Thank you for defending Gamefreak employees against the twitter woman with the bayleef nails o7
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[OPEN SPOILER] Now that the entire Sword/Shield Pokédex leaked, let's mourn the Pokémon that got Thanos-snapped by Game Freak [SEE STAFF POST]
- Thread starter Deleted member 31092
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People being asses isn't an arguement for having to put up with the diminishing scope and ambition of the series though. It's one thing to condemn a practice among the fan base that you disagree with (which generally works better via specific cases rather than vague observations), but the last line of the post was:
That's not arguing against harrassment, that's just trying to use guilt by association with bad actors to keep reasonable people from voicing complaints against your corporation of choice.
As people have said in this thread and others, I don't think this culling will affect the sales of Sword/Shield because the larger audience is still not aware of the cuts+leaks. But once they have bought Sword/Shield and Home comes out next year and the majority of the fanbase realizes that they can't transfer up a majority of their old favorites to the first HD Pokemon mainline games (that they paid 60$ for instead of the previous 40$), there will be another round of uproar. And the games it might affect will be the next games that Gamefreak releases after Sword/Shield. Gamefreak seems to think their core audience is dispensable/will buy their games anyway, and who knows, they might even be right when it comes to the sales of Sword/Shield. But the dam will burst at some point because the trend of Gamefreak is clear ever since they moved to 3D - do the bare minimum to sell the usual 15 million for games. It's just that, they're been cutting features (post-game, lack of battle frontier, lack of a national dex in Sun/Moon/USUM) for a while now, but for most of us, none of those cuts were a dealbreaker till this culling got announced at E3 this year.
I don't think Gamefreak realizes that for a lot of people, transferring up their old Pokemon into the new generations was a huge reasons for us to play the new games. I've had some of my Pokemon since I was 11 years old (that was 13 years ago) and this is the first time I won't be able to bring my Ruby tag team of Blaziken and Zangoose forward into the new games. I'm not going to be signing for up the Home/Prison service either, and my mons are staying in Alola. For many of us, transferring old Pokemon forward was like bringing a (digital) pet forward with us as we move through life. I don't Gamefreak realizes how strong of an emotional connection many of us have with these aspects of Pokemon and how much of a dealbreaker it is for many of us
I'd think the memes are a good way to get across discontent in a fun way that doesn't insult the developers. Take the following video, it's fun but also makes it clear the issue the creator has with the game without insulting anyone.
Both sides have plenty of people who take any chance to start shit. I think I've seen more defenders who shit on everyone who is disappointed than shitty people upset about the cuts though. It's hard to even express disappointment with having someone jump down your throat.
it can be funny, but even before that the fact that its being called "culled" makes it sound permanent and deliberately mean.
That's a component of the humor. I know tone can be hard to read on the internet but I'm positively giggling at the over-the-top and overbearing descriptions of the roster cut (Thanos-snapping, Order 66, culling like in a slaughterhouse, the frozen Luxray gif), like all of these are reference some sort of grave mass-slaughter event in pop culture or use an absurdly serious word or moment.
I find this both funny and bittersweet. I think anyone who takes it so super seriously is being ridiculous, like we know there'll be games in the future where these Pokemon are available, and the new Pokemon will grow on people, but this has so much meme potential that I can't help but laugh. I don't think the title of that video is a serious indictment on the developers and you can find it funny regardless of your take on the situation.
You say that but after all the shit that's been happening its hard to separate intent. Like taking one look at reddit you'll see people losing their shit all day every day and encouraging each other to spam the shit out of social media.
I don't go on Reddit, /vp/, or Twitter for Pokemon-related stuff anymore, dude, and I have no desire to. I understand that the behavior on those places (especially /vp/ LOL) can be abhorrent, but they are also huge (and mostly unmoderated) communities reacting to a fairly big change in the series so I'm not really surprised they are losing their shit. This place has been much better about it and plenty of people positive about the games as a whole find these memes funny.
