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

[Doskoi Panda]

Continuity is one of the most important elements of Pokemon's appeal to many longtime players, myself included.

The decision not to include every Pokemon in Sword and Shield, and the precedent that decision is establishing, has seriously damaged my enthusiasm for this series.

Anyone who's seen me argue for Pokemon will know how disappointing this is to me. There's a reason that this is my first post in a Sword and Shield thread since the news dropped; to walk back on such a core, longstanding aspect of what Pokemon is... that's a move that redefines the series to me. Makes it something far less than it once was.

 

[Deleted member 2669]

I typically only take them out when I need to breed something.

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You can't take them out of Home unless they're in the Galar dex. And if your subscription runs out, the Pokemon is deleted.

 

[Salty Rice]

Weird message. Its throwing salt in the wounds and essentially says "get over it, but buy please our future games".

He doesnt say in the future of this game and instead future games lmao

 

[Deleted member 8593]

I, too, wonder what will happen when the games don't sell gangbusters anymore.

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Depends on how much you think this will affect their sales.

 

[TyraZaurus]

You can't take them out of Home unless they're in the Galar dex.

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I know that. I'm just illustrating how low a priority using the older ones in the new game is versus the security of knowing they're retained.

 

[Absent Breeze]

When people say GF is incompetent it's because they make crazy decisions like releasing this weak statement and reigniting the Dexit rage, or cutting pokemon for slightly improved animations/balance.

I feel for the devs working to implement all this stuff before November, but their higher ups regularly make some troll ass decisions.

 

[Deleted member 41520]

He's saying the opposite. No future game will ever have every Pokemon again.

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Read that again, chief. People wouldn't be complaining if that were the case.

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He didn't say that at all. From now on, every game will be limited to its Regional Pokedex. If your favorite Pokemon happens to be included in the new region, congrats, you can transfer it from Pokemon Home.

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Huh? So perhaps I'm misreading the region thing, but the following sentence seems to mean exactly what I said

Even if a specific Pokémon is not available in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, that does not mean it will not appear in future games.

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To paraphrase, this literally means "if a Pokémon is not in these new games, it might be in later ones"

So the granular distinction is that he's saying, categorically, that you'll only get Pokémon from region the games are set in?

I mean that's already laughable because when we're on Pokémon gen 50 in 30 years I'm sure we'll have all Pokémon ever conceived in the one game

 

[BassForever]

I mean, it's Blaziken. There's no way it's not in the game (I imagine all of the starters are). Your point is 100% valid, but not the best example.

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I initially types Solrock, but I wanted to use a more popular pokemon as an example since we honestly don't know to what extent their culling.

 

[Gold Arsene]

You are still keeping them. You just aren't using them in Sword and Shield.

Do we know how many people use Bank as a storage box versus a transferring middle man? It seems like it'd be more for the former than the latter, especially given how limited in game storage can be.

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Becuse oif there's one thing I want to do with my pokemon it's shove it in a box with no guarantee of future use while paying a fee.

 

[Firemind]

If anything, he'll get two different Dynamax versions.

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Did they ever explain lore-wise why Charizard is special and got two mega evolutions? It's so transparent lol

 

[RockmanBN]

The general audience doesn't care. As long as they get their little adventure collecting mcguffins, fighting another evil organization, facing some story important legendary Pokemon, and becoming champion then nothing else matters. 10+ million sales for their mainlines and 5+ million for their Full Peiced vastly different in content special 3rd versions.

 

[Hailinel]

So now it's progress from attacking TPC and GF staff to suggesting Poketubers are nothing but apologist shills. How dare they defend this decision. OK.

How much longer before dexiteers enact Pokegate under the pretense of ethics in Pokemon collection?

No, I'm serious. If you're upset, what is your endgame? Where do you personally draw the line on your response to this? We already have GF staff being harassed on Twitter over this. Some of you are completely irrational about the National Dex to the point that it's a toss up between ridiculous and frightening.

I can understand disappointment and wanting to be critical, but some corners of Pokemon fandom are in what feels like the early stages of a fomenting harassment campaign, and you need to take a deep breath and seriously think about how you really want to express your discontent before you do something truly regrettable.

 

[Deleted member 2669]

I know that. I'm just illustrating how low a priority using the older ones in the new game is versus the security of knowing they're retained.

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Retained unless your subscription runs out, in which case they're deleted.

 

[udivision]

It is what it is. Does defeat the purpose of Home though.

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Quite the opposite. Pokemon not being tied to a console or mainline game actually allows them to do this.

