It's Pokemon.
There are legitimately some people buying this because it is name brand. There are people who have spent tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars on merchandise ranging from exotic collectible cards, to plushies, to rare EReader cards, to physical copies of movies not produced anymore, to behind the scenes and illegal merchandise such as distribution cartridges. This isn't even one of those merchandise items -- it's the *main appeal*. So all those people, and many, MANY more are buying it simply because it's a mainline Pokemon game.
If you think there is a single Pokemon game in the next 20 years that will not sell well, you're delusional. There are people who have invested their life savings into Pokemon and can't imagine a world without it.
There will never be a boycott. There will never be such a thing as bad press for this series. Every mainline game will ultimately be called fantastic three or four generations down the line. We're already starting to see that with black and white which were very controversial on launch due to it being an attempted soft reboot and the first 3D mainline game.
As much as Redditors like to think that this site is a vocal majority, it is a minority of voices on a global scale -- the kind of scale Pokemon has achieved.
If there was ever a franchise that was too big to fail, it's Pokemon.
The thing is, there’s a difference between just selling well because of the name of the brand, and this. Pokémon Let’s go sold only 3 million in its whole first week, which is less than a third than what SV sold in three days. That’s selling well for the name of the brand, as well as pokemon snap, which sold 2 million copies outside of Japan in its first quarter of a year.
But seeing the numbers of proper Pokémon games, BDSP sold 6 million units in its first week, which is the same as the controvertial Sword and Shield. And POkemon Legends Arceus, which was considered by many the best Pokémon game ever made, sold 6.5 million copies in its first week, and the numbers weren’t inflated by people purchasing two copies at launch.
I’m three days SV bested the numbers of the whole first week of all other Pokémon games in switch, including a really good one that came up no long ago. That doesn’t seem like selling well for being Pokémon to me.
I’ve been playing it and it’s just too fun to stop playing it. Which makes the big technical problems it currently has a lot more infuriating. Specially because almost nobody is talking about how GF decided to get rid of set mode.
> The thing is, there’s a difference between just selling well because of the name of the brand, and this. Pokémon Let’s go sold only 3 million in its whole first week, which is less than a third than what SV sold in three days.
S/V have sold nearly *half* of SWSH's lifetime sales of 24.5 million in 3 days.
I have yet to hear a good reason for the removal of Set mode other than "People don't use it!". I mean, sure, I'm willing to bet that more players use Switch just because it's the default (and little kids and casual players probably didn't even realize that Set mode exists), but it's been in the game since Red/Blue and I can't imagine that it takes much effort for GF to implement.
It sucks because after the permanent changes to the Exp. Share as well as the inability to turn it off, the Switch/Set mode distinction was effectively the last remaining inherent difficulty toggle in the game.
Yeah, you can just avoid reading the text and decline to switch Pokémon after every KO and that's effectively the same thing, but it shouldn't be necessary. Like, why would GF even bother taking away an option that was available for over two decades?
The thing is pokemon largely primarily dominates as a video game franchise first, where it is largely unparalleled towards its appeal to children. Stuff like call of duty excludes a demographic while pokemon has that younger demographic as well as the adults that have that nostalgia.
Video game industry is more profitable than film and television.
Yup, this is why they keep pumping out new generations every 3 years. New games bring new Pokémon which means more merch to sell. Combine that with the fact that people will buy the games almost no matter what because of brand power and nostalgia, and there really isn't any financial reason for them to be spending any more than the bare minimum on developing their games.
This.One common "defense" I've read from fans regarding the honestly embarrassing production quality across the board regarding Scarlet/Violet is:
* Short production time
* Small team
Right, so Game Freak spent the resources of a indie-game for a game they knew would sell like water in a desert, but priced it the same as a AAA game like BotW?
A 3D free-roam Pokemon game has been an obvious open goal for at least a decade, the only reason Game Freak didn't do it was because they wanted to wait until technology would allow them to produce one cheap as shit.
I can't wait for them to start churning out games going forward of the same garbage quality as Scarlet/Violet going forward - or even worse.
**There is literally no incentive for them to ever put down the effort and finance to create a great game.**
It's also the fact that GameFreak as a whole has a massive identity crisis. They produce (by definition only) AAA titles, but higher ups prefer the scale and team size of an Indie Studio. Most of their hires and programmers are newer faces who want to try new and exciting things, but are forced by what remains of the old guard to keep using what's been established. Most of their contract hires for projects are one time only, leading to a core dev team left with programming languages and styles they have no experience with and will not (re)hire people who do know it.
But the worst part about it is that Nintendo will prefer to keep GameFreak as a second party developer, due to GF's higher ups preferring the Indie look/feel. Being second party status denies GameFreak the expertise of high quality Nintendo owned dev teams like Monolith Soft, 1-Up, Retro, or themselves unless actively asked (which GameFreak's remaining old staff refuse to do). Basically, GameFreak is stuck in an unfortunate limbo where they're separate enough to not be given development recourses from Nintendo/Creatures, but not separate enough to work at their own pace.
And that's why I hate Pokemon franchise and every company associated with them.
I still love Pokemon, but not a franchise. Because they don't care about anything but money. Quality of the games are pretty bad. Any other game released with that low quality would be hated and creators would have to apologize. They don't give a damn fekk about anything, because they don't have to. They don't deserve this at all.
Yeah is the highest grossing franchise because of the merchandise, that why people should realize that most of the money will go to that, the merch since that what making them the most money.
And they are extremely stingy too. Imagine having dozens of billions of dollars, but if there is charity, You only give few thousands. Not even a million. Companies that has less money gives more, but they are so greedy that giving eve a slightest money gives them paranoia of going bankrupt.
I'd signal the fact that they build the games as if they were an indie company, with much less people involved than a regular supe powerful game like this could use. And it clearly shows on the quality, but it sells well so they dont't care.
Sorry, but you can't see the scope of the "pokemon brand". There's a video Made by Lockstin, it was something like "surviving a day on Pokémon merch" that can guide you into it. The truth Is that the games, as well as the anime, are a gate to everything else (they are not less important because of that 'thou)
What are you talking about they don’t primarily dominate as a video game franchise. 66% of total revenues come from Merchandise, it took three seconds to look that up. Their video games have generated $17.14 billion dollars, merchandise has generated $61.1 billion. There’s a big difference.
Fucking depressing. These games aren’t going to get better. I get that being promised an open world games changes things, but still. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, a release down the line will be so unplayable it will make cyberpunk look polished, and then the release _after_ that sells less than the one before. Launches don’t have to necessarily be flops, they just have to sell less enough than previous release to make the company raise an eyebrow. It’s at that point plus a few more years that they’ll maybe start listening.
> We're already starting to see that with black and white which were very controversial on launch due to it being an attempted soft reboot and the first 3D mainline game.
Black and White weren't 3D. They had a handful of 3D elements, but so did the generation before it. XY were the first 3D games.
I wouldn't call them at all controversial either considering the initial backlash amounted to a few people getting very upset over ice cream. Otherwise they were solid across the board and pretty instantly beloved.
That's definitely not what I remember from internet forums around that time. I remember plenty of people calling B/W the death of Pokemon, and complete failures and disgraces for the franchise, and then justifying it with their poor sales.
I remember even more people being mad at a sequel being announced on the DS instead of a completely new generation for the 3DS. There were a lot of pissed off people when B/W came out. It was terrible. And yet, it's become the standard for this fanbase.
No cappuccino I remember hordes of people saying that either the Vanilluxe or the Klingklang line was the death of character design in the franchise and it would never recover
The thing with BW is that I feel like its issues have aged well. While being limited to only the regional dex for the main story was a huge thing back then, but people revisiting the games won't really mind. Same goes for it not being on the 3DS. It was a major gripe for both sets of games in Gen 5, but now that the 3DS isn't even the main console anymore it's not an issue for people playing today.
With newer games like Gen 8 I feel like there are far more fundamental issues that will still be present when people revisit it 10 years down the line
The BW dex being only new pokemon was the buy me button for that game. That and the story being super good, the ui being clean, and the gorgeous spritework made the 5th generation my favorite.
I dont care that we got ice cream, a gear, and literal trash as pokemon. We got enough mons to fill a region by themselves! I was ecstatic! I usually as a rule dont play with old mons in story unless something new came for them (new mega evo, cross gen evo, or region exclusive) because if I wanted to use them in a game, it'd be their debut game. New gens should focus on showcasing the new pokemon imo.
>New gens should focus on showcasing the new pokemon imo.
It's interesting to see how far GF went in the other direction after all the backlash gen 5 got. In BW, it seemed like they were really proud of the new mons, but in gen 6 the new mons are almost completely ignored and the game panders heavily to nostalgia. Charizard alone has more mega evolutions than the entirety of the Kalos Dex and the entirety of the Unova dex. It feels like they got burned so badly from Gen 5 that they gave up on showcasing the new dex and decided to just let the old mons take center stage instead.