I'm so tired of worrying that what I'm saying might possibly be taken as toxic. As my post above shows, it immediately got misinterpreted to fuel the flames. I could not say any clearer that I don't want anything bad to happen to the Gamefreak employees and I don't want anyone to lose their jobs over this. The only thing that got noticed was a minor frustrated venting about how Gamefreak 'as a corporation' cannot exactly be hurt by anything anyone says, and yet that is what is being treated as such and is now being used as a tactic to bully because 'now its justified'. I probably should have made what I'm thinking more clear.
The 'Gamefreak's morale is low' narrative, despite it never even being confirmed that fans being vocal is the cause, will be used as a disingenuous bludgeoning tool to generalize critics and make it seem reasonable to bully them by making it out like we are responsible for what is going on within a corporation. Gamefreak 'as a whole' should not be exempt from criticism. OBVIOUSLY individuals should be left out of it. Nothing I say or anything anyone on here can say can hurt Gamefreak as a corporation. It is not on us as consumers to silence our criticism due to problems within a corporate structure, or because some jackasses are targeting employees. I will say it again. I do not want any individual employees to be hurt and I do hope that things get better for them with what is going on within their workplace, but it is not on me or anyone else here who is voicing reasonable criticism that it is happening. As far as I'm concerned, give everyone in Gamefreak a pay raise because its about 100% certain that they deserve it no matter what's going on with SwSh.
Tl;dr: If you're going to say that the critics are just a vocal minority that have absolutely no effect on Gamefreak, maybe don't immediately turn around and start saying that we're suddenly this big, mean group that's causing Gamefreak to have internal problems when it suits your narrative about us.
And before something is said like 'If you're boycotting the games doesn't that mean you want Gamefreak to fail?' I've made it no secret that I fully expect the games to do well and review well. I'm boycotting because the games personally don't appeal to me. I'm obviously not rooting for the people making my favorite game series to go under because they went in a direction I don't like, nor do I want them to have layoffs, nor do I want the outings of high profile figures. Still, I'm allowed to voice my discontent with them nor are they entitled to a sale from me.
I don't know. I guess I'll ask, am I coming off poorly? I'll lay off if I really am coming off poorly. I tend to be frustratingly blind when it comes to these things. I'm doing my best, I suppose. All the more reason why I really should probably step away from all this.
As I said, I hold no ill will toward people who are fine with everything as long as they are willing to be respectful back. Mistakes are made though due to emotions running high, and I'm obviously one who's made a few during this debacle, so I hope we can work together a little better to manage this shitshow. If you have issue with the way I'm coming off, let me know because I tend to be a bit blind to it and I'd like to do better. I can be a sarcastic little shit as a coping method for my social anxiety, but know that I'm usually doing it in a very lighthearted way and there's about a 99% that if its coming off as mean, I rarely actually mean for it to be that way.
Charizard people, love ya. May your bro not get snapped when the next time a snapping comes around, LOL
The 'Gamefreak's morale is low' narrative, despite it never even being confirmed that fans being vocal is the cause, will be used as a disingenuous bludgeoning tool to generalize critics and make it seem reasonable to bully them by making it out like we are responsible for what is going on within a corporation. Gamefreak 'as a whole' should not be exempt from criticism. OBVIOUSLY individuals should be left out of it. Nothing I say or anything anyone on here can say can hurt Gamefreak as a corporation. It is not on us as consumers to silence our criticism due to problems within a corporate structure, or because some jackasses are targeting employees. I will say it again. I do not want any individual employees to be hurt and I do hope that things get better for them with what is going on within their workplace, but it is not on me or anyone else here who is voicing reasonable criticism that it is happening. As far as I'm concerned, give everyone in Gamefreak a pay raise because its about 100% certain that they deserve it no matter what's going on with SwSh.
Tl;dr: If you're going to say that the critics are just a vocal minority that have absolutely no effect on Gamefreak, maybe don't immediately turn around and start saying that we're suddenly this big, mean group that's causing Gamefreak to have internal problems when it suits your narrative about us.
And before something is said like 'If you're boycotting the games doesn't that mean you want Gamefreak to fail?' I've made it no secret that I fully expect the games to do well and review well. I'm boycotting because the games personally don't appeal to me. I'm obviously not rooting for the people making my favorite game series to go under because they went in a direction I don't like, nor do I want them to have layoffs, nor do I want the outings of high profile figures. Still, I'm allowed to voice my discontent with them nor are they entitled to a sale from me.
