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Is the franchise coming to an end?

Child Amnesiac

Child Amnesiac

Ever changing
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    You know, after this whole National Dex debacle I've been thinking about the future of the franchise.

    I've wondered, is Pokemon on it's last legs? I know it kind of sounds weird now, with the franchise as big as it's ever been.
    But, I'm wondering if this franchise is doomed with the fans writing Pokemon and Game Freak's obituary at this point.

    I've heard about what's going on over in the Star Wars fandom, and how that franchise is doomed. That's a media empire, one of the biggest in fact. So, Is Pokemon next?

    Is Game Freak the new EA?
    Is Pokemon being milked to death?
    Could Gen 8 be the last generation?
    Is the Pokemon franchise ending?
    Could Game Freak be in actual physical danger?

    These are the questions we must answer going forward, for my 2 cents on all of these:
    No, Game Freak is not the new EA. Not yet at least, EA has done so much scummy stuff to the point that they live in infamy. Game Freak is not EA, not even close.

    Maybe, we've had new games every year for the past 3 years. The main series is feeling kind of over-saturated IMO. Even then, we've had a new Pokemon game every year since 2009, counting spin offs of course.

    Possibly, Game Freak could lose all motivation off of this whole Dexit scandal. They've been sent numerous death threats in the past months from these "fans".
    Little Town Hero has proven that no one likes their original ideas, and will just go on and buy the latest Pokemon. We've locked Game Freak into a no win scenario. If they make another Pokemon, the fans will complain and attack them. If they do another original IP, people are just going to call it bad, and say Game Freak should just stick to Pokemon. If they do neither, everyone's just going to sing "ding dong the witch is dead" and just forget about them. There's no where for them to go, they lose no matter what.

    Not certainly, but there's a chance. Pokemon has been going on for 23 years at this point, it started out as a seeming fad in the 90s and expanded into a media empire. But with such longevity comes lack of ideas and scraping the bottom of the barrel. Every generation Game Freak has to design new Pokemon, a new region, new characters, and a new battle mechanic; all on a tight schedule. Maybe, Game Freak just doesn't want to make Pokemon anymore. Maybe people like Masuda just want to retire and leave the company to a new younger generation. But people have harshly criticized this younger generation's work, so they may have no motivation to make games anymore. Maybe Masuda just wants to move on to new IPs, and leave Pokemon behind. It's kind of sad to think about, but that might be the truth.

    There's a chance, considering how toxic the Pokemon fandom as a whole have become, and I know I might sound like a conspiracy theorist when I say this but: physical harm might come to Game Freak and/or Masuda because of this debacle, and how toxic the fandom is at the moment. The Pokemon fandom has been on a toxic downward spiral, things are getting and can only get worse. Worse than the death threats that Game Freak and Masuda are getting on twitter, would be actually acting on those threats. I know it sounds unrealistic and like I'm a raving lunatic, but even though this whole National Dex thing has been blown out of proportion by the vocal minority, there will probably always be someone who takes it too far, and that person or group of people who take it too far could seriously injure, or possibly kill someone. I know I sound like a raving lunatic right now, and even I can admit I sound off my rocker. But, maybe Game Freak is in serious danger from those people who take it too far. Masuda deleted his personal twitter because of the relentless death threats and spam of #Bringbacknationaldex. You remember when he just wished somebody a happy marriage and his comments were flooded with National Dex spam. Remember when some one made a fake account just to make fake rape allegations about Masuda. Remember when things got worse when the games were leaked. Well things can only get worse at this point, and there may be no way to stop it. This fandom hive mind that is the national dexers just hear what they want to hear, propagate evidence that supports their theory, and just feeds their confirmation bias by listening to these biased youtubers, and biased twitter personalities. The same goes for the Pokepositivity side, but I think the national dexers are a lot worse. Because, the national dexers have the potential to do real physical harm to people.

    Those are just my thoughts, but what do you think? How would you answer these questions I put forth?
     
    No, Pokemon is not coming to an end. It's the highest-grossing media franchise in the world.