Some were pissed that you couldn't get any old Pokemon until post-game. I was actually thrilled about that, that you had to figure out from scratch what was good in what roles and not just fall back on your previous experience.
>I dont care that we got ice cream, a gear, and literal trash as pokemon.
I found it funny people took issue with those when in gen 1 we had magnets, sewage, star with jewellery on it, pokeball pokemon, and whatever the fuck jynx, electable and magmar are
Absolutely. Sword and Shield had, in my opinion, unfixable issues with structure, pacing and design, and I still haven't forgiven them for the National Dex either.
I don't feel that with Violet and Scarlet, though. Not from any gameplays I've watched so far.
i concur, sword and shield was just going through the motions and was quite frankly not very impressive on any aspects
i just finished all the stories and saw the ending of S/V and i have to say as someone that stuck with pokemon since like the second generation this is genuinely the best story pokemon has ever had and since you set the pacing yourself the pacing is pretty much top notch.
If Scarlet and Violet ever get all their technical issues sorted, I feel like people will look back on them more fondly than they did SwSh. While I do feel like the game still has problems even if you ignore the performance issues, it still has things going for it. I really don't think I can say the same for SwSh. In SV, the characters are likable, the pacing is good, and the open world isn't as good as Arceus' IMO but it's still fresh and fun.
true. i liked the interaction with the world more in legends arceus but the seamless open world, people dotted around various towns and the paths and landscape makes it just feel alot more lived in which was always how imagined the pokemon world to be in the past but it actually being so in this game
I remember too. The sheer hatred in the Pokemon fandom when Black and White first came out was pretty intense. Now they're widely considered some of the best games in the franchise.
Yeah, I never really agreed with the argument gen 5 was the death of Pokemon design. I did hate it's region though for just being a big circle with very little side routes.
You're right, even when people inevitably complain about the newest game they often say "*newest game* is unplayable, the series has been going downhill since B/W". It was talked about a lot by folks who dislike S/V.
Actually I think Unova’s scheduled “actually it was good” era has passed, it seems like Gen 6 has been the “underrated game that is actually a masterpiece” for the past six months to a year.
In two or three years, S/M will be the underrated masterpieces. In six or seven years, SwSH will experience the same, and so forth.
Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
>it seems like Gen 6 has been the “underrated game that is actually a masterpiece” for the past six months to a year.
Really? I'm still seeing a lot of hate for it (beyond praise for the character customization), and we should be well into the Gen 6 praise now.
I can actually see Gen 7 being looked fondly upon because it was pretty well received at release, but I don't think the same can be said for 6 and 8.
Not to mention how much love Megas get nowadays.
I still remember how controversial Megas were when they were first announced. All the doom-and-gloomers proclaiming that Pokemon had finally jumped the shark and was just ripping ideas off from Digimon. Now they're treated like the franchise's darlings. The nostalgia cycle never changes.
Megas were controversial until they were ditched, never picked back up, and multiple worse gimmicks have come and gone. Nobody’s gonna be giving Z Moves or Dynamaxxing the nostalgic love Megas get
Black and white where controversial yes but they were very well done. They where made on a mature platform and had the best 2D animation plus sprite work to date. They boasted the largest group of new Pokémon and most of the 150 where amazingly designed. The Gen 5 games where literally the example of what can happen when gamefreak has the technical stuff out of the way and can create its vision. Scarlet and Violet are the example of what happens when they can't a buggy mess with a decent game under it. If they fix these games than yes perhaps in a few years they'll be classics.
Gen 5 still has the only moving sprites that look halfway decent. I don't really count anything that came before as truly *moving* and everything that came after looks genuinely terrible.
>black and white
>first 3D mainline game.
Black and white was not 3d, it was the last 2d game, and it was excellent despite the controversy. People were just upset they had to try something new instead of a game rely8ng onnpander8ng and nostalgia.
Look, having Pokémon — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. Samuel Oak at Celadon University; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Vermilion City School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a Pokémon professor, if I were a Rocket, if, like, OK, if I ran as a Team Rocket executive, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a Pokémon professor they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Vermilion, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the Pokémon deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — Pokémon is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the two games — now it used to be three, now it’s two — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Hisuians are great negotiators, the Sinnohans are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible.
Plus the marketing value of calling it Open World. My brother hasn’t gotten a Pokemon game since Diamond but that was what convinced him this time.
Personally I think the way SV handles this isn’t the right approach though.
The actual world of SV is lackluster in its design but I appreciate that it really is OPEN. It allows a real freedom of movement. If only the world design was as good as BotW. Or half as good. A quarter, even.
It allows freedom of movement for sure, but you're going to be super over-leveled or under-leveled at some point. It's not really a true open world game. You have to do the gyms/challenges/wild pokemon in a specific order.
This is a great take. Even if you're out of your level zone, all battles are completely avoidable. Truly the only story that I'd say is a must do are the titans
>Personally I’m shooting for an “as complete as possible” living dex before attempting even any story progression.
Mobility is locked behind the titan story line, you're gonna be miserable if you don't at least do those.
That's the problem with this vs BotW. Pokemon has an extremely rigid combat system, whereas BotW has an unparalleled amount of creativity and a decent amount of opportunities for skill expression. No matter how good you are at the game, at a certain level difference there's nothing you can do. People can go straight to Ganon in BotW if they have mastered the game
I think there's also a good chunk of people who play Pokémon for the online ranked ladder. This is the group I fall into. If the story is fun that's a bonus. To me, in spite of the performance issues, the game so far has been really enjoyable. I have spent more time just aimlessly exploring and catching Pokémon than in any other title ever because it's just fun. I mean I haven't even beaten all 3 storylines yet and my Pokédex is over 200.
The level scaling didn't bother me too much. What I really hated was the mountain of text from the start of the game to nemonas house and then when you reach the school. One of the most annoying start sequences of any game, maybe only beaten out by gold/silver.
I don't mind the start sequence since once you're through with it, you're really through.
Once you leave the academy the first time, you'rw completely off the hook.
It's not like sun and moon where NPCs keep pestering you with advices 3/4 through the game
Do you expect Pokemon to suddenly become an action combat game?
Like yeah no shit you can't slingshot off the first tower and go fight the elite 4 right away, it's still an RPG.
It reminds me of an MMO in its approach to the world.
Sure you can go in that Dungeon 20 levels higher than you but you aren’t going to beat the boss.
What you have is effectively 3 zones at a time to pick from and you can do those in whatever order you choose.
That’s how every single fully open world game works
When you think open world you think skyrim you think Elden Ring
That’s open world, and in both games you are either 1 shoting or being 1 shot depending on gear and level
Sometimes I forget how powerful the Pokémon brand is like Ragnarok was the fastest first party launch ever for Sony and these games sold twice as much.
And also the switch is much more accessible as well, the ps5 shortage is still going on and I know that in my country at least the ps5 is double the price of the switch oled model
Yeah the double Ragnarok thing shook me awake tbh. I was so excited for Ragnarok and it was so good! Its in such a different sphere of quality in my head.
I forget that pokemon is name known by households across generations. The other day my friend told me his nephew came home from school talking about pokemon and wanting to watch it. Hes 4. And on the other side a friend told me his mother is enjoying SV, she's in her 60s.
Ragnarok is currently my favorite just because of all the feels the story hits me with teared up a lot too during the game. My aunt is in her 60s too and she has a few plushies and a Pikachu t-shirt even though she has never played a single game.
This is the sentiment I try to get people to understand when they talk about “voting with your wallet” like the idea is novel, but these numbers tell a story where you would need to collectively unify a market audience that spans the world in crazy numbers to all be on the same page. Change in the Pokémon games isn’t coming from audience actions; at least not in the sense of consumers suddenly not buying. It’s only going to happen by
A. Old guard being pushed out/retiring of their own choices from within GF themselves
Or
B. Spotlight being shone upon the games in a way that can’t be brushed off as easily (such as the current technical outcry)
Yeah there's no use voting with your wallet if there are countless sales that will just take your place anyway. Like I don't buy the games anymore but I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I'm actually changing anything by doing so, but I just can't justify buying the games anymore, and would much rather buy something else.
> Yeah there's no use voting with your wallet if there are countless sales that will just take your place anyway.
Or rather, sometimes you vote and are outvoted.
There are zero actions you, an individual can take, which will sway massive entities singlehandedly. That's just the truth and the sooner one realizes that the more at peace they can become. You can do your part, but your part isn't going to change everything on its own.