 

[TyraZaurus]

Becuse oif there's one thing I want to do with my pokemon it's shove it in a box with no guarantee of future use while paying a fee.

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Then don't get it. It's still not evident whether that's how the majority of potential adopters are going to feel. We need more information on that, like the number of Bank subscriptions and an idea of what the majority use it for.

Retained unless your subscription runs out, in which case they're deleted.

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Yes, because it's an ongoing service. Whether you think it's worth it or not doesn't mean one can expect something for nothing.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I mean, it's Blaziken. There's no way it's not in the game (I imagine all of the starters are). Your point is 100% valid, but not the best example.

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Think about what youre saying here

All of the starters?

Thats 72 Pokemon taking up a slot

 

[Arkanim94]

I mean, it's Blaziken. There's no way it's not in the game (I imagine all of the starters are). Your point is 100% valid, but not the best example.

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Having multiple starter in the first game of a new console is highly unlikely, X/Y were exceptions.

 

[MJForum Poster]

This is the 3rd generation all over again. Ruby and Sapphire were missing a decent chunk of the first 251, turns out they were saving them for Fire Red/Leaf Green/Colosseum so you had to buy multiple games to catch em all.

Watch out for the Diamond/Pearl remakes

 

[Tavernade]

Or, it may be that they just have nothing more to offer at this time, but felt they needed to let people know they were being heard, since all of their accounts are being spammed to hell. Isn't this kind of message from Pokémon/Game Freak unprecedented? If this outrage did spur some change, it was never going to be something they commit to so far in advance of actually implementing that change.

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If they're listening to fans in a constructive way they've presumably already had big meetings about it to discuss options. They could have remained firm that not all Pokemon would be in SwSh but said that they were working on options to make as many available in one form or another as feasible. "We can't give you exactly what you want but we're looking at ways to make this better" is better than "We can hear you screaming at us."

 

[GarthLordOfTheSith]

"We heard you're not happy. But fuck you cause you're gonna buy our shit anyway!"

 

[OmegaX]

You dont need Luvdisc to be in the game for heart scales. Heart Scales are random drop in glittering spots at the Seafoam Islands in Lets Go. You could just buy them in Pokemon Black. You can get a bunch every day from the restaurants in Sun and Moon.

Luvdisc is a waste of a slot

Which is my point. Any Pokémon that gets in will be questioned as to why it is in the game over something else.

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Definitely, that's why I think that the anger right now is nothing. Once we have the full list of Pokemon that made it into the game and which ones are out, that's when we'll see true outrage.

 

[Firemind]

Depends on how much you think this will affect their sales.

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Oh, it probably won't.

I'm just saying when the time eventually comes.

 

[udivision]

Think about what youre saying here

All of the starters?

Thats 72 Pokemon taking up a slot

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Dang.... I never thought of that. Wow.

 

[Kinsei]

This is the 3rd generation all over again. Ruby and Sapphire were missing a decent chunk of the first 251, turns out they were saving them for Fire Red/Leaf Green/Colosseum so you had to buy multiple games to catch em all.

Watch out for the Diamond/Pearl remakes

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The difference being you could transfer Pokemon from FR/LG and the GCN games into RSE, that's not possible with Sw/Sh.

 

[Tzarscream]

Read that again, chief. People wouldn't be complaining if that were the case.

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People are complaining because they have unreasonable expectations that aren't being met.

 

[WrenchNinja]

This is the 3rd generation all over again. Ruby and Sapphire were missing a decent chunk of the first 251, turns out they were saving them for Fire Red/Leaf Green/Colosseum so you had to buy multiple games to catch em all.

Watch out for the Diamond/Pearl remakes

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Ruby and sapphire still had the data of all of the pokemon in the game which allowed for trading with other games in the generation

Sword and shield will not

Its not the same scenario

 

[Doskoi Panda]

To paraphrase, this literally means "if a Pokémon is not in these new games, it might be in later ones"

So the granular distinction is that he's saying, categorically, that you'll only get Pokémon from the games region?

I mean that's already laughable because when we're on Pokémon gen 50 in 30 years I'm sure we'll have all Pokémon ever conceived in the one hand

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It's the surrounding rhetoric, and what experienced Pokemon players are able to parse from it, that have led to concern.

The thought is - if this decision was really made with game balance and achievable scope in mind - that allowing any old Pokemon (alongside their unique stat compositions and egg moves) to be traded up would interfere with their intended competitive meta and campaign balancing. If that's a problem to them now, then that won't cease to be a problem for them when it's time to work on Sw/Sh's successors - no matter how much work is already done for Pokemon that belong to the Galar regional dex.