    I'd also point out that, despite the negative reception to SnS from some corners of the internet, Game Freak and The Pokemon Company don't actually give a damn about this. Why? Because the games are getting positive scores from games media and are selling obscene numbers of copies. Expecting the backlash to Dexit to have any significant impact on the franchise is like dropping a pebble into the ocean and expecting a tidal wave to rise up and flood the world. It's not going to happen. You MIGHT get a few ripples if you throw the pebble hard enough, to be sure, but there is absolutely no way, in any reality, any of this really matters to the state of the franchise. It's all about money and, again, highest grossing media franchise in the world. Yes, I know a large portion of that comes from merchandise, but Pokemon is a franchise, and the video games are a part of that franchise.

    The more interesting question - and the only one I personally would say is worth discussing - is whether Game Freak is in any danger. There is the implication, given the way they have been acting, that they are. Game Freak is a VERY small team to be handling what is essentially a AAA franchise at this point, and there is no doubt that they are feeling the strain of this. It is very clear with SnS that their priority was in creating Town - which had very meh reception - and their PR is, frankly, atrocious. Their PR is on the same sort of level as EA's, with the way that Dexit was addressed and ultimately ignored.

    The question of how long Game Freak can ride on their reputation to stay relevant and in control - or even in existence - is an interesting one. The sales of SnS may very well secure their position and relevancy, but at the same time, it depends on how big the ripples caused by the Dexit controversy are...they might not care about their image, but Nintendo may, because the low quality of Pokemon will compromise THEIR image, and Nintendo have always pushed the message that a delayed game is eventually good, and a rushed one is forever bad. If Game Freak HAVE to rush a game to meet a deadline, and can't do the job properly, the prospect that Nintendo and TPC will find someone who can is not entirely out of the question. It'll depend, I think, on long-term sales numbers, reception to future games with this Dexit controversy embedded in them, and a lot of other factors we won't be privy to because we're not insiders and this is speculation at best.

    But then, Game Freak have been making the exact same game with minor alterations for over twenty years now. There is also every possibility that SnS are just their "HD growing pains" that every developer had last console generation - anyone else remember Final Fantasy XIII? - and their next titles will improve upon things significantly. Even if they don't, if the games sell as well as SnS do, it probably won't even matter.
     
    Pokemon will not die until it isn't profitable anymore. End of story. Pokemon is the biggest franchise financially, it is literally going nowhere any time soon, not until it isn't making money anymore. Considering Sword/Shield sold well despite controversy, the franchise isn't going anywhere at all.
     
    I think OP is vastly overestimating how much influence the fans have over Game Freak. The games are continuing to sell well, and that's all that really matters. Pokemon is the biggest franchise in the world and the vocal minority is just that.

    While I'm no fan of SwSh, let's avoid blowing things way out of proportion. There have been people speculating about the end of the franchise after every controversial release. It's just a part of franchises this big.
     
    Heh, doubtful. Pokémon is the highest grossing franchise of all time. Pokémon will be here in 50 years more than likely and have realistic Pokémon androids or some similar bs. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. It's like the Simpsons, it's never going to die off. The franchise will just get stale and worse, but people will still buy it. So, that's all that matters.
     
    I see Pokemon as comparable to The Simpsons or Spongebob: though there will always be the vocal minority who hate on anything new or different that the series does*, it's still a mainstay of pop culture that rakes in big money. As long as it continues to be profitable, it's not going anywhere. Ah, the joys of commercialism. /sarcasm

    *Fun fact: Matt Groening created Comic Book Guy to satirize "fans" of the Simpsons who would go on message boards and criticize new episodes after they felt that the series was past its prime.
     
    icefang29 said:
    I see Pokemon as comparable to The Simpsons or Spongebob: though there will always be the vocal minority who hate on anything new or different that the series does*, it's still a mainstay of pop culture that rakes in big money. As long as it continues to be profitable, it's not going anywhere. Ah, the joys of commercialism. /sarcasm

    *Fun fact: Matt Groening created Comic Book Guy to satirize "fans" of the Simpsons who would go on message boards and criticize new episodes after they felt that the series was past its prime.
    Click to expand...