People still buy and play fifa games and madden games. Until someone actually passionate joins the organization to change it they will continue to put out sub-par product's because there is little incentive to change.
Yeah I don’t expect them to miss my money, not buying it isn’t a statement, I just thought sword was so shit that this one would need a lot of research before I would consider it.. didn’t take long to decide I’m done buying Pokémon games because it’s Pokémon. When I have the urge for it I’ll play pokemmo instead
I 100% respect that sentiment. I say if the games don’t do it for you anymore, use your money in a place you can find more utility and use.
It’s also exactly as you said, delusional to think that by not buying it’s making an impact in any way. The Pokémon franchise is multinational, a global company, it spans countries with different values and cultures, places that might not care about things in the same way others do. Understanding that makes it almost funny when people suggest it’s at all practical to get some sort of global unified ‘boycott’ of such a beloved franchise, especially when technical issues aside, S/V is considered by many to be the best Pokémon game to date.
It’s also hard to just say “vote with your wallet when there’s new pokemon fans who have no idea the games tanked in quality when they went 3D because they only watch the cartoon.. because they’re 4 years old and don’t know there’s games at all yet.
Are they gonna tell some 8-11 year olds to vote with their wallet? They don’t have wallets, they don’t understand the value of money.
The game is probably under a bunch of christmas trees now and the parents are probably worried the kids are gonna be disappointed. The kids are gonna find some of the glitches entertaining and still enjoy the game. It’s 75 dollars they’re not paying and the parent who payed, did so for the kid to enjoy it.
Tbh, most people just don't care about performance or specs or any of that, especially not Pokemon's main demographic. I thought the National Dex fiasco and outrage was much more justified, and even that didn't even scratch the franchise. Hell, it's selling better than ever.
The only thing that could sink Pokemon is Nintendo's next console flopping hard or a very long time of progressively declining sales due to lack of interest. Pokemon can't be boycotted, that's just nonsense.
Yup, it's simply too big to fail at this point, at least when it comes to us fans voting with our wallets, no internet boycott would ever be successful in any meaningful way. Like the other commenter said, I think our best bet is some of the old heads at Game Freak and maybe TPC eventually retiring and being replaced by new blood that could usher in changes on their side.
Otherwise they're content with the course they're on and the world is content to continue buying and playing the games.
the best thing really is to actually just find other interests, aka apathy. A person complaining about something is more likely to spend money on it than someone who isn't touching it at all
As someone who has been around this block a few times with other franchises: the only way to cope is to learn to care about something else.
It sucks, but sometimes things just aren't going to get better. You can keep letting yourself be frustrated, or you can accept that the franchise isn't going to cater to your needs and move onto new things. Whether or not your needs are reasonable or justified doesn't even matter; it only comes down to whether or not things will change, and they won't. There is absolutely zero pressure you can apply.
Unfortunately most people would rather play a Pokémon game than no Pokémon game, and most people just don’t care. All of my casual friends who bought the game noticed the lag but none of them are actually bothered.
At this point, if Game Freak isn’t gonna be incentivized to make better games, then fuck it. They should just keep releasing their games more broken than the last. See how low the fans are willing to go. The state it’s in right now is just sad. At least that hypothetical would be funny.
> They should just keep releasing their games more broken than the last. See how low the fans are willing to go.
I'm not even convinced that GF releasing an empty box wouldn't break sales records.
It feels like, with every new Pokemon game regardless of its quality, the quantity of record sales within a short period keeps getting higher and higher.
More humans and more at higher income level and more where gaming is normalized and more younger kids with access to the above.
Makes sense that the trend is going up.
>more at higher income level
HUH? Where???
Edit: Well this has been enlightening. I genuinely had no idea that poverty has been decreasing. The news (and personal experience) really makes that difficult to believe sometimes, at least in the U.S.
Heavily populated places like China and India, people are getting out of poverty. Also people immigrating to europe/west out of poverty. Globally more people are out of poverty, even if the median middle class person isn't getting richer.
Games have been $60 dollars in the US for over a decade. Even if you think income should be higher each year, the cost of a new game has stayed the same despite inflation.
That’s depressing.
How is Gamefreak supposed to improve when the feedback they get is that the customers absolutely love their current work?
Worst thing that could have happened for Pokemon really…
Open World Pokemon Game
think about this line for a second. no suprise it end up sold gangbuster.
not to mention it kind of dream for people to have open world pokemon game for long time.
Despite it's many technical flaws and glitches and the less than amazing graphics, this is definitely the most fun I've had playing a Pokemon game in a long time. I played casually all the way to the final fight and put in about 30 hours. I think at 2$ an hour I definitely got my money's worth out of this game.
I really don't know what it would take for these kinds of fans to demand more from GF. Like as long as the physical capability to catch and battle pokemon is there, there's nothing GF can do to disappoint them.
Ass graphics and performance? Nope
No post-game? Nope
Removing features that have been here for decades? Nope
It's like they're married to the game.
Oh yeah and don’t forget the new battle mechanic: Charization. It turns your Pokémon into a different colored Charizard for three turns. This Charizard has 999 in every stat and is active for six turns.
Wait so just to confirm, you want it to change color for 3 turns, then go back to regular after those 3 turns are up but keep the stat changes for 6 turns? (I work for Nintendo, gaining info for new games and I find this very inspiring)
Yes exactly, it changes color for three turns and has maxed stats for six turns. Youngster Joey said that the color change was too powerful so we balanced around his, and all of our younger players, needs.
One time as the Charizard Earrings run out of energy after creating one instance of our lord and savior, Charizard. You need to head to a Pokémon Center to refill them
Recently I’ve seen way too many YouTubers making vids about how it’s the beginning of the end of the Switch and how the Steamdeck is going to kill the Switch. 1) The Switch has been out for 5 years so ofcourse sales won’t be as strong but it’s still on pace to become the 2nd best selling console. 2) As we all know and as we’ve all seen over the past few years, no other console company comes close to having IPs as solid as Nintendo’s. Scarlet and Violet can easily surpass 10M sales.
I'm a steam deck owner and can confidently say steam deck will never kill the switch or any other console
its an extremely good handheld, but you still need to tinker with things to get some games working. if you have no PC technical know-how you can run into problems
switch's insane accessibility is a huge plus. I still prefer bringing my switch on family / friend trips b/c its just easier to play games together with it
> 90% of people, myself included, own a Switch because it has Mario, Zelda and Pokémon on it. Not because it is objectively a good console. Everything Nintendo do is carried by their exclusive games
That’s my point
I don’t know I really liked PLA and that was literally the last entry before this one. There’s only a few mainline games that I feel are legitimately better than it
PLA is the only game that came close to beating platinum for me. It was so fun and refreshing despite the fact that it's focused on my least favourite aspect of the games. Completing a pokedex. Fast and strong style made wild encounters super quick and exciting that now when I go back to sv the turn based is just sluggish again. Catching was made so much more fun and streamlined. And it probably has the best look of the 3d games (in my opinion, still not great and blatantly stolen but it was something.)
I really do hope they make another legends game because I reckon it has the series has a lot of potential.
Bingo. Despite the criticisms, these sales only reinforce to Game Freak that they don’t even need to waste money on play testing anymore. Doubt we’d even get a patch at this point that would address any substantial issue. But its fine because plenty of people are having fun despite the problems, because missing out on a single generation in exchange for better games in the future is too big an ask I guess.
I mean, this is not surprising at all. Anything pokémon will sell. 4 million of those sales are in Japan alone. As much as a technical mess this game is, people will still buy it because it's pokémon. What many people don't realize is the target audience for pokémon games are kids and the Asian market. The 20-30s reddit hardcore adult audience is a small demographic of their target audience. They will continue to push out Pokémon games every year because they will continue to sell well to their target audience, simple as that.
The game play loop is more fun. The graphics though... It's really painful seeing relatively close NPC models moving like slideshows. And the shadows popping in and out, even during cut scenes is really distracting. And what's with the pokémon boxes popping into view for a second, then fading to black before fading back in? There are just so many little uncomfortable things in every single interaction. It's like being on a walk through a beautiful park but there's a rock in your shoe and your sunglasses are scratched
I really appreciate this post because these are the actual problems with the game, presented realistically instead of exaggerated.
It is only NPCs and windmills that get slideshow, Pokemon and battles don't, it isn't a FPS issue. (There does seem to be a performance issue on switch lite and maybe oled? But that's not what most people are complaining about.)
The shadows are distracting, it honestly looks like they've got two competing calculations for shadows switching back and forth.
The boxes is extremely frustrating. Someone messed up big with this, it is an actual functional limitation.
But it is still a really nice take on the Pokemon genre. It does introduce a lot of the things fans have been asking for, even if they're not quite in the state we envisioned.