 

[Village]

They want to shed dead weight of the hardcore fans and move on. One on hand I get it but on the other...

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That is, unfortunate

 

[TyraZaurus]

This is the 3rd generation all over again. Ruby and Sapphire were missing a decent chunk of the first 251, turns out they were saving them for Fire Red/Leaf Green/Colosseum so you had to buy multiple games to catch em all.

Watch out for the Diamond/Pearl remakes

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No, it turns out that the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance communicated with each other completely differently and that Pokemon in Gen III were fundamentally different both in data and how their stats were calculated, thus the two games were incompatible and had no idea how to communicate with each other anyway.

 

[WrenchNinja]

People are complaining because they have unreasonable expectations that aren't being met.

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It wasnt unreasonable the last 7 generations

 

[Deleted member 2669]

Yes, because it's an ongoing service. Whether you think it's worth it or not doesn't mean one can expect something for nothing.

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Then it's a hostage situation. You pay a fee for an indefinite amount of years or else the Pokemon gets it. It's fundamentally a failure of a service.

 

[Doskoi Panda]

They want to shed dead weight of the hardcore fans and move on. One on hand I get it but on the other...

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It's like carving out your own heart because you consider it dead weight. Bad move on their part.

 

[Gold Arsene]

Then don't get it. It's still not evident whether that's how the majority of potential adopters are going to feel. We need more information on that, like the number of Bank subscriptions and an idea of what the majority use it for.



Yes, because it's an ongoing service. Whether you think it's worth it or not doesn't mean one can expect something for nothing.

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So pay for the service and hope it actually becomes useful later, great plan.

 

[Sanka]

Don't worry they will add the remaining Pokemon in the upcoming Pokemon Spear edition.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

So now it's progress from attacking TPC and GF staff to suggesting Poketubers are nothing but apologist shills. How dare they defend this decision. OK.

How much longer before dexiteers enact Pokegate under the pretense of ethics in Pokemon collection?

No, I'm serious. If you're upset, what is your endgame? Where do you personally draw the line on your response to this? We already have GF staff being harassed on Twitter over this. Some of you are completely irrational about the National Dex to the point that it's a toss up between ridiculous and frightening.

I can understand disappointment and wanting to be critical, but some corners of Pokemon fandom are in what feels like the early stages of a fomenting harassment campaign, and you need to take a deep breath and seriously think about how you really want to express your discontent before you do something truly regrettable.

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My experience with this fandom has been the worst of any. For such a positive and lighthearted IP its very jarring to see how spiteful and juvenile people act, and if there's really harassment campaigns being organized then people have truly lost the plot.

 

[Zarckoh]

Im talking about Luvdisc

What makes it more worthy to be in Galar than Finneon? Or Basculin? Or Bruxish?

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Ah I see. My original example was more about questioning Luvdisc returning back since it's a pokemon with bad movepool and stats since somebody claimed "why Dynamax Buterfree when Garchomp exists?". Well the answer to that is that somebody may like Buterfree enough to Dynamax it. It isn't just a matter of stats (or tiers) because with that reasoning pokemon like Luvdisc would never return. Dynamax is a feature for every pokemon in the Galar Dex not just about using it with the best (in terms of gameplay) pokemon.

In the scenario where Luvdisc could be included in the Galar Dex? Well it could be because of the habitat, type distribution or even somebody at Gamefreak having a bias for that Pokemon. Why was Grimsley included in Pokemon Sun Moon?

 

[Arkanim94]

Tbh, if home will be a platform where you can battle other people online it wouldn't be so bad.

 

[Tzarscream]

It wasnt unreasonable the last 7 generations

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The last 7 generations were sprites, these are 3d models that they need to redo again.

Going onwards, with Sword and Shield sequels they are gradually going to reintroduce them again.

It's not that hard to understand.

 

[Tavernade]

Having multiple starter in the first game of a new console is highly unlikely, X/Y were exceptions.

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Think about what youre saying here

All of the starters?

Thats 72 Pokemon taking up a slot

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The various starters are some of the most beloved characters in the franchise. Cutting any of them would send a good chunk of the fan base into a tisy alone, even if literally every other Pokemon made it in. This isn't like past games where they were still transferable even if they weren't otherwise obtainable, if they're not in the game no one can ever use them. Maybe not all of them make it in, and they have some numbers on who they can cut without making people upset, but at the very least I'd imagine a good chunk of them are in, plus all the Eeveelutions and a good chunk of Gen 1.

 

[Arkanim94]

No, I'm serious. If you're upset, what is your endgame?

