"A Message for Pokémon Video Game Fans" - by Junichi Masuda (It's Nothing) [See Staff Post for Discussion Guidelines]

[Hercule]

I'm kinda done with the pokemon community. Everything game freak does get some sort of free pass.

If they were EA we would have a completely different discussion right now. On Twitter people are getting more and more hostile. For every # being posted there is sure to be someone to post "stop being entitled" and that is when someone is being nice.

Nothing is ever going to change. The best games or movies are the result of companies trying to improve their first attempt after fan feedback.

S&S are still going to sell extremely well and people are fine with them regardless anything GF does

 

[Fj0823]

Chill for a moment.
No matter how future proofed you make something, you will always have to redo or retouch some things.
In this case, the models were not made with the intentions of being super sized, so they surely had to retouch the models, textures, and re rigged all of them.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, some things.

Not every single thing.

Imagine paying for years on a structure that is supposed to be used for years to hold several kinds of events. Your employees guarantee that the structure will be able to be used for years to come, sure, you´ll need to adjust a few things here and there to accomodate some of the events. But then your employees come out and tell you that the structure is no good, that they have to take it all down, and build a new one that looks exactly the same, but it won't be able to hold the same number of people as before, just half. And they will charge you more for it this time!

If that's not incompetence...I don't know what is.

 

[Noppie]

I'm kinda done with the pokemon community. Everything game freak does get some sort of free pass.

If they were EA we would have a completely different discussion right now. On Twitter people are getting more and more hostile. For every # being posted there is sure to be someone to post "stop being entitled" and that is when someone is being nice.

Nothing is ever going to change. The best games or movies are the result of companies trying to improve their first attempt after fan feedback.

S&S are still going to sell extremely well and people are fine with them regardless anything GF does

Click to shrink...

This is hilariously shortsighted. No, not everything game freak does get some sort of free pass. Just take a look around on basically every social media. Shit is getting criticized hard. Yes, there's a portion of blind fanpeople who will defend them. So what, let them. If they don't care, you really shouldn't be bothered about them not caring.

Yes, the games will sell well. When a major portion of your player base is kids who don't give a rats ass about a national dex (let alone the parents buying these games for their kids), your games will sell well. It's as simple as that.

 

[Serebii]

Chill for a moment.
No matter how future proofed you make something, you will always have to redo or retouch some things.
In this case, the models were not made with the intentions of being super sized, so they surely had to retouch the models, textures, and re rigged all of them.

Click to shrink...

And probably the shift from ARM architecture to the Switch one probably had a factor in.

One pet peeve of mine is people who don't have knowledge of the subject matter attacking developers for development.

Yeah, some things.

Not every single thing.

Imagine paying for years on a structure that is supposed to be used for years to hold several kinds of events. Your employees guarantee that the structure will be able to be used for years to come, sure, you´ll need to adjust a few things here and there to accomodate some of the events. But then your employees come out and tell you that the structure is no good, that they have to take it all down, and build a new one that looks exactly the same, but it won't be able to hold the same number of people as before, just half. And they will charge you more for it this time!

If that's not incompetence...I don't know what is.

Click to shrink...

And that's probably why the models are the same. They converted, which still took time, rather than manually built every animation and model

 

[Apa504]

Yeah, some things.

Not every single thing.

Imagine paying for years on a structure that is supposed to be used for years to hold several kinds of events. Your employees guarantee that the structure will be able to be used for years to come, sure, you´ll need to adjust a few things here on there to accomodate some of the events, but then your employees come out and tell you that the structure is no good, that they have to take it all down, and build a new one that looks exactly the same, but it won't be able to hold the same number of people as before, just half.

If that's not incompetence.. I don't know what is.

Click to shrink...

Terrible analogy, but lets take the premise.
In this case, every single element of the game is a building.
Every model, every textures, every line ofcode, story, skybox, moves, items, engine etc.
You are building a lot of srtuctures who need to interact with each of these, and when one fails, everithing else fails, so you go to that one structure failing and you repair it.
Repeat this whole process for every structure and you en up with a lot of failings that you need to repair.
Like I said, not incompetence, just the realities of game development.

 

[Fj0823]

And also, let' say they had to do EVERYTHING from scracth. They got zero, zilch, nada.

Let's pretend they just had the Switch dev kit there, a dev kit for the console that can create stuff like Breath of the Wild.

They literally had nothing, and instead of taking it as an oportunity to expand Pokémon in a new direction and maybe deliver a fresh new experience that utilizes the full power of the Switch.