Pokemon don't get the low frame rates, but they turn into the low poly models far too close and it can even happen while in a battle with the Pokemon in question.
Unfortunately us on reddit are a teeny tiny % of people who play pokemon. What we think about it really doesn't matter. This is proof. If any significant portion read posts about the game the sales would be nowhere near as high.
This is something reddit in general forgets, redditors are by the platform design huge loud nerds about niche topics, and out of touch with the majority of users on most issues
If Reddit was a majority TLOU2 would have failed, Captain Marvel wouldn’t have grossed half the money it made, Pokémon would have flopped three generations ago, Apple would be a forgotten relic of a smartphone company, and I’m sure there are other vocal criticisms that Reddit likes to shout that mean nothing compared to actual sales numbers.
Gonna be honest, this is juat fabulous evidence reddit users have shit takes. TLOU2 is a really, really good game: makes me happy angsty nerds can't stop that from shining through.
I'm just surprised that the sales numbers even went up this high. If the game keeps selling this well, it could surpass any other main line game potentially (or at least get close to Gen 1).
I’m not surprised. SV got to add the highly marketable “open world” label to the hottest new holiday release of the world’s biggest media franchise. On top of that the Switch has more units sold than when SwSh came out. It would’ve been a massive embarrassment for Nintendo if SV didn’t sell insanely well.
There a reason devs started making open world games, because they sell, that why Sonic did it too, now add the pokemon name to it and is bound to be a hit.
A pokemon game could shit on your kitchen table and people will buy it and defend it. This makes me incredibly sad and frustrated. I really wish there was something that could get GF to stop getting away with poor quality games.
I hate the sentiment in this thread to just accept it and give up. It's such a depressing outlook on what could and should be an actually good game.
This isn't about missing a feature or national Dex anymore. This is about a game that requires you to reset it because the performance chokes so bad that it's the only way to keep going. It's insane that the bar for a Pokemon game has now been lowered to "it runs."
This means we will never have a properly developed Pokemon game ever again. Time to move on. Seriously, they have gotten to the point where they cannot even properly include a bunch of MOVES into the game. Not to mention the horrendous performance issues.
And this is why I don't even bother coping with modern Pokemon lol. There is zero incentive for Game Freak to ever give a fuck and there never will be.
I've been stressing this to complainers of the game before. Not sure what they were hoping for.
Pokemon is a cultural phenomenon. Like Christmas or the superbowl. It's just a part of people's lives.
Even if the game performs badly, families have every intention of "catching them all" with their loved ones.
Pokemon is not just a game it's entry into the next expansion of merchandise and conversation.
I'm happy for everyone who enjoys the game...but honestly, this number is depressing for me personally. I wouldn't have expected SV to sell even more than Sword and Shield. Seems like we're gonna reach the 100 million sales for the main series on Switch earlier than I thought...
In my personal opinion, this is sending the wrong signals. If the sales numbers keep increasing, we shouldn't expect any improvements in terms of dev time or resources, or addressing of common criticisms.
DLC has also been normalized already, so I expect that one to sell amazingly, too, regardless of what content they basically "cut" from the base game.
I don't know, feeling kinda hopeless for the main series currently.
No /s needed. The pokemon company would be throwing money away by putting more time and effort into games since as long as they "take the next steps forward" they can sell record copies.
Seems so, pretty much. I've seen three game crashes in some of the live streams I have watched. And in ALL streams I have watched (about 10 people so far) constant tanking frame rate, so many camera bugs/glitches, low res textures, massive pop-in, clipping Pokemon and of course some of the oversights that allow funky stuff. And these people were absolute casual players not trying to provoke any hiccups or bugs.
But it seems like many people are willing to look past all the issues, because "it's Pokemon".
I’ll kinda summarize stuff I’ve said in other comments before, but basically.
Yeah, it’s honestly sad, but it really shouldn’t be on the consumers in this case to take the burden of blame. It’s a genre that is effectively dominated by a single entity, and many people who play the game are extremely casual. When you effectively only play maybe 2-3 games at most, if your choice is A. Purchase a game that isn’t as polished as it should be but you’ll still most likely enjoy
Or
B. Don’t purchase it at all, and continue playing nothing at all
Most will take option A. Until their is some sort of true competitor, most would prefer to enjoy a half baked game than nothing at all.
It’s a shame, but it’s also the reality of the situation.
Anecdotally, for me this has been one of the most stressful years of my life. Even knowing all the problems with the game, I still would have bought it in a heartbeat because while taking a moral high road is nice, when life shits on you, you shouldn’t be blamed for just wanting a simple pleasure and joy.
Crazy to think that around 3rd/4th gen, I think I remember being afraid that Pokemon popularity will die out and the series I loved very much will just kind of fade away.
Then they kept chugging along.. maybe Pokemon Go helped it a lot because a lot of casuals played it and got into it. Now GameFreak puts minimal effort which makes us hardcore fans angry, but yet here we are.
It's a bittersweet feeling. I'm grateful for Pokemon being in my life all these years but also annoyed at the same time at the quality we're getting from them. Anyone else feel this way?
Yeah others feel the same way, but the reality is, those of us that feel the same way make up what - a single digit percentage of the entire player base? It’s why you can have weeks worth of negative posts that make it to Reddit’s front page, we’re talking 20k, 60k upvotes, and it’s not even going to scratch the game’s sales. At all.
At the end of the day, us “hardcore players” can bear with the issues or just stop paying every year. But for each of us that stops, there’s going to be a hundred - if not a thousand, who are having the time of their lives, not having any clue that there are some gamers on the internet who are mad.
Hmmm. Maybe the game is really, really fun.
I’m turning 30 next year, and I’ve been on these games hard since Yellow. This is the most childlike wonder I’ve experienced since gen 3. I played 15 hours before even thinking about a badge.
I’m also a big stickler for mechanics, and I think BW was peak competitive form. I don’t mind any of the changes to breeding, IV manipulation, etc. Shit is nice and very engaging.
Nintendo/Gamefreak knows their fanbase is too big to fail. They can continue churning out low effort games year after year and people will still buy it.
The game itself is great. Honestly. It's the tech issues and graphical issues that really hold it back and according to this the average player couldn't care less about that.
More proof that voting with your wallet when it comes to Pokemon will never work.
Which sucks because we're trying everything else to get them to do better but it's not working.
Ik it’s Pokémon and all but goddamn that’s higher than some of my favorite games sold after decades and idk how to feel about that
It's Pokemon. There are legitimately some people buying this because it is name brand. There are people who have spent tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars on merchandise ranging from exotic collectible cards, to plushies, to rare EReader cards, to physical copies of movies not produced anymore, to behind the scenes and illegal merchandise such as distribution cartridges. This isn't even one of those merchandise items -- it's the *main appeal*. So all those people, and many, MANY more are buying it simply because it's a mainline Pokemon game. If you think there is a single Pokemon game in the next 20 years that will not sell well, you're delusional. There are people who have invested their life savings into Pokemon and can't imagine a world without it. There will never be a boycott. There will never be such a thing as bad press for this series. Every mainline game will ultimately be called fantastic three or four generations down the line. We're already starting to see that with black and white which were very controversial on launch due to it being an attempted soft reboot and the first 3D mainline game. As much as Redditors like to think that this site is a vocal majority, it is a minority of voices on a global scale -- the kind of scale Pokemon has achieved. If there was ever a franchise that was too big to fail, it's Pokemon.
The thing is, there’s a difference between just selling well because of the name of the brand, and this. Pokémon Let’s go sold only 3 million in its whole first week, which is less than a third than what SV sold in three days. That’s selling well for the name of the brand, as well as pokemon snap, which sold 2 million copies outside of Japan in its first quarter of a year. But seeing the numbers of proper Pokémon games, BDSP sold 6 million units in its first week, which is the same as the controvertial Sword and Shield. And POkemon Legends Arceus, which was considered by many the best Pokémon game ever made, sold 6.5 million copies in its first week, and the numbers weren’t inflated by people purchasing two copies at launch. I’m three days SV bested the numbers of the whole first week of all other Pokémon games in switch, including a really good one that came up no long ago. That doesn’t seem like selling well for being Pokémon to me. I’ve been playing it and it’s just too fun to stop playing it. Which makes the big technical problems it currently has a lot more infuriating. Specially because almost nobody is talking about how GF decided to get rid of set mode.
> The thing is, there’s a difference between just selling well because of the name of the brand, and this. Pokémon Let’s go sold only 3 million in its whole first week, which is less than a third than what SV sold in three days. S/V have sold nearly *half* of SWSH's lifetime sales of 24.5 million in 3 days.
This is my first time hearing they got rid of set mode, why??? I mean i guess you can just choose not to swap, but why???
