This article was originally published in UCG472, author Matthew
In the past two years, many super IPs or well-known manufacturers have been fired by fans. With the official announcement of deleting the old Pokémon on June 10, the developer of "Pokémon" Game Freak has also been angry and condemned by players. In a blink of an eye, almost three months have passed since the announcement, and many angry players have calmed down. The author also analyzed the public anger caused by Game Freak storm as an ordinary fan who was also very dissatisfied at the time.
fans were angry: Delete the old Pokémon
The news of the old Pokémon announced on June 10 is undoubtedly the fuse for Game Freak to be criticized by players this time. Although Game Freak has made many explanations, it obviously cannot satisfy players.
The founder of "Pokemon", Tajiri Tomo, originally, gave real feelings to the creatures named Pokemon in the game, so that when the dream delivery event was held in the elementary school hall, Tajiri Tomomo specially reminded "Don't say it's data" to make players think that Pokemon is a creature that lives in the game world.
Under this persistence, Tajiri Tomo even wanted to add the first-generation Pokémon and maps to the second-generation game. Because of the lack of budget for game capacity, it was finally , Iwata Satoshi , known as a genius programmer, who helped optimize the game code, and then stuffed the two maps and all Pokémons of the two games "Pokémon" into one game. This not only became a story of the collaboration between Game Freak and Nintendo , but also opened the inheritance setting for "Pokemon": in "Gold/Silver/Crystal", you can use the previous Pokemon from "Red/Green/Blue/Pikachu" to take risks with the newly trained Pokemon partners of this generation.
I still remember this feeling fresh. When I played the first generation of Pokémon, I had already passed the age of fantasy, but when I used the first generation of Pokémon to form a team with the new Pokémon in "Gold/Silver", even if the picture is simple, I still feel that the Pokémon inside exists alive.
If the four major elements of success in the first generation are collection, cultivation, communication, and battle, then the subsequent works will continue the monster-level software myth of "Pokemon" for more than 20 years to this day, and the inheritance will also make an indelible contribution. In the words of mobile game manufacturers that focus on consumer psychology, the viscosity setting is very successful. However, this super high viscosity setting was suddenly cancelled, and it was obviously difficult for players who have experienced the termination to accept it.
is used to transmit Pokémon from four generations to five generations, and to transmit in the form of mini-games.
In fact, as early as the third generation, the old players of "Pokemon" experienced termination. Because the huge transformation of the basic point number (effort value) algorithm of the third generation termination caused the inability to coexist between the old version of Pokemon and the new version of the system. Game Freak simply resolved the contradiction by termination. Fortunately, the first generation of Pokémon was only passed down for one generation, and the second generation players did not even have the concept of inheritance, so it did not have much impact. The most important thing is that in the third-generation Pokémon RPG works that can communicate with each other, including GBA and NGC, all the first three generations of Pokémon can be collected except for the Phantom Beast. At most, players will re-cultivate the Pokémon they like to use based on a new system.
Compared with this kind of dynasty due to systematic evolution, the generation marks that began in the sixth generation "X/Y" and the cancellation of the national picture book of the seventh generation are also considered another form of dynasty, but it only affects participation in official battle activities and does not affect the reunion of players and previous Pokémon partners.
The difference between "Sword/Shield" and "Shield" is that some old Pokémon data were directly deleted in the game, making it impossible for them to appear in "Sword/Shield"
fans were angry 2: If the picture does not keep up with the function
vertical comparison of the picture, "Sword/Shield" can obviously be called a new high in the series, but the picture of "Sword/Shield" has still been criticized by players, and it is even compared with the copycat "Shield" mobile game.
In fact, before the 3DS era, almost no players criticized Game Freak on the screen of "Pokemon". The day and night switching of "Gold/Silver", the reflection of "Gemstone" passing through the sky and clear river, the antique fragrance of "Heart/Silver", and the Pokemon movements of "Black/White" all left beautiful memories for players. However, since the 3DS era, the orthodox "Pokemon" has been troubled by frame count. "X/Y" is only obviously losing frames when opening naked 3D, and by "Day/Moon", ordinary multiplayer battles have already dropped frames. In addition to this picture comparison, Game Freak's technical strength has been collectively questioned by players.
The close-up of "Heart Gold/Soul Silver" when entering the Ring Tower impressed countless players
In fact, it is indeed unfair to use derivative as a copycat mobile game to compare "Pokemon Sword/Shield". From the perspective of game development, "Pokemon Sword/Shield" designs new monsters and new characters from scratch, maintaining the difficulty of level advancement, and the balance of many Pokemon battle abilities are all time-consuming and laborious; in contrast, copycat mobile games only need to use Pokemon's skin to make a popular system mobile game. Even so, it is somewhat unreasonable to compare the vegetation maps later, which are not as detailed as those in 2005's "Pokemon XD".