They redid everything to look barely any different from the 3DS games.

I´m still waiting for the part where I'm supossed to be in awe of these masters.

If this was a Sony/MS game, it would be eaten alive for giving those excuses.

 

[Moltres006]

Terrible analogy, but lets take the premise.
In this case, every single element of the game is a building.
Every model, every textures, every line ofcode, story, skybox, moves, items, engine etc.
You are building a lot of srtuctures who need to interact with each of these, and when one fails, everithing else fails, so you go to that one structure failing and you repair it.
Repeat this whole process for every structure and you en up with a lot of failings that you need to repair.
Like I said, not incompetence, just the realities of game development.

Click to shrink...

But we can at least agree that they shouldn't be working on another project if they were struggling to get all the pokemon into the games.

 

[Moltres006]

And also, llet's they had to do EVERYTHING from scracth. They got zero, zilch, nada.

Let's pretend they just had the Switch dev kit there, a dev kit for the console that can create stuff like Breath of the Wild.

They literally had nothing, and instead of taking it as an oportunity to expand Pokémon in a new direction and maybe deliver a fresh new experience that utilizes the full power of the Switch.

They redid everything to look barely any different from the 3DS games.

I´m still waiting for the part where I'm supossed to be in awe of these masters.

If this was a Sony/MS game, it would be eaten alive for giving those excuses.

Click to shrink...

Nintendo wouldn't let a game release in this state. Look at what happened with Metroid Prime 4.

 

[Apa504]

And probably the shift from ARM architecture to the Switch one probably had a factor in.

One pet peeve of mine is people who don't have knowledge of the subject matter attacking developers for development.

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Oh yeah, forgot the change in arquitecture too, every little thing could screw up everything.
And yes, its frustrating how every one knows how game development works and suddenly you are a lazy, incompetent, greedy developer.

 

[Fj0823]

Nintendo wouldn't let a game release in this state. Look at what happened with Metroid Prime 4.

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In what state? With a new spin to the franchise? Maybe less Pokemon but cooler visuals and environments?

What I'm saying is, choosing to just redo the same instead of taking the fact that they couldn't do anything with the old models as an oportunity to try something new is just mediocrity at it's finest.

Oh yeah, forgot the change in arquitecture too, every little thing could screw up everything.
And yes, its frustrating how every one knows how game development works and suddenly you are a lazy, incompetent, greedy developer.

Click to shrink...

I can't wait to see you defending EA whenever they pull a move like this.

 

[Psittacus]

I've had a lot of issues with Gamefreak since Gen 6 as well and I've routinely seen a lot of criticism from folks like you about Gens 6 and 7 (and I've agreed with a lot of it but I still bought and played Gens 6 and 7). However, this Pokedex decision is the straw that broke the camel's back for me (and for a lot more people as well)

Click to shrink...

The last 3 generations have seen a rapid decline in my engagement too. XY was the most I've been into a Generation since Gen 2

Gen 6: 100s of hours battling, training, breeding
Gen 7: Got to the entrance to the Battle Tree and put it down forever
Gen 8: Will probably buy it used

 

[Apa504]

But we can at least agree that they shouldn't be working on another project if they were struggling to get all the pokemon into the games.

Click to shrink...

Joe already said that those people were not gonna work on Pokemon no matter what, and with this in mind you cant just take people who have never worked on something and expect them to do the work, sometimes it even could slow down the process..

 

[Moltres006]

In what state? With a new spin to the franchise? Maybe less Pokemon but cooler visuals and environments?

What I'm saying is, choosing to just redo the same instead of taking the fact that they couldn't do anything with the old models as an oportunity to try something new is just mediocrity at it's finest.



I can't wait to see you defending EA whenever they pull a move like this.

Click to shrink...

Redo the models and animations once and then use them over and over again. It work well for Dynasty Warriors back in the PS3/360 era.

 

[Apa504]

I can't wait to see you defending EA whenever they pull a move like this.

Click to shrink...

If it comes to development I will be there, defending them.
Also arent you gonna respond to my other comment, after all, you seem like a very talented game developer

 

[Fj0823]

If it comes to development I will be there, defending them.
Also arent you gonna respond to my other comment, after all, you seem like a very talented game developer

Click to shrink...

All you did was take a simple analogy and overcomplicate it to fit your argument.

The gist of it is, they did a lot of work and put us through terrible performance for literally nothing.

