In the last episode of the Game Under Podcast, Phil Fogg claimed that Pokemon is the most valuable intellectual property. Tom Towers countered that this was a ridiculous claim, as pretty much any religious IP would be of significantly greater value; suggesting that even the Vatican alone would be worth more.
While anyone with even the foggiest notion of history will be able to tell you that the Catholic church—let alone the myriad other Judaic* spin-offs—is far more valuable than any non-religious IP, let us take a closer look at the value of Vatican City itself in comparison with Pokemon.
Unfortunately both Pokemon and the Catholic church are secretive organisations, so no one actually knows how much either are worth. In the case of the Vatican, Time magazine estimated that it had a net worth of 10-15 billion. This is a similar number to the 15 billion net worth figure reached by Money Inc. for Pokemon, based on a 2014 unnamed source that claimed Pokemon made 1.5 billion a year.
The Vatican has a yearly revenue of 308 million according to the CIA, which doesn’t sound very impressive until you realise that the Vatican only has a population of 800 odd people, making it the smallest (yet 18th richest) country in the world. Also, if we apply the same statistical analysis that Money Inc. did to their unnamed source, then since its founding in 1929, the Vatican has accrued a total net worth of over 28 billion, making it is nearly twice as valuable an asset as the Pokemon franchise.
And even that is a mere sliver of the Catholic Church’s total wealth. In Australia alone, the Catholic church probably owns 30 billion dollars worth of property!
*Some might argue that like for like figures aren’t being compared (due to the secrecy of the IP owners involved), but let us compare the total revenue earned by Pokemon since its conception (1996) and Israel since 2001: approximately 95 billion for Pokemon, while Israel with a five year handicap still made over ten times that: approximately 972 billion!
In the same episode, Phil Fogg also foolishly claimed that the Catholic Church would put more effort into making a game than Game Freak did with Sword and Shield. I’ll let you be the judge: