shoz999
Back when Tigers used to smoke.
The Fortnite craze, around a game that blew up in popularity. It was so incredibly popular that it began eating out of profits from other properties of Epic Games, it's own company, to the point that Epic Games had to cancel games like Paragon. This game helped boosted the Battle Royale genre causing a bunch of Battle Royale clones. Another similar game that blew up in popularity and is still to this day more incredibly popular than your Star Wars or your Lord of the Rings or your Harry Potter is Pokemon. In the 90s, Pokemon blew up in a crazed popularity. Pokemon games, Pokemon anime, Pokemon manga, Pokemon TCG and Pokemon toys. A lot of parents thought this to be a simple fad but a lot of adults at the time did not take into the account that A) like Mario, Pokemon consist of actors, Pokemon specifically, that could enter all sorts of genres and puzzling stories, B) while others like Digimon focused on creating a story, GameFreak focused on creating a universe not so different from Marvel or DC and finally C) the games, anime, manga TCG and to an extant the toys all had some kind of quality and care put into it. You had the games where all these adaptations rooted from is responsible for much of the world building, the mechanics and the Pokemon itself. The TCG was nothing like your trading baseball cards, it was a game itself with interesting mechanics that synergized into all sorts of clever decks. There was the manga, specifically Pokemon Adventures, a mature and faithful take on GameFreak's vision of the games and finally there was the anime. Say what you want about how Ash is a bad protagonist or it's just the same story-line over and over again, Pokemon the anime was unique for it's time and it was for many kids, their first taste of anime featuring paint-style backgrounds, faces that feature all sorts of expressions, and of course an introductory to the world of Pokemon mixed with catchy music in the west.
When something jumps from a generation to another generation, it's no longer a fad. It becomes a pop cultural phenomenon and that was the case for Pokemon that many adults just did not expect to happen. By Gen 3, even when the viewership for the anime declined, the games still kept much of the Pokemon popularity in-check. When people thought "Oh Pokemon is dead!" because of this decline, suddenly Gen 4 came around, Gen 5, Gen 6 etc keeping Pokemon's popularity not only alive and healthy but more memorable and consistent than say Star Wars which has been in a significant decline in popularity before and after the prequel series showed up. Pokemon was so popular that kids talked more about that than Star Wars. Also it wasn't just the games keeping it's popularity alive. The anime's decline in viewership forced the team behind it to experiment with storytelling a bit more resulting in better, albeit still needs improvement, told story-lines in the DP, BW and finally the XY series which really showed that every filler episode was worth watching. The Pokemon TCG still to this day, dominates the TCG market across the globe beating other TCG markets like YuGiOh or Magic the Gathering. And the manga? It's success is a bit hard to measure as data hasn't been well recorded for it but considering the fact that it's often considered a best seller that's sold over 150 million copies as of 2017, it's doing pretty well too.
So basically what I'm saying. Pokemon isn't just a popular video game, it is an insanely popular franchise that is able to keep up a consistent and massive interest in the minds and hearts of children where franchises like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings fail in comparison possibly due to A) a lack of quality input in their diverse range of media products and B) their main core sellers, the movies itself, are not as flexible and consistent as the creativity in the world of Pokemon of the games. There's a lot you can do with 150 magical animals in a continuous world than you can with a group of characters from a story, beginning to end. With that being said, why aren't there a lot of Pokemon clones with the same amount of quality input as Pokemon? Why aren't there a lot of western and eastern companies who look at Pokemon's magical animals in a real-life inspired setting that appeal to almost everyone and say, "Hmm... I can do better!" If you think about it, Pokemon's unique "Gotta Catch Em' All" gameplay mechanics deserves it own genre. It didn't started it but it sure did popularized it through it's most recognizable form. Heck, why aren't there a lot of lazy official "Pokemon clones"? You have to wonder why no one tried to capitalize on this idea or heck. There must be a few DnD-inspired game devs who must've been amazed by Pokemon's 20-year long constant and ever-connected science fantasy world-building who may want to do their own take. The lack of quality Pokemon is just so weird. You see Battle Royale clones a lot these days but barely any Pokemon clones back than. For 20 years, GameFreak has helped successfully created the most popular media franchise across the globe and still very few companies try to do their own take on Pokemon. Could it possibly be that many Western and Japanese companies, including the experts in RPGs themselves, think it's too hard to replicate such an imaginative relatable world filled with over a 100 magical animals with their own unique backstory and gameplay mechanics that make up part of a bigger RPG system? Well I honestly have no clue as it's kind of puzzling no one tried to replicated GameFreak's success or were amazed by the 20-year old worldbuilding they've done with a multitude of "actors" that can cross into all sorts of genres.
When something jumps from a generation to another generation, it's no longer a fad. It becomes a pop cultural phenomenon and that was the case for Pokemon that many adults just did not expect to happen. By Gen 3, even when the viewership for the anime declined, the games still kept much of the Pokemon popularity in-check. When people thought "Oh Pokemon is dead!" because of this decline, suddenly Gen 4 came around, Gen 5, Gen 6 etc keeping Pokemon's popularity not only alive and healthy but more memorable and consistent than say Star Wars which has been in a significant decline in popularity before and after the prequel series showed up. Pokemon was so popular that kids talked more about that than Star Wars. Also it wasn't just the games keeping it's popularity alive. The anime's decline in viewership forced the team behind it to experiment with storytelling a bit more resulting in better, albeit still needs improvement, told story-lines in the DP, BW and finally the XY series which really showed that every filler episode was worth watching. The Pokemon TCG still to this day, dominates the TCG market across the globe beating other TCG markets like YuGiOh or Magic the Gathering. And the manga? It's success is a bit hard to measure as data hasn't been well recorded for it but considering the fact that it's often considered a best seller that's sold over 150 million copies as of 2017, it's doing pretty well too.
So basically what I'm saying. Pokemon isn't just a popular video game, it is an insanely popular franchise that is able to keep up a consistent and massive interest in the minds and hearts of children where franchises like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings fail in comparison possibly due to A) a lack of quality input in their diverse range of media products and B) their main core sellers, the movies itself, are not as flexible and consistent as the creativity in the world of Pokemon of the games. There's a lot you can do with 150 magical animals in a continuous world than you can with a group of characters from a story, beginning to end. With that being said, why aren't there a lot of Pokemon clones with the same amount of quality input as Pokemon? Why aren't there a lot of western and eastern companies who look at Pokemon's magical animals in a real-life inspired setting that appeal to almost everyone and say, "Hmm... I can do better!" If you think about it, Pokemon's unique "Gotta Catch Em' All" gameplay mechanics deserves it own genre. It didn't started it but it sure did popularized it through it's most recognizable form. Heck, why aren't there a lot of lazy official "Pokemon clones"? You have to wonder why no one tried to capitalize on this idea or heck. There must be a few DnD-inspired game devs who must've been amazed by Pokemon's 20-year long constant and ever-connected science fantasy world-building who may want to do their own take. The lack of quality Pokemon is just so weird. You see Battle Royale clones a lot these days but barely any Pokemon clones back than. For 20 years, GameFreak has helped successfully created the most popular media franchise across the globe and still very few companies try to do their own take on Pokemon. Could it possibly be that many Western and Japanese companies, including the experts in RPGs themselves, think it's too hard to replicate such an imaginative relatable world filled with over a 100 magical animals with their own unique backstory and gameplay mechanics that make up part of a bigger RPG system? Well I honestly have no clue as it's kind of puzzling no one tried to replicated GameFreak's success or were amazed by the 20-year old worldbuilding they've done with a multitude of "actors" that can cross into all sorts of genres.
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