Bravo!

 

[Deleted member 38573]

And also, let' say they had to do EVERYTHING from scracth. They got zero, zilch, nada.

Let's pretend they just had the Switch dev kit there, a dev kit for the console that can create stuff like Breath of the Wild.

They literally had nothing, and instead of taking it as an oportunity to expand Pokémon in a new direction and maybe deliver a fresh new experience that utilizes the full power of the Switch.

They redid everything to look barely any different from the 3DS games.

I´m still waiting for the part where I'm supossed to be in awe of these masters.

If this was a Sony/MS game, it would be eaten alive for giving those excuses.

Click to shrink...

Watch them try and convince you that S&S is a massive upgrade from the 3DS games lmao

 

[Apa504]

All you did was take a simple analogy and overcomplicate it to fit your argument.

The gist of it is, they did a lot of work and put us through terrible performance for literally nothing.

Bravo!

Click to shrink...

Well yeah, game development is very, very difficult.
And no, it wasnt for nothing, without those models, the games could have even less Pokemon than what we will be getting.

 

[Serebii]

All you did was take a simple analogy and overcomplicate it to fit your argument.

The gist of it is, they did a lot of work and put us through terrible performance for literally nothing.

Bravo!

Click to shrink...

Not for nothing. I don't think they built every model right from the beginning, but they needed to do a lot of work to bring it onto Switch and this would mean every animation needs rerigging, testing etc. all over again.

 

[Deleted member 52755]

Oh yeah, forgot the change in arquitecture too, every little thing could screw up everything.
And yes, its frustrating how every one knows how game development works and suddenly you are a lazy, incompetent, greedy developer.

Click to shrink...

Well if they redid everything from scratch they are definitely not lazy.

 

[RocknRola]

The logical conclusion about this mess is that GF is clearly understaffed to be able to handle multiple large HD projects at once.

Especially when one of those can't afford to be delayed for various external reasons.

They should look into making their teams larger or find a good external partner to help them do the work (outsourcing in short, which is fairly common these days).

 

[Apa504]

Well if they redid everything from scratch they are definitely not lazy.

Click to shrink...

And even if they didnt, they wouldnt be lazy.

 

[Apa504]

The logical conclusion about this mess is that GF is clearly understaffed to be able to handle multiple large HD projects at once.

Especially when one of those can't afford to be delayed for various external reasons.

They should look into making their teams larger or find a good external partner to help them do the work (outsourcing in short, which is fairly common these days).

Click to shrink...

They already do that.

 

[Serebii]

The logical conclusion about this mess is that GF is clearly understaffed to be able to handle multiple large HD projects at once.

Especially when one of those can't afford to be delayed for various external reasons.

They should look into making their teams larger or find a good external partner to help them do the work (outsourcing in short, which is fairly common these days).

Click to shrink...

Again, they outsource.

Despite Game Freak having less than 143 staff, did you know over 500 people worked on Sun & Moon? Remove localisation and it's still over 400. Remove testing and it's still over 350. Plus there are companies listed in credits as just companies with who knows how many from that company working on it.

Game Freak's staff member also doesn't include freelancers, interns and others, just those contracted into the company

Creatures Inc. do a lot of the 3D modelling and animation. Nintendo help with other elements including online elements and so forth.

People need to stop treating misinformation as fact and stop spreading it.

 

[Apa504]

People need to stop treating misinformation as fact and stop spreading it.

Click to shrink...

Its too late for that, a whole market opened after all this.

 

[Serebii]

Its too late for that, a whole market opened after all this.

Click to shrink...

That it has. I do my best to stop it but that causes people to think I'm "defending" Game Freak just because I'm stopping bullshit from spreading, even though I agree that this decision is bullshit and could have been avoided if they had realised ahead of time.

 

[Apa504]

That it has. I do my best to stop it but that causes people to think I'm "defending" Game Freak just because I'm stopping bullshit from spreading, even though I agree that this decision is bullshit and could have been avoided if they had realised ahead of time.

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Yeah, its a shame.

 

[Soran]

Maybe they need 500 more people then.

 

[ferroseed168]

The last 3 generations have seen a rapid decline in my engagement too. XY was the most I've been into a Generation since Gen 2

Gen 6: 100s of hours battling, training, breeding
Gen 7: Got to the entrance to the Battle Tree and put it down forever
Gen 8: Will probably buy it used

Click to shrink...

