Pokemon's future

I'm going to re-open some old wounds from a thread I started some time ago that has now become old.

In that thread, I posed a question: "Is Game Freak the new EA?".
With more information coming out recently what with the DLC and Pokemon Home and whatnot, I would like to pose the question again.

I will not be weighing in on this question, for I want you do postulate this question and post your answer.

What I don't want you to do when you read the question is post your hot takes, I want you to think about it and post an informed answer.

So, anyway. Pokemon's future. Game Freak isn't going to let go of Pokemon unless something horrible happens to them so:
Are things going to get better? Is the franchise doomed? What do you think? What is Pokemon's future going to be?

I disagree with the people who hate DLC. It is dumb to call them the new EA. They are adding random loot crates and they won't because it is illegal in some countries. They even removed the Game Corner from their games.

DLC is the new age of gaming. And mostly everyone will buy the DLC. It is better than buying a second version of the game and I would much rather them just keep adding on until we get a new game. They wouldn't be making DLC if they didn't think it was going to sell. People literally buy games that are vastly the same. You payed $40 for a game you already had with very small changes.

Ultra Space could have been a $10 DLC for Sun and Moon. Yet most people still bought the newest game.

So no, Pokemon isn't doomed, far from it. Because most people will buy the DLC. Just like most people buy second versions. I wouldn't be surprised if they make more money on DLC than they do with Remakes.


What I don't agree with is what happened with Pokemon Home. It should have been part of the yearly fee for Nintendo Online. At least the middle grade. Maybe just a little extra for Premium. Especially since we still need Pokemon Bank which is another $5 a month. Those should have been combined into home like I thought it would have been and GTS should have remained free. Yet I still pay for it because I want to use it. Just like people are going to want the DLC.

this sort of melancholic tone from the OP as if there's a funeral for the franchise is kind of exactly the thing that i have an issue with. while there's certainly things that one can criticize TPCi/Game Freak for (i mean... Home is right there in front of our faces having an unnecessary subscription, after all), for better or worse, pokemon has always been the same for the past 20 or so years and will likely always be the same for the decade and then some. pokemon's "future", as it were, is pretty much Game Freak doing the same thing if not outright similar (not deviating too much from what they've done), because that's what works and that is what sells. evidently most of the fanbase doesn't have an issue with that or SwSh wouldn't have been as wildly successful as it is. while we won't know whether or not the game's "controversy" had any real effect, im willing to bet that it barely put any noticeable dent in the sales numbers, and that's one of the two things i'd bet most self-respecting companies care about the most: if it isn't public image/reputation, it's sales.

and see, that's the thing. being around the forum-sphere for as long as i have, this isn't the first time i've seen people making every generation seem like the absolute worst, and it's been a thing since like... gen 5, i think? probably earlier, but gen 5 is definitely when i've personally noticed groups of "divisiveness" within the online fandom itself. i'm not quite sure what it is with some of the internet pokemon fanbase making things seem worse than they are? this generation is definitely when it became more prominent what with the national dex stuff and all, but that's about the only difference as far as i can tell, and it amounted to just as much anyway. the games sold fine, so either the internet anger turned out to be an extreme minority of the fanbase, or... maybe something else im not aware of? i dunno.

anyway, before i digress too much, all i'm going to say is that the franchise will more than likely be fine. it might be "doomed" individually depending on each person's perspective in the sense that they may not enjoy the games as they once have, but a multi-billion dollar company is not going to flop unless something goes very, very wrong.

Pokemon will continue to churn out what amounts to exactly the same game with each core title as it has since the very beginning, only with gradually scummier business practices designed to carve the games up and milk as much money from consumers as possible. DLC is simply the first step towards the likes of monthly subscription fees (which we already have separately with Pokemon Home, and compare that to Pokemon Bank for one hell of an eye-opener on how badly they can exploit this), lootboxes, and microtransactions (which I suspect will come next), and it'd be passing stange - and foolish from a business standpoint - for Game Freak and TPC to not take advantage of people's willingness to shell out for this.