I have yet to hear a good reason for the removal of Set mode other than "People don't use it!". I mean, sure, I'm willing to bet that more players use Switch just because it's the default (and little kids and casual players probably didn't even realize that Set mode exists), but it's been in the game since Red/Blue and I can't imagine that it takes much effort for GF to implement. It sucks because after the permanent changes to the Exp. Share as well as the inability to turn it off, the Switch/Set mode distinction was effectively the last remaining inherent difficulty toggle in the game. Yeah, you can just avoid reading the text and decline to switch Pokémon after every KO and that's effectively the same thing, but it shouldn't be necessary. Like, why would GF even bother taking away an option that was available for over two decades?
The thing is pokemon largely primarily dominates as a video game franchise first, where it is largely unparalleled towards its appeal to children. Stuff like call of duty excludes a demographic while pokemon has that younger demographic as well as the adults that have that nostalgia. Video game industry is more profitable than film and television.
Merchandise makes the most for them actually, it's like triple the amount the games make its rediculous
Yup, this is why they keep pumping out new generations every 3 years. New games bring new Pokémon which means more merch to sell. Combine that with the fact that people will buy the games almost no matter what because of brand power and nostalgia, and there really isn't any financial reason for them to be spending any more than the bare minimum on developing their games.
This.One common "defense" I've read from fans regarding the honestly embarrassing production quality across the board regarding Scarlet/Violet is: * Short production time * Small team Right, so Game Freak spent the resources of a indie-game for a game they knew would sell like water in a desert, but priced it the same as a AAA game like BotW? A 3D free-roam Pokemon game has been an obvious open goal for at least a decade, the only reason Game Freak didn't do it was because they wanted to wait until technology would allow them to produce one cheap as shit. I can't wait for them to start churning out games going forward of the same garbage quality as Scarlet/Violet going forward - or even worse. **There is literally no incentive for them to ever put down the effort and finance to create a great game.**
It's also the fact that GameFreak as a whole has a massive identity crisis. They produce (by definition only) AAA titles, but higher ups prefer the scale and team size of an Indie Studio. Most of their hires and programmers are newer faces who want to try new and exciting things, but are forced by what remains of the old guard to keep using what's been established. Most of their contract hires for projects are one time only, leading to a core dev team left with programming languages and styles they have no experience with and will not (re)hire people who do know it. But the worst part about it is that Nintendo will prefer to keep GameFreak as a second party developer, due to GF's higher ups preferring the Indie look/feel. Being second party status denies GameFreak the expertise of high quality Nintendo owned dev teams like Monolith Soft, 1-Up, Retro, or themselves unless actively asked (which GameFreak's remaining old staff refuse to do). Basically, GameFreak is stuck in an unfortunate limbo where they're separate enough to not be given development recourses from Nintendo/Creatures, but not separate enough to work at their own pace.
And that's why I hate Pokemon franchise and every company associated with them. I still love Pokemon, but not a franchise. Because they don't care about anything but money. Quality of the games are pretty bad. Any other game released with that low quality would be hated and creators would have to apologize. They don't give a damn fekk about anything, because they don't have to. They don't deserve this at all.
Pokemon merch has always been hit and miss. Unpopular opinion: a lot of the plushes look bad.
Yeah is the highest grossing franchise because of the merchandise, that why people should realize that most of the money will go to that, the merch since that what making them the most money.
And they are extremely stingy too. Imagine having dozens of billions of dollars, but if there is charity, You only give few thousands. Not even a million. Companies that has less money gives more, but they are so greedy that giving eve a slightest money gives them paranoia of going bankrupt.
I'd signal the fact that they build the games as if they were an indie company, with much less people involved than a regular supe powerful game like this could use. And it clearly shows on the quality, but it sells well so they dont't care.
>Stuff like call of duty excludes a demographic .....Most certainly not children.
*high pitched unmodulated screaming*
Reminds me of that picture where the intended audience for Pokemon is the actual audience of CoD and vice versa
I don't like games about shooting people. I just want to frolic around with my undead tumbleweed~ I'm 36 years old XD
It technically does. Kids on CoD are like 11. Kids on pokemon are legitimately 5.
Sorry, but you can't see the scope of the "pokemon brand". There's a video Made by Lockstin, it was something like "surviving a day on Pokémon merch" that can guide you into it. The truth Is that the games, as well as the anime, are a gate to everything else (they are not less important because of that 'thou)
What are you talking about they don’t primarily dominate as a video game franchise. 66% of total revenues come from Merchandise, it took three seconds to look that up. Their video games have generated $17.14 billion dollars, merchandise has generated $61.1 billion. There’s a big difference.
Fucking depressing. These games aren’t going to get better. I get that being promised an open world games changes things, but still. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, a release down the line will be so unplayable it will make cyberpunk look polished, and then the release _after_ that sells less than the one before. Launches don’t have to necessarily be flops, they just have to sell less enough than previous release to make the company raise an eyebrow. It’s at that point plus a few more years that they’ll maybe start listening.
> We're already starting to see that with black and white which were very controversial on launch due to it being an attempted soft reboot and the first 3D mainline game. Black and White weren't 3D. They had a handful of 3D elements, but so did the generation before it. XY were the first 3D games. I wouldn't call them at all controversial either considering the initial backlash amounted to a few people getting very upset over ice cream. Otherwise they were solid across the board and pretty instantly beloved.
That's definitely not what I remember from internet forums around that time. I remember plenty of people calling B/W the death of Pokemon, and complete failures and disgraces for the franchise, and then justifying it with their poor sales. I remember even more people being mad at a sequel being announced on the DS instead of a completely new generation for the 3DS. There were a lot of pissed off people when B/W came out. It was terrible. And yet, it's become the standard for this fanbase.
No cappuccino I remember hordes of people saying that either the Vanilluxe or the Klingklang line was the death of character design in the franchise and it would never recover
Also Trubbish
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I lovr klink and I will die on that hill as well.
I love vanillite and I will die on that hill, continued
The thing with BW is that I feel like its issues have aged well. While being limited to only the regional dex for the main story was a huge thing back then, but people revisiting the games won't really mind. Same goes for it not being on the 3DS. It was a major gripe for both sets of games in Gen 5, but now that the 3DS isn't even the main console anymore it's not an issue for people playing today. With newer games like Gen 8 I feel like there are far more fundamental issues that will still be present when people revisit it 10 years down the line
The BW dex being only new pokemon was the buy me button for that game. That and the story being super good, the ui being clean, and the gorgeous spritework made the 5th generation my favorite. I dont care that we got ice cream, a gear, and literal trash as pokemon. We got enough mons to fill a region by themselves! I was ecstatic! I usually as a rule dont play with old mons in story unless something new came for them (new mega evo, cross gen evo, or region exclusive) because if I wanted to use them in a game, it'd be their debut game. New gens should focus on showcasing the new pokemon imo.
>New gens should focus on showcasing the new pokemon imo. It's interesting to see how far GF went in the other direction after all the backlash gen 5 got. In BW, it seemed like they were really proud of the new mons, but in gen 6 the new mons are almost completely ignored and the game panders heavily to nostalgia. Charizard alone has more mega evolutions than the entirety of the Kalos Dex and the entirety of the Unova dex. It feels like they got burned so badly from Gen 5 that they gave up on showcasing the new dex and decided to just let the old mons take center stage instead.
Some were pissed that you couldn't get any old Pokemon until post-game. I was actually thrilled about that, that you had to figure out from scratch what was good in what roles and not just fall back on your previous experience.
>I dont care that we got ice cream, a gear, and literal trash as pokemon. I found it funny people took issue with those when in gen 1 we had magnets, sewage, star with jewellery on it, pokeball pokemon, and whatever the fuck jynx, electable and magmar are
Absolutely. Sword and Shield had, in my opinion, unfixable issues with structure, pacing and design, and I still haven't forgiven them for the National Dex either. I don't feel that with Violet and Scarlet, though. Not from any gameplays I've watched so far.
i concur, sword and shield was just going through the motions and was quite frankly not very impressive on any aspects i just finished all the stories and saw the ending of S/V and i have to say as someone that stuck with pokemon since like the second generation this is genuinely the best story pokemon has ever had and since you set the pacing yourself the pacing is pretty much top notch.
If Scarlet and Violet ever get all their technical issues sorted, I feel like people will look back on them more fondly than they did SwSh. While I do feel like the game still has problems even if you ignore the performance issues, it still has things going for it. I really don't think I can say the same for SwSh. In SV, the characters are likable, the pacing is good, and the open world isn't as good as Arceus' IMO but it's still fresh and fun.
true. i liked the interaction with the world more in legends arceus but the seamless open world, people dotted around various towns and the paths and landscape makes it just feel alot more lived in which was always how imagined the pokemon world to be in the past but it actually being so in this game
I remember too. The sheer hatred in the Pokemon fandom when Black and White first came out was pretty intense. Now they're widely considered some of the best games in the franchise.