I don't know. I guess I'll ask, am I coming off poorly? I'll lay off if I really am coming off poorly. I tend to be frustratingly blind when it comes to these things. I'm doing my best, I suppose. All the more reason why I really should probably step away from all this.
As I said, I hold no ill will toward people who are fine with everything as long as they are willing to be respectful back. Mistakes are made though due to emotions running high, and I'm obviously one who's made a few during this debacle, so I hope we can work together a little better to manage this shitshow. If you have issue with the way I'm coming off, let me know because I tend to be a bit blind to it and I'd like to do better. I can be a sarcastic little shit as a coping method for my social anxiety, but know that I'm usually doing it in a very lighthearted way and there's about a 99% that if its coming off as mean, I rarely actually mean for it to be that way.
Charizard people, love ya. May your bro not get snapped when the next time a snapping comes around, LOL
It's not really an internet meme's job to market the game for the developers. If a game's marketing is somehow getting outpaced by jokes and memes (not saying Sword and Shield are), that's on the game and the publishers.
To be honest it I get the impression that some defenders aren't always attacking critics here for selfless reasons, and simply just want positive discusions or discussions to meet their standards. There are plenty of games that I've played that have major criticisms but I don't invest too much time in the discussion because I don't really gain anything trying to convince others to enjoy the game. I enjoy certain aspects of these games, SwSh like I think the human character designs are the best they've ever been, but I also feel its important to discuss GF's core philosophy because it is concerning.
I think critism is important because some people arent always sure if they should get a game. There are some games that I thought sucked and had very deep flaws and in certain channels of discussion negative feedback and talk was choked out. But to me that does a disservice to people who want to do research for a purchase and could potentially cause someone to waste their money.
I think critism is important because some people arent always sure if they should get a game. There are some games that I thought sucked and had very deep flaws and in certain channels of discussion negative feedback and talk was choked out. But to me that does a disservice to people who want to do research for a purchase and could potentially cause someone to waste their money.
Yes, the developers have been attacked. But that's literally 3 bad apples from the group, and that is being framed as everyone's attitude who is against dexit.
You summed up my feelings about the games and the whole controversy really well. Pokemon has been my favorite series all my life, and Gamefreak's recent actions have left me feeling betrayed and lied to. I'm not buying the games but it's not out of hate. I've never written anything hateful towards any Gamefreak employee and don't intend (no one deserves that sort of abuse). I also agree with you that Gamefreak as a corporation should be fair game for criticism, it's the only way we as fans can voice our discontent and our desire for things to improve. Because that's what's getting lost in all of this: Fans like you and I are not criticizing these games out of hatred for the series, we're criticizing because we love the series so damn much that it hurts to see it fall to this level. I want to be buying the newest Pokemon games, just like I've bought every single one before Sword/Shield. And if the Pokedex cut hadn't happened, despite the underwhelming graphics and complete lack of ambition on the part of Gamefreak, I'd still be pre-ordering these games and be crazy excited to play them on release date. The sad thing, Gamefreak is not stupid, they must realize that their cuts will affect their most dedicated fans and the fans that spend the most amount of times with their games. They clearly see us as dispensable
I mean, I agree, as someone disappointed in Sword/Shield and withholding my purchase for the forseeable future. But I've been disappointed by how some people have acted in this thread and others. One of my friends was excited about the game and posted about it here (I think maybe in this thread?) and got called a bootlicker and harassed by a poster over and over, even when he was clearly having a mental breakdown over it. It's just fucking exhausting having to go to bat for this team and then seeing some of us act like total clowns.
Of course, the other side has plenty of people who can be patronizing. People saying things like:
-lol why would you buy a new Pokemon game to play with old Pokemon?
-Aren't 400 enough for you? You really gonna catch them all?
-You just want to transfer your Scizor to have it sit in a box?
-I never transfer my Pokemon anyway so why do you care?