Of course, the picture often only changes after comparison. The experience may not be that big in the game. The players' dissatisfaction with the picture is actually the subsequent deletion of the old Pokémon. After all, "Pokémon", which started and grew on the handheld platform, did not rely on the picture to attract people, but one of the original attractive elements was cancelled, and using the excuse to ensure the quality of the new work as an excuse to delete the old Pokémon, players simply vent their dissatisfaction on the picture that has not been greatly improved.
fans were angry 3: The gear project with higher priority than Pokémon
When Game Freak deleted the old Pokémon, an interview in May also sparked the anger of fans. At that time, Game Freak said in an interview with the media that there were two teams within the company. The first development team was responsible for the "Gear Project", and the team members spent a longer time developing original works; the second team focused on "Pokemon", and as a game company, they would provide higher priority for the gear projects because they would develop more games and hope to make a new work that was as popular as "Pokemon" or even surpassed "Pokemon".
If it were in the past, fans would most likely wish Game Freak could make the same excellent work. First, it is indeed worth looking forward to creating equally excellent works by the developer of "Pokemon". Second, more projects can also give Game Freak more opportunities to display, and the money earned and the technology accumulated through multi-platform development will also feed back to "Pokemon". But the focus of this re-mentioned is on Game Freak's priority arrangement, combined with last year's "Pokemon Let'GO! 》's quality and the practice of "Pokemon Sword/Shield" to delete old Pokemon, it is obvious that Game Freak is not really short of people and money.
Game The original work "Town"
The first team of Freak is developing, which is undoubtedly affecting the original work that Game Freak wants to create beyond "Pokemon". After all, this company is not very famous besides "Pokemon" fans. Although from the perspective of Game Freak, it is understandable to create a brand new popular IP that belongs entirely to you as a game company, it is also reasonable to refuse other original works that put Pokémon in development difficulties from the perspective of "Pokémon" fans.
Game Freak
In the planning program to celebrate the 30-week establishment of Game Freak, development minister Shunichi Mamada emphasized in the program: "Pokemon" is a Game Freak development rather than Nintendo, and said that Game Freak should promote itself more. In fact, for the core fans of "Pokemon", the name Game Freak has long been very familiar, but it is not surprising that those who occasionally play or simply don't play "Pokemon" are unfamiliar with this name.
. Since its establishment 30 years ago, Game Freak has not been unable to promote itself, but has not made a second work that can be proven. For media targeting all players, it is definitely more obvious to say "Pokemon developer" than "Game Freak", including the title that the author wrote this push for all gamers as an old player in Pokemon. This is the case with manufacturers such as Nintendo, Square Enix, and Capcom. It is obviously not said to be "Malio developer", "Final Fantasy developer", and "Resident Evil developer".
Game Freak is not just a Pokémon. In the process of developing Pokémon, he made games such as "Yoshi's Egg" and "Malio VS Valio". Later, "Spiral Crusher" on GBA, "Rhythm Hunter" in 3DS, and "Bad Elephant Tampo" and "Gigabit Slayer" on multi-platforms, all of which are remarkable. However, in terms of performance, I am always a little sorry for the title "Pokémon Developer", especially the two games that have been launched on multiple platforms in recent years, which are not of good independent game level. However, for such games, "Bad Elephant Tampo" is the only platform that has not been launched on Nintendo. It is not difficult to see that after 2015, Game Freak still wants to prove his independent presence.
Except for the Nintendo console platform, there are other multi-platform games "Bad Elephant Tambo"
. It is a bit embarrassing to say that Game Freak is only well-known among the "Pokemon" players, and many of them believe that Game Freak should be a subsidiary or studio under Nintendo because of "Pokemon". In fact, Game Freak is a completely independent third-party game manufacturer. It is precisely because of this that the multi-platform games mentioned above, and its main connection with Nintendo is also "Pokemon".
"Pokemon" became the largest holder of the copyright because it was fully funded by Nintendo and has been invested for more than 5 years after the contract period. In addition, Creatures, which was established specifically for the development of "Pokemon", is responsible for all matters outside game development, and Game Freak, which develops the game, also owns other copyrights. Later, Pokémon Company was reorganized into an Pokémon company that specializes in managing Pokémon-related IP authorization and activities. While selling its shares, Nintendo also invested capital in the other two parties, especially Creatures, and continued to be the largest shareholder of Pokémon Company in the substantive sense through the superposition of direct and indirect holdings. Game Freak retains the right to develop the orthodox series - of course, this does not affect Game Freak's development of other games.