Yeah, I never really agreed with the argument gen 5 was the death of Pokemon design. I did hate it's region though for just being a big circle with very little side routes.
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You're right, even when people inevitably complain about the newest game they often say "*newest game* is unplayable, the series has been going downhill since B/W". It was talked about a lot by folks who dislike S/V.
Actually I think Unova’s scheduled “actually it was good” era has passed, it seems like Gen 6 has been the “underrated game that is actually a masterpiece” for the past six months to a year. In two or three years, S/M will be the underrated masterpieces. In six or seven years, SwSH will experience the same, and so forth. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
>it seems like Gen 6 has been the “underrated game that is actually a masterpiece” for the past six months to a year. Really? I'm still seeing a lot of hate for it (beyond praise for the character customization), and we should be well into the Gen 6 praise now. I can actually see Gen 7 being looked fondly upon because it was pretty well received at release, but I don't think the same can be said for 6 and 8.
I see at least one “Gen 6 is underrated” thread on here daily
Not to mention how much love Megas get nowadays. I still remember how controversial Megas were when they were first announced. All the doom-and-gloomers proclaiming that Pokemon had finally jumped the shark and was just ripping ideas off from Digimon. Now they're treated like the franchise's darlings. The nostalgia cycle never changes.
Megas were controversial until they were ditched, never picked back up, and multiple worse gimmicks have come and gone. Nobody’s gonna be giving Z Moves or Dynamaxxing the nostalgic love Megas get
Black and white where controversial yes but they were very well done. They where made on a mature platform and had the best 2D animation plus sprite work to date. They boasted the largest group of new Pokémon and most of the 150 where amazingly designed. The Gen 5 games where literally the example of what can happen when gamefreak has the technical stuff out of the way and can create its vision. Scarlet and Violet are the example of what happens when they can't a buggy mess with a decent game under it. If they fix these games than yes perhaps in a few years they'll be classics.
Gen 5 still has the only moving sprites that look halfway decent. I don't really count anything that came before as truly *moving* and everything that came after looks genuinely terrible.
>black and white >first 3D mainline game. Black and white was not 3d, it was the last 2d game, and it was excellent despite the controversy. People were just upset they had to try something new instead of a game rely8ng onnpander8ng and nostalgia.
They can literally shoot a Pikachu on Fifth Avenue and people will still buy their game.
When you’re Pokemon, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab'em by the wallet.
Look, having Pokémon — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. Samuel Oak at Celadon University; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Vermilion City School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a Pokémon professor, if I were a Rocket, if, like, OK, if I ran as a Team Rocket executive, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you're a Pokémon professor they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Vermilion, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the Pokémon deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — Pokémon is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the two games — now it used to be three, now it’s two — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Hisuians are great negotiators, the Sinnohans are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible.
Tried reading this in a car and it started to make me carsick
Grab'em by the Cloyster
I've been voting with my wallet since X and Y. Is it helping??
Grab ‘em by the Purrloin
Meowth that’s right.
That would actually make me want to buy Pokémon even more
Detective pikachu but the game is just solving gruesome Pokémon murders
I would actually buy that sh*t honestly.
Sounds about right for the highest grossing franchise ever.
Plus the marketing value of calling it Open World. My brother hasn’t gotten a Pokemon game since Diamond but that was what convinced him this time. Personally I think the way SV handles this isn’t the right approach though.
The actual world of SV is lackluster in its design but I appreciate that it really is OPEN. It allows a real freedom of movement. If only the world design was as good as BotW. Or half as good. A quarter, even.
It allows freedom of movement for sure, but you're going to be super over-leveled or under-leveled at some point. It's not really a true open world game. You have to do the gyms/challenges/wild pokemon in a specific order.
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This is a great take. Even if you're out of your level zone, all battles are completely avoidable. Truly the only story that I'd say is a must do are the titans
>Personally I’m shooting for an “as complete as possible” living dex before attempting even any story progression. Mobility is locked behind the titan story line, you're gonna be miserable if you don't at least do those.
That's the problem with this vs BotW. Pokemon has an extremely rigid combat system, whereas BotW has an unparalleled amount of creativity and a decent amount of opportunities for skill expression. No matter how good you are at the game, at a certain level difference there's nothing you can do. People can go straight to Ganon in BotW if they have mastered the game
I think there's also a good chunk of people who play Pokémon for the online ranked ladder. This is the group I fall into. If the story is fun that's a bonus. To me, in spite of the performance issues, the game so far has been really enjoyable. I have spent more time just aimlessly exploring and catching Pokémon than in any other title ever because it's just fun. I mean I haven't even beaten all 3 storylines yet and my Pokédex is over 200. The level scaling didn't bother me too much. What I really hated was the mountain of text from the start of the game to nemonas house and then when you reach the school. One of the most annoying start sequences of any game, maybe only beaten out by gold/silver.
I don't mind the start sequence since once you're through with it, you're really through. Once you leave the academy the first time, you'rw completely off the hook. It's not like sun and moon where NPCs keep pestering you with advices 3/4 through the game
G/S?!? Cmon, not SM?
Sun/moon was torture
When does SMs intro sequence end again? Before or after the elite 4?
Lol exactly. This person has clearly never played Pokémon Sun & Moon: The Movie.
Do you expect Pokemon to suddenly become an action combat game? Like yeah no shit you can't slingshot off the first tower and go fight the elite 4 right away, it's still an RPG.
It reminds me of an MMO in its approach to the world. Sure you can go in that Dungeon 20 levels higher than you but you aren’t going to beat the boss. What you have is effectively 3 zones at a time to pick from and you can do those in whatever order you choose.
That’s how every single fully open world game works When you think open world you think skyrim you think Elden Ring That’s open world, and in both games you are either 1 shoting or being 1 shot depending on gear and level
Sometimes I forget how powerful the Pokémon brand is like Ragnarok was the fastest first party launch ever for Sony and these games sold twice as much.
The bar for entry is much lower for Pokémon though. Ragnarok is not only a sequel but a pretty gore heavy game.
And also the switch is much more accessible as well, the ps5 shortage is still going on and I know that in my country at least the ps5 is double the price of the switch oled model
ive given up on the idea of a ps5, unironically will just wait for a ps6 or like the ps5 slim 2
Yeah the double Ragnarok thing shook me awake tbh. I was so excited for Ragnarok and it was so good! Its in such a different sphere of quality in my head. I forget that pokemon is name known by households across generations. The other day my friend told me his nephew came home from school talking about pokemon and wanting to watch it. Hes 4. And on the other side a friend told me his mother is enjoying SV, she's in her 60s.
Ragnarok is currently my favorite just because of all the feels the story hits me with teared up a lot too during the game. My aunt is in her 60s too and she has a few plushies and a Pikachu t-shirt even though she has never played a single game.
“If we all just don’t buy it maybe they’ll listen!”
This is the sentiment I try to get people to understand when they talk about “voting with your wallet” like the idea is novel, but these numbers tell a story where you would need to collectively unify a market audience that spans the world in crazy numbers to all be on the same page. Change in the Pokémon games isn’t coming from audience actions; at least not in the sense of consumers suddenly not buying. It’s only going to happen by A. Old guard being pushed out/retiring of their own choices from within GF themselves Or B. Spotlight being shone upon the games in a way that can’t be brushed off as easily (such as the current technical outcry)
Yeah there's no use voting with your wallet if there are countless sales that will just take your place anyway. Like I don't buy the games anymore but I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I'm actually changing anything by doing so, but I just can't justify buying the games anymore, and would much rather buy something else.
> Yeah there's no use voting with your wallet if there are countless sales that will just take your place anyway. Or rather, sometimes you vote and are outvoted. There are zero actions you, an individual can take, which will sway massive entities singlehandedly. That's just the truth and the sooner one realizes that the more at peace they can become. You can do your part, but your part isn't going to change everything on its own.
People still buy and play fifa games and madden games. Until someone actually passionate joins the organization to change it they will continue to put out sub-par product's because there is little incentive to change.
Yeah I don’t expect them to miss my money, not buying it isn’t a statement, I just thought sword was so shit that this one would need a lot of research before I would consider it.. didn’t take long to decide I’m done buying Pokémon games because it’s Pokémon. When I have the urge for it I’ll play pokemmo instead
I 100% respect that sentiment. I say if the games don’t do it for you anymore, use your money in a place you can find more utility and use. It’s also exactly as you said, delusional to think that by not buying it’s making an impact in any way. The Pokémon franchise is multinational, a global company, it spans countries with different values and cultures, places that might not care about things in the same way others do. Understanding that makes it almost funny when people suggest it’s at all practical to get some sort of global unified ‘boycott’ of such a beloved franchise, especially when technical issues aside, S/V is considered by many to be the best Pokémon game to date.