People here accuse us for not understanding game development, but they don't understand the basic complaint with taking away a core feature of the series. Then they gloat that the game is gonna sell well anyway. I don't care if people post that they're excited about the game, it's the constant backhanded remarks at those of us who are disappointed. Saying "I hope it sells well to shut up those toxic fans," "you're gonna buy it anyway," etc. It's so exhausting. People have to go to bat constantly for these games. If they're so successful, why do they constantly have to play defense?
That isn't a problem exclusive to Pokemon though. Nintendo threads, Smash threads, PlayStation threads, MCU threads, people treat companies and IPs as a "team" that they have to play defense for. I could write a dissertation on this and how brands love to cultivate fans as a group that will relentlessly defend their product under capitalism, but it would be lost under people using an unsubstantiated rumor about low morale at GameFreak as a rhetorical tool to support their argument and shut down criticism. Even posters I like I have to constantly defend my criticisms against to make it clear I don't support harassment, lazy dev rhetoric, etc. even though they should know me better.
I don't know. I'm exhausted. This last weekend with the leaks was the first time I was genuinely excited about Sword/Shield and had fun talking about it - I've been wary of this game long before the National Dex cut was revealed - but having to deal with people constantly making snide comments about being disappointed in SWSH, and also seeing people attack those for daring to be excited about the game, I'm considering just clicking Ignore on every Pokemon thread. I wish it didn't have to come to that.
And it's not like I'm completely down on the games either. I love a bunch of the new Pokemon, I adore the new shiny animation, I think the UI looks wonderful, an this is by far the best human character designs we've gotten. It's just that there are some major, glaring flaws for me that turn me off the game entirely, thus why I am critical. I am not coming from a place of hate. I made a joke about being spiteful before, but it was pretty much just that, a joke to help ease some of the feelings I have about this mess.
You missed out the most obvious glib point the Gamefreak defenders make - "lol these games are going to sell millions anyway" + "lol you're criticizing these games but you're going to buy them anyway". I've seen this sort of comment a lot from Nintendo Youtubers who don't regularly play Pokemon but just know about its sales
You're right, im making the mistake of presuming its the same people everywhere.
And now it's also morphed into, 'you are responsible for the morale within this corporation because you are a toxic fan for criticizing them'
It's just so tiring.
I think you severely over-estimate how many transferred old pokemon into the new games. Less than 5% who bought the games did I would bet.
I'm not really sure about that number. But to be honest, we have no real way of knowing. You might be right that I'm overestimating the number (it's safe to assume the hardcore fanbase is highly overrepresented online on reddit and on Era) but 5% of 15-20 million is still a pretty big number. Companies like TPC, Gamefreak and Nintendo have internal estimates of sales for these games and even if 3-4% don't buy the game/postpone their purchase to get impressions, the companies will be pretty disappointed. Given the Switch ecosystem and software sales, if I were them I'd be expecting these to be one of the best selling generations ever
sadly also probably a similar percentage of people who actually beat it too. I'd say about less than 15% of people ever beat Pokemon games. Which is why the decisions taken for this game seem to only affect long time fans.
then vote with your wallet! Pokemon is the one franchise we all give a pass, myself included. It's been a bunch of concessions since they went 3D "sigh, well, making 3D games is hard" or "SunMoon was very boring, but I will give it the benefit of doubt". And that's how the franchise keeps growing and growing.
because we are!
look at all these threads, all the other threads.
If selling a worse game for $20 usd more isn't deterring their opinions, nothing will.
"I'm disappointed how it's turning out but I'll buy it and maybe I'll come around"
You know, this keeps being said and yet there's no proof. They made a subscription app out of it in the form of Bank and soon even Home to capitalize on this, so it has to account for a least some chunk of players.
Yeah if there's one thing it's safe to assume, it's that Gamefreak clearly sees their hardcore and longtime player base as dispensable. For any other franchise, pissing off the hardcore fans is a pretty strong body blow as these fans drive discussion and engagement on games, but Pokemon with its highly casual audience might be one of the few franchises to be able to survive this. It's comparable to Call of Duty, FIFA and NBA2K in this regard IMO (their audiences are clearly different but all of these franchises seem to be immune to sales being affected by the outrage of the online hardcore fanbase)
Hope you're willing to throw down almost enough cash for an entirely new game to get him though....