Yeah I have over 700 hours in my Alpha Sapphire copy and over 250 hours in my X copy. Did a lot of battling and breeding, especially in ORAS. I played through Gen 7 four different times (SM+USUM) but the total hours across 4 different games might not even crack 200 hours

 

[Psittacus]

Yeah I have over 700 hours in my Alpha Sapphire copy and over 250 hours in my X copy. Did a lot of battling and breeding, especially in ORAS. I played through Gen 7 four different times (SM+USUM) but the total hours across 4 different games might not even crack 200 hours

Click to shrink...

Oh wow I completely forgot Alpha Sapphire when making my list. Yeah I got up to Kyogre and put it down and never came back. Stopping Gen 3 right before the water starts is such a playthrough killer good lord.

 

[Sacul64]

Chill for a moment.
No matter how future proofed you make something, you will always have to redo or retouch some things.
In this case, the models were not made with the intentions of being super sized, so they surely had to retouch the models, textures, and re rigged all of them.

Click to shrink...

So maybe dont base what is likely to be a one game gimick like Megas and Zmoves around super sizing a model that should not be supersized? Like no one asked for supersized battles. Like why have all the games after B&W have to force a gimick that is only used once? Hell you can even say they found one that works well with the regional variants so just keep that as a focus and dont make a gimick that forces you to compromise the game.

 

[Absent Breeze]

All you did was take a simple analogy and overcomplicate it to fit your argument.

The gist of it is, they did a lot of work and put us through terrible performance for literally nothing.

Bravo!

Click to shrink...

The thing that is also pretty funny is that they already commented saying that future games won't have all pkmn returning either. You would figure with a gen 4 remake, another let's go and maybe a 3rd gen 8 game they would have enough time to complete working through all the models they weren't able to get to with this game. But there is potential for pokemon who are in galar to not show up in the next 2 to 3 titles, even though they'll already have been "rebuilt" and had their animations updated, which is amazing.

 

[Apa504]

So maybe dont base what is likely to be a one game gimick like Megas and Zmoves around super sizing a model that should not be supersized? Like no one asked for supersized battles. Like why have all the games after B&W have to force a gimick that is only used once? Hell you can even say they found one that works well with the regional variants so just keep that as a focus and dont make a gimick that forces you to compromise the game.

Click to shrink...

I like them, they are kaiju now.

 

[ferroseed168]

Oh wow I completely forgot Alpha Sapphire when making my list. Yeah I got up to Kyogre and put it down and never came back. Stopping Gen 3 right before the water starts is such a playthrough killer good lord.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I get that Gen 3 is an acquired taste but it's my first and favorite Gen so I loved the remake (except for how they treated the Battle Frontier). I even bred for shinies in ORAS. Also built a living dex for the first time (feel really stupid for doing that now)

 

[Fj0823]

The thing that is also pretty funny is that they already commented saying that future games won't have all pkmn returning either. You would figure with a gen 4 remake, another let's go and maybe a 3rd gen 8 game they would have enough time to complete working through all the models they weren't able to get to with this game. But there is potential for pokemon who are in galar to not show up in the next 2 to 3 titles, even though they'll already have been "rebuilt" and had their animations updated, which is amazing.

Click to shrink...

Everyone who understands development is in awe of Gamefreak, the masters, right now.

 

[Apa504]

The thing that is also pretty funny is that they already commented saying that future games won't have all pkmn returning either. You would figure with a gen 4 remake, another let's go and maybe a 3rd gen 8 game they would have enough time to complete working through all the models they weren't able to get to with this game. But there is potential for pokemon who are in galar to not show up in the next 2 to 3 titles, even though they'll already have been "rebuilt" and had their animations updated, which is amazing.

Click to shrink...

Thats because they are making the decision to stop now, instead of hitting a critical point.
There is a point where would have been impossible to work with so many Pokemon, so instead of getting to that point, they are now making the decision to stop here.

 

[Apa504]

Everyone who understands development is in awe of Gamefreak, the masters, right now.

Click to shrink...

This is just childish now.

 

[RocknRola]

They already do that.

Click to shrink...

They're doing it wrong then. It's clear one project of the known 2 has suffered.

Again, they outsource.

Despite Game Freak having less than 143 staff, did you know over 500 people worked on Sun & Moon? Remove localisation and it's still over 400. Remove testing and it's still over 350. Plus there are companies listed in credits as just companies with who knows how many from that company working on it.