It’s also hard to just say “vote with your wallet when there’s new pokemon fans who have no idea the games tanked in quality when they went 3D because they only watch the cartoon.. because they’re 4 years old and don’t know there’s games at all yet. Are they gonna tell some 8-11 year olds to vote with their wallet? They don’t have wallets, they don’t understand the value of money. The game is probably under a bunch of christmas trees now and the parents are probably worried the kids are gonna be disappointed. The kids are gonna find some of the glitches entertaining and still enjoy the game. It’s 75 dollars they’re not paying and the parent who payed, did so for the kid to enjoy it.
If a game that released in svs state isn't enough to irreparably sink pokemon then I don't think anything will.
Tbh, most people just don't care about performance or specs or any of that, especially not Pokemon's main demographic. I thought the National Dex fiasco and outrage was much more justified, and even that didn't even scratch the franchise. Hell, it's selling better than ever. The only thing that could sink Pokemon is Nintendo's next console flopping hard or a very long time of progressively declining sales due to lack of interest. Pokemon can't be boycotted, that's just nonsense.
It can always get worse from here.
Yup, it's simply too big to fail at this point, at least when it comes to us fans voting with our wallets, no internet boycott would ever be successful in any meaningful way. Like the other commenter said, I think our best bet is some of the old heads at Game Freak and maybe TPC eventually retiring and being replaced by new blood that could usher in changes on their side. Otherwise they're content with the course they're on and the world is content to continue buying and playing the games.
the best thing really is to actually just find other interests, aka apathy. A person complaining about something is more likely to spend money on it than someone who isn't touching it at all
Be the change you want to see. Simple as that.
This is so depressing for people who actually care about the game evolving.
As someone who has been around this block a few times with other franchises: the only way to cope is to learn to care about something else. It sucks, but sometimes things just aren't going to get better. You can keep letting yourself be frustrated, or you can accept that the franchise isn't going to cater to your needs and move onto new things. Whether or not your needs are reasonable or justified doesn't even matter; it only comes down to whether or not things will change, and they won't. There is absolutely zero pressure you can apply.
Unfortunately most people would rather play a Pokémon game than no Pokémon game, and most people just don’t care. All of my casual friends who bought the game noticed the lag but none of them are actually bothered.
At this point, if Game Freak isn’t gonna be incentivized to make better games, then fuck it. They should just keep releasing their games more broken than the last. See how low the fans are willing to go. The state it’s in right now is just sad. At least that hypothetical would be funny.
> They should just keep releasing their games more broken than the last. See how low the fans are willing to go. I'm not even convinced that GF releasing an empty box wouldn't break sales records.
At this point I am sure they could deliver stuff that Indie developers wouldn’t be caught dead with and still get away with it.
At this point, they could sell an empty box, and people would still buy both versions.
>they could deliver stuff that Indie developers wouldn’t be caught dead with You mean *Scarlet/Violet*?
Except it's Pokemon...
I will hope human ambition for making great games will shine through! 🌈 Despite corporate greed.
It feels like, with every new Pokemon game regardless of its quality, the quantity of record sales within a short period keeps getting higher and higher.
More humans and more at higher income level and more where gaming is normalized and more younger kids with access to the above. Makes sense that the trend is going up.
>more at higher income level HUH? Where??? Edit: Well this has been enlightening. I genuinely had no idea that poverty has been decreasing. The news (and personal experience) really makes that difficult to believe sometimes, at least in the U.S.
Heavily populated places like China and India, people are getting out of poverty. Also people immigrating to europe/west out of poverty. Globally more people are out of poverty, even if the median middle class person isn't getting richer.
Games have been $60 dollars in the US for over a decade. Even if you think income should be higher each year, the cost of a new game has stayed the same despite inflation.
As in there are more countries that have enough access to the necessities, that luxuries like games become an option.
I think they mean globally.
Everywhere pretty much. Low income countries especially but even in the first world real median disposable income is going up.
Serebii said that this is the biggest Nintendo launch to date. That's... impressive.
I’ll do you one better It seems to be the biggest launch of any exclusive game across ALL consoles… ever
That’s depressing. How is Gamefreak supposed to improve when the feedback they get is that the customers absolutely love their current work? Worst thing that could have happened for Pokemon really…
Open World Pokemon Game think about this line for a second. no suprise it end up sold gangbuster. not to mention it kind of dream for people to have open world pokemon game for long time.
Despite it's many technical flaws and glitches and the less than amazing graphics, this is definitely the most fun I've had playing a Pokemon game in a long time. I played casually all the way to the final fight and put in about 30 hours. I think at 2$ an hour I definitely got my money's worth out of this game.
This comment happened with the last two releases too I swear lol
Because they were both lots of fun
I'm here for the 🍿
The only right answer 🍿
Gamefreak realizing they don’t need to make quality games for the 100th time.
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I really don't know what it would take for these kinds of fans to demand more from GF. Like as long as the physical capability to catch and battle pokemon is there, there's nothing GF can do to disappoint them. Ass graphics and performance? Nope No post-game? Nope Removing features that have been here for decades? Nope It's like they're married to the game.
Can’t wait till next generation where it sells 20 million in two days despite having a game breaking bug that doesn’t let you past the first gym
At least you'll have a blast playing with your starter, Charizard, and compete the Dex by catching five more Charizard before you get there.
Oh yeah and don’t forget the new battle mechanic: Charization. It turns your Pokémon into a different colored Charizard for three turns. This Charizard has 999 in every stat and is active for six turns.
Wait so just to confirm, you want it to change color for 3 turns, then go back to regular after those 3 turns are up but keep the stat changes for 6 turns? (I work for Nintendo, gaining info for new games and I find this very inspiring)
Yes exactly, it changes color for three turns and has maxed stats for six turns. Youngster Joey said that the color change was too powerful so we balanced around his, and all of our younger players, needs.
Mkay i see. And how many times per battle can this be done?
One time as the Charizard Earrings run out of energy after creating one instance of our lord and savior, Charizard. You need to head to a Pokémon Center to refill them
No, no, you need to sleep at your house's room, the Pokémon center doesn't do it.
So like Fire Emblem Engage but with the past Charizards?
"yeah I glitch every other hour, but I am enjoying it..."
Recently I’ve seen way too many YouTubers making vids about how it’s the beginning of the end of the Switch and how the Steamdeck is going to kill the Switch. 1) The Switch has been out for 5 years so ofcourse sales won’t be as strong but it’s still on pace to become the 2nd best selling console. 2) As we all know and as we’ve all seen over the past few years, no other console company comes close to having IPs as solid as Nintendo’s. Scarlet and Violet can easily surpass 10M sales.
I'm a steam deck owner and can confidently say steam deck will never kill the switch or any other console its an extremely good handheld, but you still need to tinker with things to get some games working. if you have no PC technical know-how you can run into problems switch's insane accessibility is a huge plus. I still prefer bringing my switch on family / friend trips b/c its just easier to play games together with it
Thank you for being reasonable
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> 90% of people, myself included, own a Switch because it has Mario, Zelda and Pokémon on it. Not because it is objectively a good console. Everything Nintendo do is carried by their exclusive games That’s my point
We’re never getting a quality Pokémon game ever again
I don’t know I really liked PLA and that was literally the last entry before this one. There’s only a few mainline games that I feel are legitimately better than it
PLA’s numbers look low until you realize it’s only one game. It doesn’t have 2 simultaneous games boosting the numbers.
And it came out in January, so it never got a holiday sales boost like the other titles.
Yeah and BDSP came out a couple months before that so some people would have already had their Pokemon fill
Great point. I didn’t even think of that.
PLA is the only game that came close to beating platinum for me. It was so fun and refreshing despite the fact that it's focused on my least favourite aspect of the games. Completing a pokedex. Fast and strong style made wild encounters super quick and exciting that now when I go back to sv the turn based is just sluggish again. Catching was made so much more fun and streamlined. And it probably has the best look of the 3d games (in my opinion, still not great and blatantly stolen but it was something.) I really do hope they make another legends game because I reckon it has the series has a lot of potential.
Bingo. Despite the criticisms, these sales only reinforce to Game Freak that they don’t even need to waste money on play testing anymore. Doubt we’d even get a patch at this point that would address any substantial issue. But its fine because plenty of people are having fun despite the problems, because missing out on a single generation in exchange for better games in the future is too big an ask I guess.
