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What exactly is the cause of the frequent negativity in the Pokémon fandom?

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Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Now that I think about it, the Pokemon series is really at a crossroads with Legends Arceus when it comes to fan reputation. A lot of the complaints over the series have had to do with difficulty, linearity, and lack of content, this is the first game to start to actually improve in those areas. This could mark a turning point for the series where the games start to become more open and full-featured and the complaints could start to decrease. However, for this to happen, the game needs to sell, and it needs to sell comparably to the other Switch Pokemon games. Because if it doesn't sell, or it sells below the usual 10+ million, then Game Freak is going to see that as a sign that the fans don't want the more large and full featured games and we'll most likely never see a game that expansive again. And the toxicity will only continue and maybe even get worse when the fans that want the larger, more full featured games are overruled by the casuals that don't care. This could either get better or worse based on whether or not the game sells.
 

PrinceOfFacade

Ghost-Type Master
There reason there is negativity in the Pokémon fandom is the same reason there's negativity in every fandom in existence: personal preference.

There is nothing overtly or objectively wrong with the Pokémon franchise. There are simply fans who want things to be a certain way for them, and if it's not that way they will brand Game Freak a "terrible developer." I belong to many fandoms, and these kinds of people exist in all of them. Hell, I used to be that person in the Mortal Kombat fandom. That's how I know.

I still got my gripes with Mortal Kombat, but you know what? My personal opinion of the games, even if they're warranted, won't change the fact that tens of millions of other fans are just fine with the way things have been going. The same applies to Pokémon. The franchise didn't survive 25+ years from not doing something right. You may think the games are s***, but there are 21 million+ fans enjoying that s*** right now. Your opinion of them is just as useless as your intention to make an example out of Game Freak. Thus, you got two options: Either get over it and continue playing, or move on and play something else.

I chose to move on and stop playing Mortal Kombat. There's always Tekken.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
There reason there is negativity in the Pokémon fandom is the same reason there's negativity in every fandom in existence: personal preference.

There is nothing overtly or objectively wrong with the Pokémon franchise. There are simply fans who want things to be a certain way for them, and if it's not that way they will brand Game Freak a "terrible developer." I belong to many fandoms, and these kinds of people exist in all of them. Hell, I used to be that person in the Mortal Kombat fandom. That's how I know.

I still got my gripes with Mortal Kombat, but you know what? My personal opinion of the games, even if they're warranted, won't change the fact that tens of millions of other fans are just fine with the way things have been going. The same applies to Pokémon. The franchise didn't survive 25+ years from not doing something right. You may think the games are s***, but there are 21 million+ fans enjoying that s*** right now. Your opinion of them is just as useless as your intention to make an example out of Game Freak. Thus, you got two options: Either get over it and continue playing, or move on and play something else.

I chose to move on and stop playing Mortal Kombat. There's always Tekken.

Well like I said on the last page, how much of that is people that actually want the games to stay the way they are vs. how many of them just don't care one way or the other about the things the more vocal hardcore fans are complaining about? Furthermore, just because 21 million people bought the games doesn't mean that 21 million people are enjoying the games. They could be buying the games based on what they liked about past games, or because of peer pressure/word of mouth.

I'm not convinced that 21 million people want the games to stay the way they are and it's just a handful of vocal fans complaining. The kinds of experiences that hardcore fans want Pokemon to become are selling with other IPs, the vast open worlds and sandboxes of games like BotW, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, as well as the more fleshed out and full featured multiplayer games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, and Smash Ultimate are also selling 10+ million in sales. I suspect the majority of fans still buying are either fine with how the games are now but won't mind if they did even more and/or they don't play some of these other games and they're unaware Game Freak could be giving them more. And if that's the case, that's much less justifiable. If they could make the game more enjoyable to a larger number of people but choose not to, then the game isn't entirely serving its purpose of entertaining people, they're intentionally making it less so to make a quick buck. And that's much less justifiable.
 

PrinceOfFacade

Ghost-Type Master
Well like I said on the last page, how much of that is people that actually want the games to stay the way they are vs. how many of them just don't care one way or the other about the things the more vocal hardcore fans are complaining about? Furthermore, just because 21 million people bought the games doesn't mean that 21 million people are enjoying the games. They could be buying the games based on what they liked about past games, or because of peer pressure/word of mouth.