    This is what I was thinking as well. Pokémon is far too profitable to end. I see it going on for another 50 years or so.
     
    It doesn't make any sense for them to randomly stop a top franchise. It's no different than saying "Let's end Mario for no reason". The new Pokemon games are still selling fine. Regardless of opinions about quality, sales are what matter.
     
    the vocal minority got especially louder this year than previous years. that'd be about the only difference.

    for better or worse, Game Freak will stick with what works and what has been working for the past 20 years. i mean, there are many JRPGs that do certain aspects of what Pokemon does but better, but the thing that Pokemon does better than everything is the simple power of nostalgia and simplicity. people that have played pokemon for years and love the franchise for either the monsters themselves, breeding, or what-have-you will likely continue to purchase the games for years to come. quality of the games as a whole will always be debatable, and people will always argue about evil team this, plot that, and whatever else, but in the end it's really just "are these the pokemon games that im going to enjoy better than the last ones?" that really keep people buying at the end of the day. maybe they'll be right, maybe they'll be wrong, but regardless, that "what if" curiosity has people buying despite the formula barely changing in two decades.

    this is all to say that the franchise is doing fine and will be doing fine for years to come. despite what the internet would tell you, there's absolutely nothing to suggest that a multi-billion dollar franchise is going belly up overnight. in the absolute worst case scenario where Game Freak does make an objectively shitty game, it might hurt a bit of their bottom line, but otherwise, it's picking up the pieces and moving on to the next project.
     
    I know people were freaking out about how they cancelled the release party in Japan for the games, saying stuff like "oh wow even Game Freak knows these games will be crap" and then Japan turned around and lit up the freaking Tokyo Sky Tree in Pikachu colors for the anime debut soo..... I HIGHLY doubt it will be coming to an end anytime soon. There's also a lot of new stores and stuff, like the Ikebukuro Pokemon Go store plus the sweets store. Like people before me have said, as long as it's bringing in money, it's unlikely to end haha
     
    i'm too lazy to go grab a pic off google but pretend this post is a jpg of cash and that's all you need to hear from me
     
    Running a little low on ideas imo; maybe they do indeed redo some oldies like Black & D/P? I liked Black myself. Square Enix is notorious for releasing old gems on newer platforms. I think Freak & Nintendo may do the same.
     
    I am still staunchly of the opinion that Gen 4 is still too new and feels more than modern enough to not need a remake. Course, that won't stop them from probably doing it.

    And Gen 5...is already perfect? Literally what would you change :')
     
    Rainbow said:
    I am still staunchly of the opinion that Gen 4 is still too new and feels more than modern enough to not need a remake. Course, that won't stop them from probably doing it.

    And Gen 5...is already perfect? Literally what would you change :')
    Click to expand...
    Dream World would need a re-implementation, I suppose. :V And there would be things I'd change, tbh. B2W2 less so because it had a bunch of post-game and side content to do (Join Avenue! Entralink Missions! PWT!), but BW lacks in those aspects. The difficulty options B2W2 had could have been implemented way better too.

    But yeah, for me gen 4 and 5 were the golden years in terms of fun and amount of content Pokemon games offered.

    (As for the topic? Hahahaha.... no.)
     
    Time to explain the whole "Star Wars tragedy" thing.

    That had a very similar hype (or anti-hype) season to Sw/Sh.

    Let's review shall we:
    Hyped movie gets announced and people get hyped
    The movie gets into hot water
    The movie gets leaked, and that ruins everything.
    People begin the death knell of Star Wars.

    Sound familliar? Let's review Sw/Sh's hype (or anti-hype) period.

    Hyped games get announced.
    The games gets into hot water.
    The games get leaked, and that ruins everything.
    People begin the death knell of Pokemon.
     
    Okay, so? It's not like Pokemon hasn't had big controversies before. Think back to Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire, people were extremely upset about how you couldn't transfer Pokemon from the previous gens. Did the franchise end? No. Again, Pokemon isn't going anywhere. Stars Wars =/= Pokemon.
     
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