They won't stop at DLC, because nobody stops at DLC - like Nintendo, they're just a decade or so behind the rest of the game industry. DLC has become normalised in the gaming industry now, and whilst microtransactions are frowned upon, they don't generate as much heat as lootboxes do these days...well, unless you're Koei Tecmo, which will put $2500 worth of DLC into a single game and charge you each time you want to change a character's hair colour. I doubt Pokemon will sink to those kinds of levels, but paid DLC Pokemon are almost certainly going to become a thing within the next few generations. With people's appetite for character customisation, I fully expect cosmetic DLC to happen at some stage as well. As with everything else, you're going to be paying separately for features you used to get for free - don't tell me I'm being negative, because this is a reality happening now with things like the GTS - and, because it's comparable to everything else, they're going to get away with it. Because it's taken them this long to hop on the bandwagon, there is going to be no reasonable ground for detractors to stand on. Pokemon has DLC? So what! DLC has been around for over a decade now! DLC is the future of gaming! Get with the times!

...needless to say, pointing out that in other areas DLC adds actual value to existing games, and is not just a portion of that game carved out, will avail you nothing. Never mind that Sword and Shield were sold as incomplete products. Besides, other developers do that as well. Does anyone else remember when "season pass" used to be a dirty phrase?

Pokemon isn't going anywhere and it's not "doomed" from a business perspective, but the franchise is going to evolve to take advantage of current gaming trends, even as it remains exactly the same fundamentally to take full advantage of nostalgia and Game Freak's general lack of ability to make anything successful other than Pokemon games, and it's going to become far more anti-consumer than it already is. Game Freak want all the money and are unwilling to provide any of the value to justify it. If you think spending $60 on the game, $30 on the DLC, then paying whatever it is for Pokemon Home is bad, you ain't see nothing yet. There is so much potential for abuse in this, and if the DLC is well received - and it will be - then it WILL be abused. Perhaps we'll get a series of e-cards again, or some more amiibo which gate off exclusive features. Who knows. Whatever it is, it's going to generate a ridiculous amount of money, be immune to criticism, and be something that you would have gotten for free prior to this. And most people will be okay with that, because it's Pokemon, and Pokemon can do no wrong.

tl;dr the future of Pokemon is that you can expect to pay more for less of the exact same content that they've been putting out since the very first generation.

as long as they make more mystery dungeons ill stick with em

Pokemon: Increasingly Irreverent?

Take what I say with a grain of salt by the way. This is from the perspective of someone who's falling out of favor with the franchise.

So, all things considered and the "decline" of the franchise. Is Pokemon (the game franchise) becoming more and more irreverent?

After 2019 fans have moved on to bigger and better (but that's just from my perspective).

So, is the franchise going to fade into obscurity?

Is the franchise a "Fallen Titan"?

What do you think?

look, you've already made this point when you've made similar threads about pokemon's future and whether or not it's a bad franchise. in fact, i'm going to merge this thread into the former because it's essentially no different.

but no, pokemon is not going to fall under the waves of poseidon tomorrow. if you don't agree with tpc or game freak's decisions, that's one thing, but this cynicism about the franchise to the point where you believe it's going to become a literal husk because the fans are going to abandon it en-masse for some reason... i honestly don't see happening. i'm sorry that you feel that game freak and/or tpc betrayed you with the creation of swsh and the whole dexit thing and charging for pokemon home as well as the introduction of dlc. it sucks that you surround yourself with constant negativity about the franchise to the point where it's affecting your enjoyment of it, but how pokemon fans on the internet feel and how pokemon fans at large feel are two completely different things. not saying that i particularly agree with game freak's business model going forward (except for dlc > third games), but it is what it is.

i mean, feel free to boycott them, refuse to buy their games in the future, you do you at the end of the day. but it's kind of going into tin foil hat territory when, with no evidence whatsoever, you think pokemon fans are on the brink of showing up at tpci headquarters with pitchforks and torches at hand demanding the national dex back. feel free to feel however you want to feel about game freak's games going forward, but pokemon as a company is going to be fine for the next year, the next five years and maybe even the next decade, and one maybe controversial release (going by sales it doesn't seem to be that controversial) isn't really going to change that.

Sorry, but as much as I don't like the way TPC, Gamefreak or whoever is directing the games, and as much as I think that the DLC and Home are as much of a scam than having a third version, in the end the only thing that talks for companies aren't vocal fans, it's money and Pokemon has been making lots of it.

There haven't been (and there won't be) any other games like BW or B2W2 as much as people cry they were the best games, because they were a failure in their time. And there WILL be more overly simplified games like XY, SM and SwSh because sales demonstrated them that that's what fans want and like.

Fans can harass the developers and cry or meme about it as much as they want, but as long as the sales aren't a reflection of how angry they are, they are just a loud minority and TPC/Gamfreak won't care. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I think that as long as nothing like Gen 5 happens again, they'll have no reason to change their direction.