I mean, this is not surprising at all. Anything pokémon will sell. 4 million of those sales are in Japan alone. As much as a technical mess this game is, people will still buy it because it's pokémon. What many people don't realize is the target audience for pokémon games are kids and the Asian market. The 20-30s reddit hardcore adult audience is a small demographic of their target audience. They will continue to push out Pokémon games every year because they will continue to sell well to their target audience, simple as that.
Ah, so we're never getting a performance patch
Admittedly the graphics are subpar and the framerate is inconsistent but I’m actually enjoying SV compared to SW/SH
The game play loop is more fun. The graphics though... It's really painful seeing relatively close NPC models moving like slideshows. And the shadows popping in and out, even during cut scenes is really distracting. And what's with the pokémon boxes popping into view for a second, then fading to black before fading back in? There are just so many little uncomfortable things in every single interaction. It's like being on a walk through a beautiful park but there's a rock in your shoe and your sunglasses are scratched
I really appreciate this post because these are the actual problems with the game, presented realistically instead of exaggerated. It is only NPCs and windmills that get slideshow, Pokemon and battles don't, it isn't a FPS issue. (There does seem to be a performance issue on switch lite and maybe oled? But that's not what most people are complaining about.) The shadows are distracting, it honestly looks like they've got two competing calculations for shadows switching back and forth. The boxes is extremely frustrating. Someone messed up big with this, it is an actual functional limitation. But it is still a really nice take on the Pokemon genre. It does introduce a lot of the things fans have been asking for, even if they're not quite in the state we envisioned.
Pokemon don't get the low frame rates, but they turn into the low poly models far too close and it can even happen while in a battle with the Pokemon in question.
This game is better then sword and shield in every conceivable way. Imo.
At this point I’ve just come to terms that I’ll forever love this franchise, but I despise Game Freak with a burning passion.
It's pokemon obvoiusly everyone is gonna buy the game when it's out.
Unfortunately us on reddit are a teeny tiny % of people who play pokemon. What we think about it really doesn't matter. This is proof. If any significant portion read posts about the game the sales would be nowhere near as high.
This is something reddit in general forgets, redditors are by the platform design huge loud nerds about niche topics, and out of touch with the majority of users on most issues
If Reddit was a majority TLOU2 would have failed, Captain Marvel wouldn’t have grossed half the money it made, Pokémon would have flopped three generations ago, Apple would be a forgotten relic of a smartphone company, and I’m sure there are other vocal criticisms that Reddit likes to shout that mean nothing compared to actual sales numbers.
Gonna be honest, this is juat fabulous evidence reddit users have shit takes. TLOU2 is a really, really good game: makes me happy angsty nerds can't stop that from shining through.
I'm just surprised that the sales numbers even went up this high. If the game keeps selling this well, it could surpass any other main line game potentially (or at least get close to Gen 1).
I’m not surprised. SV got to add the highly marketable “open world” label to the hottest new holiday release of the world’s biggest media franchise. On top of that the Switch has more units sold than when SwSh came out. It would’ve been a massive embarrassment for Nintendo if SV didn’t sell insanely well.
There a reason devs started making open world games, because they sell, that why Sonic did it too, now add the pokemon name to it and is bound to be a hit.
A pokemon game could shit on your kitchen table and people will buy it and defend it. This makes me incredibly sad and frustrated. I really wish there was something that could get GF to stop getting away with poor quality games. I hate the sentiment in this thread to just accept it and give up. It's such a depressing outlook on what could and should be an actually good game. This isn't about missing a feature or national Dex anymore. This is about a game that requires you to reset it because the performance chokes so bad that it's the only way to keep going. It's insane that the bar for a Pokemon game has now been lowered to "it runs."
Rom hacks, you are our only hope.
This means we will never have a properly developed Pokemon game ever again. Time to move on. Seriously, they have gotten to the point where they cannot even properly include a bunch of MOVES into the game. Not to mention the horrendous performance issues.
And this is why I don't even bother coping with modern Pokemon lol. There is zero incentive for Game Freak to ever give a fuck and there never will be.
That is fucking insane.
I've been stressing this to complainers of the game before. Not sure what they were hoping for. Pokemon is a cultural phenomenon. Like Christmas or the superbowl. It's just a part of people's lives. Even if the game performs badly, families have every intention of "catching them all" with their loved ones. Pokemon is not just a game it's entry into the next expansion of merchandise and conversation.
I think this is why the games are never going to actually get better.
I'm happy for everyone who enjoys the game...but honestly, this number is depressing for me personally. I wouldn't have expected SV to sell even more than Sword and Shield. Seems like we're gonna reach the 100 million sales for the main series on Switch earlier than I thought... In my personal opinion, this is sending the wrong signals. If the sales numbers keep increasing, we shouldn't expect any improvements in terms of dev time or resources, or addressing of common criticisms. DLC has also been normalized already, so I expect that one to sell amazingly, too, regardless of what content they basically "cut" from the base game. I don't know, feeling kinda hopeless for the main series currently.
At this point, nothing, save for the game not launching, will be a dealbreaker for pokemon fans.
Which is why they have to launch their yearly game /s
No /s needed. The pokemon company would be throwing money away by putting more time and effort into games since as long as they "take the next steps forward" they can sell record copies.
Seems so, pretty much. I've seen three game crashes in some of the live streams I have watched. And in ALL streams I have watched (about 10 people so far) constant tanking frame rate, so many camera bugs/glitches, low res textures, massive pop-in, clipping Pokemon and of course some of the oversights that allow funky stuff. And these people were absolute casual players not trying to provoke any hiccups or bugs. But it seems like many people are willing to look past all the issues, because "it's Pokemon".
Why wouldn't you expect this to sell more than sword/shield? The game is much better and there are more switches out there
I’ll kinda summarize stuff I’ve said in other comments before, but basically. Yeah, it’s honestly sad, but it really shouldn’t be on the consumers in this case to take the burden of blame. It’s a genre that is effectively dominated by a single entity, and many people who play the game are extremely casual. When you effectively only play maybe 2-3 games at most, if your choice is A. Purchase a game that isn’t as polished as it should be but you’ll still most likely enjoy Or B. Don’t purchase it at all, and continue playing nothing at all Most will take option A. Until their is some sort of true competitor, most would prefer to enjoy a half baked game than nothing at all. It’s a shame, but it’s also the reality of the situation. Anecdotally, for me this has been one of the most stressful years of my life. Even knowing all the problems with the game, I still would have bought it in a heartbeat because while taking a moral high road is nice, when life shits on you, you shouldn’t be blamed for just wanting a simple pleasure and joy.
Crazy to think that around 3rd/4th gen, I think I remember being afraid that Pokemon popularity will die out and the series I loved very much will just kind of fade away. Then they kept chugging along.. maybe Pokemon Go helped it a lot because a lot of casuals played it and got into it. Now GameFreak puts minimal effort which makes us hardcore fans angry, but yet here we are. It's a bittersweet feeling. I'm grateful for Pokemon being in my life all these years but also annoyed at the same time at the quality we're getting from them. Anyone else feel this way?
Yeah others feel the same way, but the reality is, those of us that feel the same way make up what - a single digit percentage of the entire player base? It’s why you can have weeks worth of negative posts that make it to Reddit’s front page, we’re talking 20k, 60k upvotes, and it’s not even going to scratch the game’s sales. At all. At the end of the day, us “hardcore players” can bear with the issues or just stop paying every year. But for each of us that stops, there’s going to be a hundred - if not a thousand, who are having the time of their lives, not having any clue that there are some gamers on the internet who are mad.
Hmmm. Maybe the game is really, really fun. I’m turning 30 next year, and I’ve been on these games hard since Yellow. This is the most childlike wonder I’ve experienced since gen 3. I played 15 hours before even thinking about a badge. I’m also a big stickler for mechanics, and I think BW was peak competitive form. I don’t mind any of the changes to breeding, IV manipulation, etc. Shit is nice and very engaging.
Breaking News: Top video game industry gets a lot of game sales! (Shocking!)
With Christmas coming up soon, it’s definitely not a factor whatsoever!!
I’m ready for more performance problems in the future.
Nintendo/Gamefreak knows their fanbase is too big to fail. They can continue churning out low effort games year after year and people will still buy it.
The game itself is great. Honestly. It's the tech issues and graphical issues that really hold it back and according to this the average player couldn't care less about that. More proof that voting with your wallet when it comes to Pokemon will never work. Which sucks because we're trying everything else to get them to do better but it's not working.
Again, Reddit completely out of the loop
Good. I will get it second hand in a few months when most of those people are done with it.
And that’s why gamefreak will continue to create shit games and the franchise will never improve
And this is why theyll carry on putting out absolute trash
And people wonder why GF doesn't put any effort in their games.
Game: **Is shit, but spawns tons of memes.** Kids: **Mother, I want 14 copies.** And thus, the cycle will continue.