One of the Nintendo DS's underappreciated features was Download Play, which allowed players to run temporary game demos with only a single cartridge. One of the experiences available through Download Play was an obscure 2005 Pokémon game called PokéPark Fishing Contest DS. As the name implies, the angling Pokémon game was only playable for a short time. Despite its temporary nature, a PokéPark cartridge has suddenly appeared online.

Preservationist Tiramisu090401 highlighted the discovery on X, sharing an eBay listing where bids have reached just over $9,000. In the game, trainers are tasked with hooking Pokémon; scores are determined based on the monster's size, level, and rarity. These scores could be submitted to Pokémon Center locations in Japan. A somewhat similar concept was explored through Pokémon: Magikarp Jump in 2017, a mobile game where players catch and raise meme fish of various sizes and ability.

The reason PokéPark became such a rarity, though, is that the title was programmed to be inaccessible. At first, the fishing game was only playable at a Japanese theme park that ran for six months. The park doled out rewards every day in the form of scratch cards to the first 200 people who captured a digital fish. The experience was later brought to other events and Pokémon retail locations. PokéPark also couldn't be played past the 12-hour mark, or after the DS was turned off.

A version of the game was recreated by a Pokémon fan in 2021, but it wasn't an exact copy. Manuel Matesanz, who created the new version of PokéPark, also ported it to the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Those more recent versions featured a "modern" mode where the Pokémon were depicted with higher visual fidelity than the original game. People evidently have ROMs of the original game, but the files themselves aren't archived publicly.

Since the original PokéPark is such a relic, preservationists are trying to rally support to raise funds to outbid private collectors for the cartridge. Unfortunately, no one is quite sure if the cartridge even has the full game on it. As Tiramisu090401 explained on X, the cartridge might've been used to keep track of and submit scores for the game.

Hopefully, whoever spends thousands on this thing isn't about to find out that the cartridge is useless, though. As of Thursday morning, the listing still has two days before it closes.