Although Game Freak's other game works were reported by the media without exception to replace the manufacturer's name with "Pokemon Developer", this kind of experience is already very good. You should know that countless independent games of the same level do not even have the opportunity to be reported by the media, and the manufacturers who made them have no representative works and are described as "XX game developers". Although the media is more interested in these game reports with the eye-catching effect of "Shock! The developer of "Pokemon" actually released a game on PS4!", at least they have the opportunity to show their faces because of their origin as "Produced by "Pokemon" developers".
In fact, Game Freak, which has the right to develop the orthodox series of "Pokemon" with 30% of all profits generated by the Pokemon IP, has always had high sales and popularity, whether it is a subsidiary of Nintendo, can make a lot of money in a low-key manner with its backing on Nintendo's big tree. But it can be seen whether it is Game Freak's multi-platform attack or its recent successive statements that they are not satisfied with this. At the moment when the highest decision-making power of the Pokémon IP is firmly controlled by Nintendo, Game Freak wants to get rid of his dependence on Nintendo and Pokémon and can only copy the success of Pokémon.
Game Is it possible for Freak to copy Pokémon's success?
People like to summarize the reasons in successful cases, even by chance, so as to find the rules to follow. There are quite a lot of analysis of the factors that have been successful in the game design of "Pokemon", so I won't go into details here. Here I will talk about what I personally think is the best time, place and people that could be successful at that time.
days was the manager of Game Freak's absolute decision-making power. He combined his childhood experience of catching insects and fishing in Japan at that time, and had the creativity of "Capsule Monster" (the predecessor of "Pokemon". This creativity is excellent enough to allow the work to break through the limitations of funds and technology, cause a sensation in GB and become a dark horse in the industry, and continue its monster-level software identity to this day. And creativity is obviously hard to come by.
is a good place, which means it blooms on the platform that best shows its charm. In turn, it fully displays the unique fun of the platform, and achieves each other and soars into the sky. This is the case with the GB handheld console and "Pokemon" in 1996. But on the current mature game platforms, it is obviously difficult to have the soil for such works to appear again. However, the VR field has been waiting for "Angry Birds belonging to VR", but Game Freak is not interested in VR.
The success of the first generation of Pokémon is not accidental. It is superimposed on the multiple factors of the right time, place and people.
people are divided into three aspects:
is first of all, and Hokawa Ishihara and Masichi Kubo can be called nobles in the games and animations of Pokémon. When the development of "Pokémon" fell into a quagmire, Hokawa Ishihara even resigned from his position as a senior APE and founded Creatures company to fully support the development of "Pokémon"; Masichi Kubo worked hard in the early stage of the release of "Pokémon", and struggling to overcome the controversy, and finally made the success of "Pokémon" break through the game field. These former nobles have been senior executives and important beneficiaries of Pokémon. There is no reason to bet on their career prospects again and follow Games Freak went for another time. In fact, new nobles are just like creativity, and they are hard to come by.
In addition to noble people, of course, it also requires the support of players. After Pokémon was released, elementary school students played such an interesting game on their own GB handheld, and through word of mouth, the game has formed a long-term sales. Now more than 20 years have passed, Pokémon has accumulated a huge fan base, but judging from the achievements of other Game Freak works, these players are not keen on their original games. After these players expressed dissatisfaction with the official statement that "the priority of original works is higher than that of Pokémon", it is even harder to expect these Pokémon players to contribute their main sales to other Game Freak's original games.
. In the premise that Game Freak lacks new Pokémon-level creativity, original works have been mediocre, and players who are not picky about the picture are not buying it, developing 3A masterpieces may be the only possibility for Game Freak to make a new breakthrough. However, the development cost of 3A masterpieces is obviously not comparable to those of its previous independent game-level works, so the investors they have to find will pay for.
Nintendo was able to let Game Freak delay the project for one year until 6 years and continue to inject funds, which means he is very optimistic about the future of Pokémon; and now, with the development ability shown by Game Freak, to try to challenge 3A masterpieces with the development ability currently shown, it also requires trusting their funders to continue to invest money. Continuing to find Nintendo can only deepen its dependence on Nintendo, but other major companies are not philanthropists, and games developed fully must also have the highest decision-making power - and all these premises are that Game Freak can develop 3A masterpieces. After analyzing
, it can be seen that Game Freak wants to make another game as popular as "Pokemon" and even surpass "Pokemon", which is quite difficult.
It is indeed a big project to put all Pokémon into new works.