Game Freak's staff member also doesn't include freelancers, interns and others, just those contracted into the company

Creatures Inc. do a lot of the 3D modelling and animation. Nintendo help with other elements including online elements and so forth.

People need to stop treating misinformation as fact and stop spreading it.

Click to shrink...

Again, the results are quite poor if those numbers are true.

Also how is having 143 members not understaffed for more than 1 single HD project? That's not misinformation. It's factually short for what's required of that kind of multi-project development work.

That they outsource modeling and animations and the results are still this poor just means they need a better partner.

 

[ferroseed168]

The thing that is also pretty funny is that they already commented saying that future games won't have all pkmn returning either. You would figure with a gen 4 remake, another let's go and maybe a 3rd gen 8 game they would have enough time to complete working through all the models they weren't able to get to with this game. But there is potential for pokemon who are in galar to not show up in the next 2 to 3 titles, even though they'll already have been "rebuilt" and had their animations updated, which is amazing.

Click to shrink...

We just don't understand the brilliance of Gamefreak. We don't even deserve the 12 quickball preorder bonus they've generously decided to give to us

 

[Sacul64]

I like them, they are kaiju now.

Click to shrink...

Do you like them magically popping in and being the reason why we cant have all the pokemon?

 

[Apa504]

Do you like them magically popping in and being the reason why we cant have all the pokemon?

Click to shrink...

I really dont care too much about the dex, Im some one who treats Pokemon just like a relaxing game to play from time to time.

 

[Holundrian]

Again if the pokemon sales suffer CONSIDERABLY you bet your ass the next game suddenly has no problems having all the pokemon back. They'll suddenly out of nowhere will discover all kinds of production solutions to the problem if these games only sell half as good as sun/moon. But they won't so they have no incentives to change anything.

 

[Apa504]

They're doing it wrong then. It's clear one project of the known 2 has suffered.

Click to shrink...

Town is a little eshop game, it didnt affect anything.

Again, the results are quite poor if those numbers are true.

Also how is having 143 members not understaffed for more than 1 single HD project? That's not misinformation. It's factually short for what's required of that kind of multi-project development work.

That they outsource modeling and animations and the results are still this poor just means they need a better partner.

Click to shrink...

They cant get another partner, Creatures is the third owner of the Pokemon IP

 

[Moltres006]

A couple of my friends are gonna stick to Pokemon Showdown and skip the main games. Should we be afraid of TPC possibly sending a cease a desist order to shutdown Showdown now that its a threat to the main games.?

 

[RocknRola]

Town is a little eshop game, it didnt affect anything.



They cant get another partner, Creatures is the third owner of the Pokemon IP

Click to shrink...

Says you based on literally nothing at all.

——

Not knowing the details on the contracts of ownership (ie only x,y,z studios can work on the IP for example) outsourcing to them AND another source would seem feasible.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

It's time to accept pokémon has become FIFA. It's all about ROI.

 

[Apa504]

Says you based on literally nothing at all.

——

Not knowing the details on the contracts of ownership (ie only x,y,z studios can work on the IP for example) outsourcing to them AND another source would seem feasible.

Click to shrink...

It would be better for Creatures to get more staff.

 

[KillstealWolf]

A couple of my friends are gonna stick to Pokemon Showdown and skip the main games. Should we be afraid of TPC possibly sending a cease a desist order to shutdown Showdown now that its a threat to the main games.?

Click to shrink...

Oh don't worry, apparantly the base swearing off the games because of dexit now are small enough they won't have a major dent on the sales anyway. So I'm sure Showdown should stay around in one piece.

 

[Sacul64]

I really dont care too much about the dex, Im some one who treats Pokemon just like a relaxing game to play from time to time.

Click to shrink...

Not not having your favorite is ruining that enjoyment for many players. You also did not answer if your fine that the game literally cant handle Dynamax as we have seen massive pop in issues mid battle where the model that takes up 1 3rd of the screen just pops in.

 

[Apa504]

Not not having your favorite is ruining that enjoyment for many players. You also did not answer if your fine that the game literally cant handle Dynamax as we have seen massive pop in issues mid battle where the model that takes up 1 3rd of the screen just pops in.

Click to shrink...

I will wait for the final product to judge all the technical stuff.

 

[Moltres006]

It's time to accept pokémon has become FIFA. It's all about ROI.

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I don't mind yearly pokemon releases as long as some are spin offs.

2020 Spin off
2021 sword and shield 2/gen 4 remake
2022 spin off
2023. gen 9