I'm not convinced that 21 million people want the games to stay the way they are and it's just a handful of vocal fans complaining. The kinds of experiences that hardcore fans want Pokemon to become are selling with other IPs, the vast open worlds and sandboxes of games like BotW, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, as well as the more fleshed out and full featured multiplayer games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, and Smash Ultimate are also selling 10+ million in sales. I suspect the majority of fans still buying are either fine with how the games are now but won't mind if they did even more and/or they don't play some of these other games and they're unaware Game Freak could be giving them more. And if that's the case, that's much less justifiable. If they could make the game more enjoyable to a larger number of people but choose not to, then the game isn't entirely serving its purpose of entertaining people, they're intentionally making it less so to make a quick buck. And that's much less justifiable.

And with all this, you still only have two choices: Continue playing the games or play something else.

No matter how you spin it, no matter what you say, those are your only options.
 

Vini310

Well-Known Member
Not really
Out of ALL the generations Pokémon fans could choose to defend while pulling the "modern Pokémon fans settle for less" mindset, they chose GENERATION V, the generation that can't even do difficulty settings right, and they praised Game Freak for it.
And then there's the story of Pokémon Black and White, which many people call perfect, even tough the anime did the whole "Pokémon are our friends, not tools" thing back in 1997, and did it better even. BW can't even show the Pokémon's perspective on the situation, not give the player the ability to choose which side they want to join.
Fans praised Game Freak for that.
Quality is subjective, if it wasn't, people would never call Gen V, or any generation, perfect.

Well like I said on the last page, how much of that is people that actually want the games to stay the way they are vs. how many of them just don't care one way or the other about the things the more vocal hardcore fans are complaining about? Furthermore, just because 21 million people bought the games doesn't mean that 21 million people are enjoying the games. They could be buying the games based on what they liked about past games, or because of peer pressure/word of mouth.

I'm not convinced that 21 million people want the games to stay the way they are and it's just a handful of vocal fans complaining. The kinds of experiences that hardcore fans want Pokemon to become are selling with other IPs, the vast open worlds and sandboxes of games like BotW, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, as well as the more fleshed out and full featured multiplayer games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, and Smash Ultimate are also selling 10+ million in sales. I suspect the majority of fans still buying are either fine with how the games are now but won't mind if they did even more and/or they don't play some of these other games and they're unaware Game Freak could be giving them more. And if that's the case, that's much less justifiable. If they could make the game more enjoyable to a larger number of people but choose not to, then the game isn't entirely serving its purpose of entertaining people, they're intentionally making it less so to make a quick buck. And that's much less justifiable.
If someone is buying a game out of peer pressure, they have no one to blame but themselves. They are the ones who looked at every Pokémon spin-off and every other monster taming game and still chose to ignore those in favor of playing the main Pokémon series despite being disappointed with the direction those games are going.
 
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Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
Out of ALL the generations Pokémon fans could choose to defend while pulling the "modern Pokémon fans settle for less" mindset, they chose GENERATION V, the generation that can't even do difficulty settings right, and they praised Game Freak for it.
And then there's the story of Pokémon Black and White, which many people call perfect, even tough the anime did the whole "Pokémon are our friends, not tools" thing back in 1997, and did it better even. BW can't even show the Pokémon's perspective on the situation, not give the player the ability to choose which side they want to join.
Fans praised Game Freak for that.
Quality is subjective, if it wasn't, people would never call Gen V, or any generation, perfect.

Well quality is subjective, but quantity isn't. As long as you can establish some kind of standard of measurement of "quantity" it can be objectively compared (there's no way to debate 1 of something isn't more than 2 of something). You could make an argument in favor of them being "low effort cashgrabs" in terms of quantity, by comparing aspects such as graphical quality (resolution and framerate) and aspects such as how much content is in one game vs. another (although again you would need a standard of measurement on "content" to really make definitive claims, but through vague observations you can definitely tell that some games have more than others).

Side note: I don't think 5th gen is the best generation to defend in terms of the "more for less" mindset either because BW started a lot of design decisions hardcore fans have hated from most of the newer games such as making the region more linear, decreasing the difficulty and NPC trainer rosters, more frequent NPC roadblocks, and NPCs constantly interrupting you for story and cutscenes, and it did remove a LOT of features that were fairly prominent in some of the older games (granted, some of them such as the Game Corner and the Safari Zone were removed for legitimate reasons, but they were still removed with nothing really replacing them). Fans constantly complain about games like XY, SM, and SwSh for these things but BW is what set the series in this direction. Better examples would be the 3rd and 4th gen games, especially some of their third versions and remakes (Emerald, Platinum, HGSS, maybe FRLG too to a lesser degree). BW2 wouldn't be too bad either because there's just so much packed into that game, but at the same time it also suffers from a lot of the unpopular design decisions from BW.

If someone is buying a game out of peer pressure, they have no one to blame but themselves. They are the ones who looked at every Pokémon spin-off and every other monster taming game and still chose to ignore those in favor of playing the main Pokémon series despite being disappointed with the direction those games are going.

