02.07.19

#pokemondeservebetter - and we consumers deserve better as well

edit: This controversy is already over - you can ignore older posts and just read the most recent one

Just a quick recap:
2 new Pokemon Games, titled Sword and Shield will be launching later this year on Nintendo Switch.
A presentation of the game so far at E3 was disappointing at best:
The game does not look much better than previous entries an the 3DS (eg here), the Pokémon animations look bland, all in all there was no kind of progress or improvement recognizable. The straw, that broke the Camerupts back was, that the game will not include all Pokémon - you cannot transfer many Pokémon. It is unclear, how many are affected, but it will be clearly a considerable number.

The outcry in the interwebs was impressive, and Gamefreak, the company that makes this game (and owns part of the IP) even responded, but as the game appears to be it was uninspired and not very helpful, basically saying "Thanks for your feedback, cut Pokémon might appear eventually in future games, and we will not change anything".

Many have summed up the problems quite eloquently (eg this Reddit-post), and I will only repeat some parts of it:

They obviously do not care about making a great game. They just put some new "flavor-of-the-month"-gimmick into it (Dynamaxing in this case), which they will drop at the next convenience. And a bunch of new Pokemon they can market.
Besides that, they recycle everything and without any effort to improve it.
And it has been like that for several generations. That might be tolearable for portable games for some time - each game costs like 35 €. But now they want 60 € on the Switch.

They blatantly overcharged for Pokémon Let's Go, especially the Pokéball-Controller (which likely will not be usuable for this game). I confess, I paid almost 90€ for both (already a discount!), and I liked it but even then I wanted improvements for a sequel,

Some people have defended them, again I will just pick a few arguments (but the others are not more convincing).

- There are so many Pokémon, eventually there will be too many.
Maybe. But not yet and not soon. (The repeated mistake is adding too many new Pokémon instead using the many that they have already, so they should limit themselves to about 50 per generation.) There is no reason to start culling Pokémon now or in the technically foreseeable future (see here for details).

- But they will be good games.
I suppose so, because they will be more or less the same as before. But not more, not better, not great, and they do not even try to be. Good games, we have played already several times. Good games, for which we paid at most 40€. Now they want to sell us a good game with slightly improved 3DS graphics for 60€.

- It is their IP. They can do, what they want. You are entitled.
 They can do with their IP, what they want. Disney was allowed to ruin Star Wars, Marvel was allowed to ruin their comics (at least for me they did), and EA was allowed to ruin many IPs and studios.
They are allowed to ruin Pokèmon with low effort, overpriced releases and mobile releases which rely on gambling mechanics.
But they actually want something from me and many people like me - cold, hard cash.

Why do the producers of the Pokémon games do not care? - Because it will sell anyway.

This is capitalism. They want to sell us something. They should give us our money's worth.
But they do not

What now?
Do you want great Pokémon games?

Then vote with your wallet!

- cancel your preorder and do not buy the games
- convince people you know, to not buy overpriced games for their kids (unless they are really rich)
- do not spend money on gambling mechanics in games (not only Pokémon, but especially there)



I for my part will further
- do not buy any Pokémon-Amiibos anymore
- do not buy Pokémon-themed cloth or toys for my kids
- continue to not watch Anime or the movies in the cinema or spend money otherwise on Pokémon stuff.

Luckily there are many other, great games out there.
I for my part always enjoyed the Shin Megami Tensei Series and will try Yokai Watch and Fossil Frontier (they cost like 10€ each) and maybe even Digimon.

Nintendo, Gamefreak and The Pokémon Company can easily fix this - Pokémon makes absurd amounts of money.

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