You have to buy the Pokeball Plus accessory to obtain Mew IIRC
Also, it's intended controller functionality only works with Let's Go
Yeah, if they're willing to charge for it, and then charge for it again, it has to be a not insignificant amount of players that actually pay for that. I also don't see how saying "it's only 5 percent of players that do that!" is even considered an argument. It reeks of "you're playing wrong!"
Hooo boy. You can only transfer him in from a 50 dollar peripheral that's only compatible with the Let's Go games.
But gatekeeping Pokemon as glorified 50 dollar DLC is totally okay because you could have gotten him in an event 4 years ago! We obviously can't let you transfer in the one from Go either because we arbitrarily decided you only ever get one in Go!
I've never understood this desire to place devs and studios on a pedestal so I've never gotten this push back to criticism I see for the direction of this IP.
Like, I've seen people pulling this "no TRUE Scotsmen" shit with the fandom and I really wish it would stop. Like you're not a real fan if you're not out here sucking GF's butt.
I've been playing these games since I was 8. I remember the moment I got interested in Pokemon. For a bit in my teens I wasn't even sure if I could consider myself a "gamer" because the only game series I followed and absorbed like a sponge was Pokemon, unlike tons of friends of mine who can proudly say that they've played "All the so-and-so games" in a number of series like FF, DMC, GTA and so on.
I love Pokemon and it's been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember. When it comes to gaming I'm pretty much considered a Pokemon fan above most anything else. Hell, if I didn't feel like this Ava was the best expression to sum up most of my post on this site it would be a picture of Pikachu I drew for Inktober
This does not mean I'm a fucking mindless GF fan though.
If they make decisions on the direction the game series will take it that I don't approve of it does NOT mean I have to sit back and like it nor does that mean I can't voice my misgivings about it. For example I love Nintendo Games and the ideas behind their consoles ... so I have owned all Nintendo consoles at one point in time or another.
All but Wii U. It didn't convince me in it's pitch, never got my interest and I didn't like the direction it was going design-wise. I'm not gonna mindlessly fork over my money to a company just cause I like their IPs if I don't approve of what I'm seeing. That being said ... I was there day one for the Switch cause it DID convince me it was worth my time and money.
I've played every gen and until XY I was buying every version, 1 to speed through so I could start Shiny hunting and a 2nd to trade over my low level shiny Pokemon to for training through the story. But with XY I started seeing decisions that made me pull back and give pause.
As someone who been with the series for this long I can tell, this has been building up for a long time. This frustration with the series isn't new, dexit was just the thing to break many people's back and I'm no different. I'm sitting here unconvinced that what I see is worth my time and money and this will be the first gen I don't get if that doesn't change.
So yeah, is someone like me not a fan?
Or am I a "Toxic fan" cause I dare to have expectations?
yeah it really does feel like we're dispensable. But a small part of me feels like more people are not mad because they don't truly realize what the Galar Culling actually means. For every person like me (and maybe you, not sure) who's decided to not buy the game, there will be many more who'll buy the game expecting to be able to bring their old Pokemon forward into their new HD $60 Pokemon game, and then finding out that they can't do it anymore with more than 50% of the old Pokemon. This is especially likely to happen in Japan where Gamefreak/TPC still hasn't officially announced the Culling
it doesn't matter if it's 1%, it doesn't excuse the shitty business practices that exist because Home is a (now useless) thing
Hard agree, it feels so strange on this site in particular. One thing that is pretty funny to me though being someone who's working in the industry, having people snap at you when you try to provide your opinion all the while claiming to be fighting for the "the poor devs". 😅
I feel like people are to invested when it comes to Pokémon. Some people were literally waiting for the Death Stranding review to drop hoping the game would disappoint. The Final Fantasy games are being heavily critised constantly.
On all of those games people also worked really hard, even on MGS survive people worked long hours. Should we make a topic "we love you Konami employees" as well?
As long as you don't haras devolpers there is nothing wrong with critize something
On all of those games people also worked really hard, even on MGS survive people worked long hours. Should we make a topic "we love you Konami employees" as well?
As long as you don't haras devolpers there is nothing wrong with critize something