They might be too young to understand the issues with peer pressure and following the crowd. Why do you think they constantly make episodes in children's shows teaching them about it or warn about it in anti-drug programs in schools?
 

Ophie

Salingerian Phony
Side note: I don't think 5th gen is the best generation to defend in terms of the "more for less" mindset either because BW started a lot of design decisions hardcore fans have hated from most of the newer games such as making the region more linear, decreasing the difficulty and NPC trainer rosters, more frequent NPC roadblocks, and NPCs constantly interrupting you for story and cutscenes, and it did remove a LOT of features that were fairly prominent in some of the older games (granted, some of them such as the Game Corner and the Safari Zone were removed for legitimate reasons, but they were still removed with nothing really replacing them).
The higher emphasis on the story and characterization was one of the things that was very much praised about the Unova games though. That being said, it's since grown into a divisive subject among Pokémon fans, with players split between those who want to enjoy the story and the people who live in these regions and those who feel the story gets in their way. Pokémon is one of the few video game franchises for which TV Tropes has an entry in both "Play the Game, Skip the Story" and "Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game."

Me, I lean towards the "story" side. The Unova and Alola games are the generations with the highest emphasis towards that side, and consequently, many of my favorite characters come from those two regions. When I was playing through Shining Pearl, I realized how sparse the story was in the Sinnoh games (the initial ones, at least--I've never played Platinum, but from what I hear they ramped up screentime for a lot of characters). I'm sure this is how some other people prefer it, but having gone through the more story-heavy generations, this one felt incomplete and the characters one-note by comparison. Cyrus in particular suffers from this; he's depicted as a man with grand ambitions and great intelligence, but he disappears after you resolve the matters at Spear Pillar, and besides some NPCs in Sunyshore City talking about him as a child, you never get to see who he is as a person rather than as the head of a criminal organization.

For as much as the recent generations get things wrong, one thing I like about them is that I get to see other characters mature and grow as they go on their journeys. This goes both for rivals of your age (Bede in particular) and of adults who find out they still have much to learn (Guzma is a major example).

As a result, I don't see them as interruptions, but the next thing to look forward to. Consequently, as much as I liked just riding the bike through Kalos, the decision to scale back the story for the Kalos games resulted in a lot of empty-feeling characters (and I know this was a major source of complaints about Pokémon X and Y, more so because there wasn't a follow-up improved version to revise that).
 

Xuxuba

Well-Known Member
I think it's possible to have a game that is widely praised and pleases both casual and non casual fans even within a huge fandom like Pokémon. HGSS and Platinum are the proof of that. Sure, they have their critics, but considerably less.

I don't think it just comes down to the size of the fandom. I think GF is having a hard time adapting to 3d games since Gen 6 and the content/exploration/postgame of the games have suffered because of it. I am sure most people felt it but the Pokémon fanbase is very loyal so it's gonna take more than a few mediocre games to make them completely give up on the franchise. Even when they do give up there will be newer fans to replace them anyway.

Not to say all of the older games were good tho. Nostalgia goggles aside, DP and Ruby/Sapphire sure had a lot of unbearable flaws before Platinum and Emerald fixed them. But they were always succeded by an actual good game, so it was more easy to excuse that. Nowadays even the improved versions are extremely flawed, like USUM, which added a lot more content but made the whole story a convoluted, boring and painful mess to go through. XY didn't get to have a improved version nor update and the
SwSh dlc added new places but didn't fix the huge problems with the places that already existed, mostly the routes, cities and buildings, which were barren, narrow and boring.
To me, that is also a large reason why the criticism is going strong, since a franchise like Pokémon, which tries to have global simultaneous releases nearly every year, *needs* to improve on the games they release and not just add to it.
 
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Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
The higher emphasis on the story and characterization was one of the things that was very much praised about the Unova games though. That being said, it's since grown into a divisive subject among Pokémon fans, with players split between those who want to enjoy the story and the people who live in these regions and those who feel the story gets in their way. Pokémon is one of the few video game franchises for which TV Tropes has an entry in both "Play the Game, Skip the Story" and "Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game."

Me, I lean towards the "story" side. The Unova and Alola games are the generations with the highest emphasis towards that side, and consequently, many of my favorite characters come from those two regions. When I was playing through Shining Pearl, I realized how sparse the story was in the Sinnoh games (the initial ones, at least--I've never played Platinum, but from what I hear they ramped up screentime for a lot of characters). I'm sure this is how some other people prefer it, but having gone through the more story-heavy generations, this one felt incomplete and the characters one-note by comparison. Cyrus in particular suffers from this; he's depicted as a man with grand ambitions and great intelligence, but he disappears after you resolve the matters at Spear Pillar, and besides some NPCs in Sunyshore City talking about him as a child, you never get to see who he is as a person rather than as the head of a criminal organization.