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The outrage is the endgame.

 

[TyraZaurus]

Then it's a hostage situation. You pay a fee for an indefinite amount of years or else the Pokemon gets it. It's fundamentally a failure of a service.

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It's not a hostage situation. It's a deal you don't think is worth it. These aren't people, and they aren't worth the anthropomorphization you and others are giving them with hyperbole like that.

So pay for the service and hope it actually becomes useful later, great plan.

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Well, I'm mostly waiting to see what the future of Bank (which we don't know if it's being discontinued or even when) is and what the actual services of Home on their own are. But honestly, that doesn't discount anything I've said vis-à-vis no one really having any metric over who uses it as storage vs. transfer utility, or if there's a large enough group of people dissatisfied enough to hurt a product we still know very little about.

 

[Kinsei]

The last 7 generations were sprites, these are 3d models that they need to redo again.

Going onwards, with Sword and Shield sequels they are gradually going to reintroduce them again.

It's not that hard to understand.

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The last two generations had 3D models. Said 3D models were created for more powerful hardware than the 3DS in order to avoid this exact situation.

They ended up tanking the performance of the 3DS games for nothing.

 

[Deleted member 1635]

If they're listening to fans in a constructive way they've presumably already had big meetings about it to discuss options. They could have remained firm that not all Pokemon would be in SwSh but said that they were working on options to make as many available in one form or another as feasible. "We can't give you exactly what you want but we're looking at ways to make this better" is better than "We can hear you screaming at us."

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It's better only if your goal is to calm the mob in the short term. The long term consequences of saying, "we heard your outrage, we're changing xxx" is just inviting the exact same thing to happen again in the future, and these kind of things usually only escalate.

They could still end up adding support for more Pokémon via patches, but at the same time make it look like it was the plan all along. They'll take a beating in the short term, but at least not embolden future hashtag riots.

Just my speculation, though.

 

[OmegaX]

Then it's a hostage situation. You pay a fee for an indefinite amount of years or else the Pokemon gets it. It's fundamentally a failure of a service.

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Ding ding ding! GF expects it to be an unlimited source of money until the end of time. It's something that you'll expect from EA.
Only time will tell if they are right.

 

[Firemind]

The last 7 generations were sprites, these are 3d models that they need to redo again.

Going onwards, with Sword and Shield sequels they are gradually going to reintroduce them again.

It's not that hard to understand.

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Haha, I love this thread.

 

[RockmanBN]

Then it's a hostage situation. You pay a fee for an indefinite amount of years or else the Pokemon gets it. It's fundamentally a failure of a service.

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Yep either you pay or your pokemon are stuck on the 3ds for ever with Pokebanks eventual demise. Even though you can't use your favorite mon's for S&S, still gotta pay for their existence in Home or they go bye bye.

 

[Doskoi Panda]

The last 7 generations were sprites, these are 3d models that they need to redo again.

Going onwards, with Sword and Shield sequels they are gradually going to reintroduce them again.

It's not that hard to understand.

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They've been working toward that end since 2013. Do keep in mind that Game Freak had 3D models and animations prepared for all but the newest Pokemon, even before work began on Sword and Shield. Suffice to say the returns aren't impressive.

 

[MJForum Poster]

The difference being you could transfer Pokemon from FR/LG and the GCN games into RSE, that's not possible with Sw/Sh.

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Ruby and sapphire still had the data of all of the pokemon in the game which allowed for trading with other games in the generation

Sword and shield will not

Its not the same scenario

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No, it turns out that the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance communicated with each other completely differently and that Pokemon in Gen III were fundamentally different both in data and how their stats were calculated, thus the two games were incompatible and had no idea how to communicate with each other anyway.

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I understand the technical reasons are different, it's the underlying business reasons that I think are similar/the same.

 

[Arkanim94]

The various starters are some of the most beloved characters in the franchise. Cutting any of them would send a good chunk of the fan base into a tisy alone, even if literally every other Pokemon made it in. This isn't like past games where they were still transferable even if they weren't otherwise obtainable, if they're not in the game no one can ever use them. Maybe not all of them make it in, and they have some numbers on who they can cut without making people upset, but at the very least I'd imagine a good chunk of them are in, plus all the Eeveelutions and a good chunk of Gen 1.

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Meh.

 

[WrenchNinja]

The last 7 generations were sprites, these are 3d models that they need to redo again.

Going onwards, with Sword and Shield sequels they are gradually going to reintroduce them again.

It's not that hard to understand.

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Theyve been using 3d models for 6 years bro