The ‘Pokémon Classic Collection’ Case
This is a different kind of post than you’re used to on the Miauz Genau website: I’m logging a sort of case file for the “Pokémon Classic Collection” graphic.
The occasion is banal and instructive at the same time: a single graphic I made in February 2023 that still haunts timelines today as an alleged “leak.” This text situates the case soberly so that we—I, you, the community—have a reliable reference.
I’m telling this story because it still isn’t over…
It begins in February 2023, a few days before Pokémon Day. I’m a graphic designer by trade and I’ve always been a Pokémon fan—there’s a reason I started this podcast in 2018, whose site you’re on right now. From exactly that intersection I built a graphic back then: a fictional “Pokémon Classic Collection,” designed to look as if it came from Nintendo itself—including a cover mock-up where I reconstructed the Legends: Arceus logo composition and refined it with various premium-looking original depictions of the cover Pokémon from older games.
It wasn’t a leak, not insider info, not a clandestine download from dark archives—just the visualization of a wish: if I could have one thing from Pokémon Presents, it would be exactly such a collection of classic games for the Switch. My first tweet about it was naïve… an eyes emoji and the image. Nothing more. I underestimated how brutally fast a professional-looking surface is read as truth. Within a short time I was getting WhatsApp messages: “Hey Domi, is that real?!” That was the moment I realized the graphic was no longer being seen for what it was.
I deleted the tweet and posted a new one explaining the context. Not a leak, not insider info—just a wish. I wanted to clear up misunderstandings before they turned into hopes… But the internet doesn’t work with context; it works with copies…
Habe den vorherigen Tweet damit mal gelöscht weil ich gemerkt habe, dass es ohne Kontext dann doch viele Hoffnungen unschön aufbauen kann.
— Domi von Miauz Genau! (@DomiGenau) 11. Februar 2023
Ist nur ne selbstgemachte Grafik von dem, was ich mir mitunter von der nächsten #PokemonPresents wünsche ^^ pic.twitter.com/xhhRbl11JP
Someone put the graphic on Reddit, stripped of my clarification. At the same time I saw a larger Pokémon YouTuber on Twitter who copied my original posting mechanic exactly—eyes emoji, image, no context. That’s when the wave started. The graphic was passed around, quoted in threads, dropped into video thumbnails, and peppered with arrows… Some creators even took the trouble to retouch out the date of the (already past) Pokémon Presents. I commented under one of the big tweets, explained the origin, wrote: this is my mock-up. The most common reply: “Then you should’ve put a watermark on it.”
That answer hit me because it misses the real issue. I wasn’t after credit. I was after responsibility… Because the graphic suddenly became raw material for a business model: the business of disappointment. You take a supposedly real visual, mount it into a thumbnail, announce a “leak” or “insider rumor,” crank up expectations and… well… cash in attention and therefore money. In the end, fans are left behind—hope baked into the algorithm—and when the announcement doesn’t come, it flips into disillusionment. My graphic became the weapon. Not because it was false, but because it looked “right.”
The authenticity of aesthetics gets mistaken for the authenticity of information—and the media attention economy exploits that mix-up systematically.
In the weeks and months after, I watched the graphic take on a life of its own. It popped up again and again in 2023. Then again in 2024. And again in 2025… my co-host Knopey even made an info post in February 2025 to set the record straight. Now we’re at the end of 2025, looking toward 2026—the year the 30th Pokémon anniversary begins. I’ve understood this much: the image is a ghost. It wanders around because it wears the shape of a truth without being one. And because it’s useful for some that it keeps wandering.
I’m not writing this to wag a moral finger at anyone…
I’m writing it because I want to name my share. I made the image. I posted it without context first. I realized too late that a convincing mock-up in this environment is like a match next to gasoline. I deleted the tweet, reposted, explained—but that was just trying to fight a raging wildfire with a single bucket of water. I didn’t do enough, and at the same time I know that, at that point, I could never have done enough. The internet loves clear shapes and simple stories, and “leak right before Pokémon Day” is a very simple story.
Who bears responsibility when a mock-up turns into misinformation? The designer, because it looks realistic? The platform, because it strips away context? The creators, who might know the context but choose reach over clarification?
The problem was never missing credit. I don’t miss seeing my name anywhere—I miss seeing the truth anywhere. That difference is fundamental.
Why am I telling this now, so thoroughly, so personally? Because I don’t want to experience this chapter as a quiet footnote again when the anniversary year reignites rumors. I want to set a referencable, verifiable framing: this “Pokémon Classic Collection” graphic is mine; it is a mock-up from February 2023; it is not a leak; it has never had any source beyond my own imagination. Anything presented as “evidence” for upcoming products by using it is speculation that uses my graphic as a backdrop.
— dusty 🌿 (@dustygogoat) February 17, 2023
played with my feelings so hard 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/3GBL4FSw4Y
— 八野 (@yano_gamedev) December 14, 2023
And I want to add a request—not a command, but a suggestion for all of us, myself included. If you come across a “too good” image in the future, especially right before big events: actively look for the origin. Check whether a primary source exists that’s more than a screenshot. Listen to your gut: does the text under the image sound like information or like hype? Ask who benefits from the confusion.
While I’m writing this wall of text, I realize that this may be the true core of all this: form creates expectation, and expectation is a resource. Whoever awakens it bears responsibility. I awakened it unintentionally, and I own my share. Others cultivated it intentionally, and they own theirs… Please treat this post on the Miauz Genau website as a marker: here is the source. Here are the time points. Here is the intent. Everything else that has been made out of this graphic doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the sphere of speculation, the thumbnail economy, the trade in reach.
I still want a lovingly curated, official classic collection of old Pokémon games for the current Nintendo console. But until The Pokémon Company announces it themselves, my “Pokémon Classic Collection” remains exactly what it has always been: a wish in image form.