A Pediatric Oncologist has requested help from The Pokemon Company to make a terminally ill child’s dream to play Scarlet & Violet come true.
Pokemon Scarlet & Violet will bring the ninth generation of Pokemon to the Nintendo Switch later this year, but November may not be soon enough for one of Dr. Erica Kaye’s patients.
On June 8, Dr. Kaye took to Twitter to request help to make a little boy’s life dream come true. She stated that her patient suffers from an incurable form of cancer and likely won’t live to see the game’s release.
The tweet not only inspired thousands of users to echo her request but also captured the attention of three key players that could set her patient’s dream in motion.
Twitter, please help. My patient is a little boy whose life’s dream is to play the new #Pokemon #ScarletViolet game. He has incurable cancer and likely won’t live to see the game released in November. Does anyone have connections with @Nintendo @Pokemon @thevowel? 1/
— Erica C Kaye (@EricaKayeMD) June 8, 2022
Pokemon staff answer call to help terminal patient
As Dr. Kaye’s cry for help went viral, she was approached by three influential figures who had connections with The Pokemon Company. Those three being Xbox Co-founder Seamus Blackley, Jazwares CBO Jeremy Padawer, and Vice President of Technology for Pokemon Eric Neustadter.
Blackley was the first to respond bringing the tweet to the attention of PlayStation’s Shuheui Yoshida and Xbox’s Phil Spencer. This was followed by Padawer who offered to send Pokemon toys to Dr. Kaye’s patient while further bringing the situation to the attention of Pokemon.
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Neustadter, who is the closest of the three to The Pokemon Company, responded with a hopeful message. “I’m so sorry to hear about your patient. I don’t know if we can get him the game but I absolutely want to make something happen for him.”
Dr. Kaye provided an update a day later stating, “The right folks are now working on it.”
So grateful to twitter for helping connect us with @Pokemon @Nintendo. The right folks are now working on it. Thank you will never be enough. Special gratitude to @seamusblackley @thevowel @jeremycom and all who are pitching in to try to make a dream come true. https://t.co/qcroeLVw4V
— Erica C Kaye (@EricaKayeMD) June 9, 2022
While Nintendo and The Pokemon Company only grant early access to their games to an exclusive group, a few users noted that Nintendo had allowed terminally ill children to play advanced copies of their games in the past.
Seeing both Twitter and the gaming community band together for such a noble effort inspired users to take action. And while we wait to see what happens for Dr. Kaye’s patient, there’s solace in knowing a just effort has been made.
