 15, 2003
Creator	Jon Sahagian, a.k.a. Water Pokémon Master
Current owner	{{{owner}}}
Forum	PokéBeach.com Forums
Mascot	Staryu
Website	Main Page

PokéBeach is a Pokémon fan site run by Jon Sahagian, better known as "Water Pokémon Master."

History

After working at other Pokémon fan sites, Water Pokémon Master opened PokéBeach to the public on July 15, 2003 when he was only 14 years old, although he had been working on it privately since 1999. In his grand opening post, he promised that he would "never abandon PokéBeach," and since then, the site has become one of the most popular Pokémon fan sites on the internet.

Although the site focuses on all the main aspects of the franchise, it's primarily known for its coverage of the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The site features the latest Pokémon TCG news, scans of Pokémon cards, card translations for new sets, as well as guides on how to play the game. Because of how quickly and consistently Sahagian has updated the website since 2003, the website is often considered the keystone of the TCG community, visited daily by TCG fans, collectors, tournament organizers, players, distributors, stores, and even officials working at the company. Before it shut down in 2013, the official Japanese Pokémon TCG Facebook page even listed PokéBeach as one of their "likes," one of the few times, if ever, that the official company has acknowledged or linked to a fan website.

In 2008, Water Pokémon Master sought out and held a historical interview with Masamitsu Hidaka, the original director and storyboard artist for the anime. In it, Hidaka revealed much previously unknown information about the series, including the writer's decisions behind certain plot points and the nature of the series. The interview was the closest any fan has gotten to someone who works on the anime. Hidaka also invited WPM back for a second interview where he revealed even more information about the series.

In 2009, the site was able to go to the early screening of Arceus and the Jewel of Life in Japan, even though Water Pokémon Master was not picked for the special rally from CoroCoro.

Upon the release of Pokémon Black and White, PokéBeach was the first of two sites to receive a cease and desist order from Nintendo for posting images of Pokémon Black and White. Some gaming websites questioned the matter, positing that the images probably fall under fair use, but PokéBeach chose not to pursue the matter from a legal perspective due to monetary limitations. Instead, as a joke to protest Nintendo's actions, PokéBeach temporarily changed all pictures from the games to pictures of Ditto, changed their name to PokerBeach, and put the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld in their website banner with a slogan that said "NO B/W IMAGES FOR YOU!" The website has since gone back to using the name PokéBeach.

On November 12th, 2012, the site's forums revamped its rules and changed its content policy to PG-13 to better cater to older fans. Moderation policies also went through a strict review and were revamped, as was usually the case every few years. PokéBeach's forums currently have over 5 million posts, and all of the staff members report directly to Water Pokémon Master and the admins. According to the forum's rules page, because Water Pokémon Master grew up on Pokémon forums and was sometimes bullied, the site staff has a "no asshole" policy and does not tolerate any staff or members who bully others. The staff is also known for giving banned members a chance to come back to the forums if they write an apology in the "Ban Appeal" forum.

On May 11th, 2013, PokéBeach disclosed information from a supposed "insider" about Pokémon X and Y, although they were unsure if the information was real. Over the coming months, most of the information slowly revealed itself to be true, such as the new Fairy type, Mewtwo having two "formes," Pancham's evolution, the method for evolving Inkay, and more.

PokéBeach went through a massive redesign in May 2015 and relaunched with a brand new layout, forum integration, an article program, an artist/storytelling program, an activities program, a TCG simulator, and several other major features. The move lead to an unprecedented increase in community activity and engagement. Water Pokémon Master stated he had secretly been working on the new website for two to three years, and that the project took long due to the amount of people involved, the number of programmers needed, the complexity and depth of the new features, and the secrecy he wanted to maintain. Water Pokémon Master stated the themes of the new website were "fans" and "the community."

In preparation for relaunch, a mysterious anime character appeared on the website in front of a series of coffins and teased that something big was coming (later revealed to be the new website). The text beneath the character displayed in Hebrew and Armenian, occasionally changing messages. Discussion of the character and what was happening spread to Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and other fan websites, with fans trying to decode the visual and textual clues in the image. The character was later revealed to be created by WPM and part of the new artist/storytelling program. Since then, PokéBeach's site banner is drawn by new artists every week, further progressing the fan story like a comic strip, introducing new characters, and advertising each of the artists and their portfolios.

Staff

Webmaster

• Water Pokémon Master - Head of PokéBeach

Administrator

• Shining Raikou - Head of PokéBeach Forums
• Drohn

Super Moderators

• BigfootAUS
• Ice Arceus
• Machamp The Champion
• Prince Dedenne
• Uralya

Moderators

• Athena
• Brave Vesperia
• Camoclone
• cheetor586
• CuriousCleffa
• Fancy
• Heavenly Spoon
• Ice Espeon
• Kecleon-X
• Luispipe8
• Mora
• Shakespeare

External links

• PokéBeach

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