Back to the most controversial cancellation of the national image book, the most controversial cancellation of Pokémon's national image book has reached 809 (including the added Melutan and Melutan Meta in "Pokémon Let' GO!". Adding a new Pokémon will probably cost about 900.For all so many Pokémons to be made into new works, the first thing to do is to be fully HD-up from the previous 3DS 480P screen to the NS 1080P screen, and also have wild forms and actions, and also add new moves and even characteristics to all old Pokémons. At the same time, it is necessary to balance all Pokémon based on these new moves and characteristics... These do not include the designs that are essential for new Pokémon, characters, stages, and plots. If you don't outsourcing, cooperate, or ask Nintendo for help, such projects will undoubtedly be a huge challenge to Game Freak, which originally lacks experience in developing high-definition console platforms.
In fact, this kind of character/monster-based game will attract players very much because of the addition of new characters/monsters. However, if you produce too many works, you will be criticized. Take Pokémon for example. Since the "Gem" version, the new Pokémon has been criticized for not being as pleasing as before. Fortunately, Game Freak's monster design is very serious. To date, each of them is unique in appearance and characteristics. Other characters/monster-based games have not been criticized by players, such as color change, skin change, and the same module, which are widely criticized by players. This is also an important reason why Pokémon can always maintain monster-level software.
The so-called divine rewards hard work. Although every generation has players’ dissatisfaction, and even the problem of frame drops has run through the two generations of "Pokemon" on the entire 3DS platform, the careful design of other aspects of the game and the continuous inheritance and experience of players have also allowed the game to continue to maintain high sales. The collapse of reputation caused by the deletion of Pokémon this time was probably beyond the official expectation, but no matter what the excuses were, it could not hide the fact that it was powerless. What's worse, it has been said before that the gear project has a higher priority, which is equivalent to a solid demonstration that it has not devoted itself to developing the new work of "Pokémon".
"Sword/Shield"'s new three-family
Game Freak has any solution to solve the problem?
From the perspective of the law of cause and effect, Game Freak's current difficulties are actually caused by itself: from time to time, it is proclaimed that it is independent of Nintendo, which makes it difficult for it to share technology and resources in Nintendo; it is not enterprising in development capabilities and technology, which makes it impossible for them to create other decent original works; it has a super IP without doing its best to do it well, and in the end even the players offend it. There are rumors that he is not sure about the authenticity of Nintendo's fear of intervening in the orthodox series, but Game Freak's second team is indeed facing the difficult challenges alone.
So does Game Freak solve the Pokémon solution for "Sword/Shield" full picture appraisal? There is really. From the perspective of Game Freak, if you do not seek help from Nintendo, and insist on priorities of gear projects internally, and do not expand personnel for the second team developing Pokémon, you can only extend the development cycle. Although the extended cycle of new works may lead to less money, ensuring quality is the long-term solution for the brand to gain a foothold. What's more, in the development with plenty of time, the second team can also more fully accumulate technology and lay the foundation for launching excellent new works at a higher frequency in the future.
even if the new game release plan has been announced and there is no time to make more old Pokémon, it can also be added in batches through subsequent updates (this can also solve the possible problem of exceeding the maximum capacity of NS cassettes). Even if the support for the old version of Pokémon is unlocked by paid DLC, most players will also scold and buy it while scolding. After all, DLC does not cost much, and many adult players also understand the value of paid DLC in the current environment where the investment in game development is getting higher and higher and the game price has never increased. Whether it is to extend the development cycle or to add subsequent updates, it is better than to simply and roughly delete Pokémon so much that it is better to attract the dissatisfaction of a large number of loyal fans.
Conclusion: Will I buy "Sword/Shield"?
I believe that many friends will ask: After you said so much, will it be "very good" in the end? I answered calmly: Yes. Because I am not happy, but as an old player who has entered the first game and started playing "Gold/Silver" at the first time, the 20-year habit has not been changed so easily, and from the trailer, there are many exciting and playable aspects of "Sword/Shield".Of course, in terms of expectations, it will be like "Pokemon Let'GO! 》 was not too high expectations, but he was lucky enough to hope that there would be surprises in the official game - of course, the surprise did not include the return of the old Pokémon.
Despite this, I really hope that the market can learn from Game Freak and become a modern and open game manufacturer: pay attention to the opinions and feelings of players, cooperate with other manufacturers externally, and adjust the priority internally. At least, don’t let the development projects of Pokémon level IP lack personnel. If you should recruit people, recruit people, and if you should accumulate technology, you should accumulate technology...
Of course, Game Freak’s arrangement is not something that I, as a player, can help you decide. I just hope that in the middle and late stages of the eighth generation Pokémon, the official can return the national picture book through information chapters, remakes and subsequent updates, so that those Pokémon friends who have accompanied players to take risks and grow together in their previous works can have a new home in the new NS version of the new work.
This article is excerpted from 72