For as much as the recent generations get things wrong, one thing I like about them is that I get to see other characters mature and grow as they go on their journeys. This goes both for rivals of your age (Bede in particular) and of adults who find out they still have much to learn (Guzma is a major example).

As a result, I don't see them as interruptions, but the next thing to look forward to. Consequently, as much as I liked just riding the bike through Kalos, the decision to scale back the story for the Kalos games resulted in a lot of empty-feeling characters (and I know this was a major source of complaints about Pokémon X and Y, more so because there wasn't a follow-up improved version to revise that).

The main reason people seem to like BW's story is because of its plot twists, because the events of the storyline eschew established conventions in Pokemon stories and shake up the formula. You don't need 3000 cutscenes to pull that off, that's something that they did right in a handful of storyline moments (such as the encounter in Dragonspiral Tower, where instead of falling to control the legendary and you catching your box legendary, they actually succeed and become a bigger threat, or when your Elite 4 challenge gets interrupted and you have to finish off Team Plasma to end the game).

Having tons of cutscenes isn't really necessary with your issues with Cyrus either. Biggest counterpoint I can give you there is ORAS, which added a ton of motivation to its characters and more lore and backstory, but they didn't add tons of mandatory cutscenes to do so. They added that by adding it into the dialogue of existing cutscenes and optional sidequests (primarily the Sea Mauville) that give additional lore.

SwSh also had tons of cutscenes and interruptions despite not having a well-regarded story itself, that was an XY-esque story with BW-esque storyline interruptions. So clearly it's more than just the storyline and there's no real need for tons of cutscenes to tell a good story. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a game I thought had a good story that interrupted you nearly as much as the newer Pokemon games do.

I think the real reason for the increase in cutscenes is to make the game more casual. It's a measure to prevent people from skipping essential content to keep them from getting lost (and also sometimes to shove optional content in your face, but that's definitely unnecessary). But they don't need to go that far. They just need to get better at signaling where to go through the level design and providing/maintaining QoL features that help you navigate where to go next (such as quest lists and quest markers).
 

DuquÊ?

Too lazy to pick a pic
Is it that the fandom is toxic? That the developers are not putting effort? Or is it simply that the fandom and the developers have a different vision for the franchise? It does seem to be the third one. The developers' vision for the franchise often may not align with the majority of the fandom, hence the frequent backlash.
A mix of all. The fandom IS toxic because many of them are playing Pokemon for years and developed some cynicism with the franchise. It's impossible to please everyone aside their main target group everytime, but the developers do put some effort.
 

Palamon

Silence is Purple
Because people are just angry and upset. I don't think it really needs a deeper explanation than that.
 

jaden767

Amphetamine
Game Freak doesn’t put in exactly what fans want, they cause an uproar, Game Freak appeals to those fans, another sector of the fandom causes another uproar, rinse and repeat.
The problem is that they usually try hard to win one side over while ignoring the other sides for long periods of time.

Like how so many fans wanted an open world core Pokemon game for ages yet it took so long for us to finally get that with Legends Arceus.
 

Vini310

Well-Known Member
It's the third one, and it gets worse:
- Since Pokémon's fandom is massive, it has different fans who want different things, and what fan A wants may be the exact opposite of what fan B wants. So every time Game Freak decides to cater to a specific side of the fanbase, the side who didn't get catered to gets mad.
- And then there are the Small Refence Pools: Most Pokémon fans only played Pokémon and don't realize that a huge portion of the things they hate about Pokémon nowadays... have been the standard in Mongame development since at least 1999, if not even before that.
It's time to start working on the last argument, so here are some "riddles" (?):
1) I remove evolutionary stages from my game, sometimes to the extreme of transforming 4-to-8-stage monsters into single stage monsters. Which game I am?
2) The original version of my game had 150 monsters, the remake only has 120. Which game I am?
3) I had regional variants, mandatory Exp. Share, monster rotation and alternative evolution methods before Pokémon. Which game am I?
4) We are Mon mobile games that are bigger than Pokémon GO. Which games are we?
5) We don't have the whole "this monster can only be obtained by transferring from an entirely different game". Which game are we?
6) We put quality over quantity. Which game are we?
Have fun.
 

Divine Retribution

Conquistador de pan
@Vini310 Tagging you because this is a response to your posts in general, although to be fully honest I'm not sure what specific part of them to quote.

