Last year a new Pokémon Game hit the market, Sword and Shield.
Disclaimer: This post was written in February 2020, but mistakenly not published until June.
There was, let's call it now controversy, because the game was 50% more expensive than past Pokemon games, did only include half of the existing Pokemon and did not really add anything other than some gimmicks.
Long time fans were enraged and suggested a boycott. (You can read my post,
punch drunk on optimism, here).
That boycott failed. Epically, and maybe forseeably. Sword and Shield is one of the best selling Pokemon Games and one of the best selling Switch games.
To add insult to injury, shortly after the failure become apparent, Game Freak announced DLC - a first for the series. The DLC will include 2 more areas and new and many old Pokemon, and those will be available even to those who not have the DLC.
Jim Sterling has a video on
gamers boycotts, and how they all failed, arguing that boycotts create buzz and most consumer succumb to the sirensong of consumerism after all, because that is what capitalism is about.
He also mentions the case of Star Wars Battlefronts II, which had loot boxes. However, people did not primarly threatened with a boycott, put complained about the loot boxes (and the progress) so long and effectively, that Disney interfered and some legislators started to put restrictions on predatory gambling mechanics in video games.
It is worth mentioning, that there was a lot of confusing communication from Gamefreak and Nintendo. I have not dived enough into it, and I do not know Japanese, so I have no idea, if this was just bad (or brillant?) marketing, mistranslations and misunderstandigs, bad cosumer relations or simply lying.
What baffles me most is, that they first said there will be no changes to Dexit (and at least implicitly, no Pokemon will be added later to this game), when they most likely already started to work on the DLC and had at least Switch models for alle Gen 1 Pokemon.
What now?
Sword/Shield sells well and has at least acceptable reviews. Like the game itself most reviews are rehashes of the past, telling us how great the journey with our Pokemon is, like the last
x times.
Dexit will be partly reversed. The exact number of returning Pokemons is not yet known, but it can be expected, that at least 3/4 of all Pokemon will be included, when the games are complete by the end of 2020.
Theoretically, they could use the half a year and include the other missing Pokemon as well, but at this point I see no reason economically for them to do so.
The DLC will boost sales again.
Whatever Pokemon deserve, consumers as a whole are content with the way they are and have been for literally decades. They will not become much better in the foreseeable future, and if they do, there will be considerable trade-offs.
It also was a bubble problem:
If 30 000 people on Reddit like a topic about why we should not buy Sword/Shield, these numbers mean nothing when millions of people will do buy it.
Pokemon Home will launch soon and - surprise, surprise - it will be much more expensive than Pokemon Bank was. There will be a mostly useless free version, though.
Is this not merely a pricing problem?
It can be seen that way.
If Sword/Shield had been 30€, I would have argued, the content delivered is fair for the price. If it had been 40€, I would have probably bought it, played with my kids and did not talk a lot about it.
90€ with the DLC is clearly too much.
But this is similar with other games. I enjoyed Let's Go Evee, because it delivered what was promised, but it was clearly overprized.
I have not bought the remake of Link's Awakening, because I find 60€ for a game with the content of an already remade Gameboy game, which did cost maximum of 35€ when it was released, too much. (Yeah, I know, graphics are completely new.)
I tried the demo of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, and it did not convince me. Many told me, the game becomes really great, but I am not sure, if the price tag is justified.
And what about this rando's personal and completely useless boycott?
90 € for that content is still too expensive for me.
For now, I have Yokai Watch and SMT: Strange Journey to finish, and the recent Digimon game is still much cheaper.
If somewhen Sword/Shield with DLC will be available for 45€, I will buy it.
I have not made up my mind about Mystery Dungeon.
However, I might get more Pokemon Amiibos, if I find them cheap.
And I would still buy a
Let's Go Snubbul game .
But yes, I would like to keep playing Pokémon games, with my kids, but I would prefer to not be overcharged.