So let me preface this by saying that Pokemon pretty much is the only "mon" game I've played for any serious amount of time. When I was much younger I tried Digimon and Yugioh, and didn't like either of them, and had a brief stint into the Beyblade franchise, not really a 'mon game, but conceptually similar. The only other remotely similar game I played for any significant amount of time was Magic: The Gathering, but that's far enough removed from Pokemon I struggle to see any connection to the conversation.

That being said, I don't see how that fact is actually relevant to the conversation. I don't think you have to play every 'mon game to have a valid opinion on Pokemon, and I don't think the fact that a lot of the major criticisms to Pokemon might also apply to most other 'mon games is relevant either. Just because something is status quo or common in the genre doesn't mean it's good or should be exempt from criticism. Pokemon's colossal success compared to other similar franchises also means the playing field isn't even to begin with; not all 'mon games have equal weight. Money is a powerful motivator and, being the franchise that makes the most of it, Pokemon sets a lot of trends and tropes that a lot of similar games follow.

I do, however, agree with your first point about GameFreak catering to specific subsets of the playerbase at the expense of other subsets. I don't think having a small reference pool, as you put it, actually matters in this case, however.
 

Bolt the Cat

Bringing the Thunder
It's time to start working on the last argument, so here are some "riddles" (?):
1) I remove evolutionary stages from my game, sometimes to the extreme of transforming 4-to-8-stage monsters into single stage monsters. Which game I am?
2) The original version of my game had 150 monsters, the remake only has 120. Which game I am?
3) I had regional variants, mandatory Exp. Share, monster rotation and alternative evolution methods before Pokémon. Which game am I?
4) We are Mon mobile games that are bigger than Pokémon GO. Which games are we?
5) We don't have the whole "this monster can only be obtained by transferring from an entirely different game". Which game are we?
6) We put quality over quantity. Which game are we?
Have fun.

Like @Divine Retribution said and like I said way back when you first posted this, just because it's standard doesn't mean it's good.

Additionally, Pokemon has to compete with more than just monster catching games. Competition isn't as simple as competing with the games that are in the same kind of specific subgenre as monster catching RPGs. Pokemon has to compete with EVERY other game that's remotely similar. It competes with other RPGs (such as Fire Emblem and Xenoblade). It competes with other exploration based adventure games such as sandbox 3D platformers and action adventure games (such as Super Mario Odyssey and BotW). It competes with other multiplayer and social communication focused games (such as Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and Animal Crossing). Anyone that likes elements of these games could like how another style of game does things better, so competition isn't just limited to direct competition.

OH my Arceus, this will take a long time to write. My main points will be:
- Graphics?
- Lack of of post-game?
- Removing features/replacing them with worse alternatives?
- Roster/Dexit?
- Mandatory Exp. Share?
Not exactly in this order.
See you (and this thread) in 1-5 weeks... Screw that Gen 2 and HGSS review, THIS is going to be my first written essay...

You never actually addresses this one either. Mind if you elaborate on this?
 

Divine Retribution

Conquistador de pan
I think competition between two games is best visualized as a sort of Venn diagram. There exists some level of competition between almost any two games, but the more they share in common, the more they compete with each other. For instance, if you compared Pokemon to Call of Duty, the two circles of the Venn diagram would barely be touching. They're both video games of some variety, and they both have multiplayer features, and... well, that's about where the similarities end. While there does exist some slight competition between these two games (if a person is looking for a multiplayer game and has no other qualifiers, both are valid options), the competition is fairly minimal.

However, most people do have qualifiers when looking to purchase a video game. It could be something fairly general, like that you're looking for a action game, or a shooter, or a game that's appropriate for your 8 year old son. It could be something very specific, like looking for a battle royale shooter with projectile physics, a lack of microtransactions, and the ability for you and four of your friends to play in the same squad together. When you add more qualifiers, you very quickly rule out possible games. Let's look back at Pokemon and Call of Duty. Looking for a shooter? Pokemon is no longer in the picture. Looking for a game suitable for a younger child? There goes Call of Duty. Even these fairly wide qualifiers will quickly eliminate one of these games.

On the other hand, if you put Pokemon next to, say, a Digimon game, the Venn diagram would nearly be a circle. They're both monster collector RPGs and I presume Digimon games have multiplayer features at this point, although I confess I haven't played any since the Gameboy Advance days. These games compete much more directly because there are fewer qualifiers that would cause a person to choose one over the other, disregarding other factors. The differences are much more specific, and so it's less likely that they will be a factor when a person is deciding which game to purchase.

Anyways I think I'm kind of drifting off-topic here, although this is definitely an interesting topic to discuss in its own right.
 
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