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Game Developers on Pokemon SwSh Pokedex Cuts: "I'm Surprised They Didn't Cut It Years Ago" [USgamer]
- Thread starter Lady Bow
- Start date
Because it wasn't a development or technical decision. It was a business decision based on more profits, not quality of their offering.
So yes refer to the part in the OP where switching to new hardware can really screw things up. It's not as simple as "just import model lol."
I look forward to seeing how Gamefreak justifies not allowing Galvantula et al to be transferred to the inevitable Diamond/Pearl remakes when its model and animations have already been updated for this gen. Will they introduce Enormamaxing to the Sinnoh region which has new animations other Sword/Shield natives won't be able to use?
Overworld encounters everywhere, much bigger environments, one which is even bigger and open with a controllable camera for the first time with different biomes affected by weather conditions, revamped online component where you can see your friends in the world walking around with you and with which you can do new things like multiplayer Raids which are also linked to a new battle mechanic that encompasses previous mechanics in a streamlined yet deeper way. On top of having to do all the work for the HD graphics in their first real attempt. And they usually reveal even bigger features as we get closer to release.
Yeah and Pokémon is the #1 media brand globally. So it ain't a question of profit vs no profit. It's a question of profit vs more profit
I guess that's where we disagree. I just don't see SwSh as ambitious at all. If it were I would be waaay more forgiving. Monster Hunter World was ambitious, and so no one on Earth complained that the number of monsters went from 100+ in XX to 35 in World (and Capcom's reassurance that they were working as fast as they could on more to come certainly didn't hurt). That's the biggest difference to me, and why so many fans are struggling with decision.
Sure there are trade offs in game dev, and doing one thing often means you can't do something else. But all I'm seeing is what we're losing and can't find any evidence of what we're gaining.
User Warned: Lazy devs rhetoric
I wonder if my boss would be that understanding if I did only half of my job...
"Oshawott, why did you fill just half of these reports?"
"I'm sorry boss. There were too many reports to fill. Too many lines and too little time... I also have this personal project I was working on at the same time."
"Oh, alright, that makes sense, I guess the executives will understand. Here's your paycheck."
"Oshawott, why did you fill just half of these reports?"
"I'm sorry boss. There were too many reports to fill. Too many lines and too little time... I also have this personal project I was working on at the same time."
"Oh, alright, that makes sense, I guess the executives will understand. Here's your paycheck."
They did, and then when it came time to use those models in an HD mainline title, they punted citing models that were supposedly future proofed and animations done by a tiny division of Creatures.
Guess what my dude, it's the #1 BRAND, not game series. Do you know how much stuff like animated series and now giant Hollywood blockbusters costs? Manga and toys and animated movies and shirts and everything. They all feed the brand yes, but not all of them are going to be profitable. The games probably prop up the much of the multi media, not the other way around. And why have the multi media then? To keep the games relevant. To have a brand that is still wildly popular and selling for over 20 YEARS is not easy. Brand management is not a perfect formula, and cases like Assasins Creed, Halo, Digimon, Sonic, every Sony mascot, just show that a WILDLY popular IP can crater for different reasons.
If an animated tie in was still wildly profitable strategy, there would be more of them. But Animated series cost a lot of money and time and management so a lot of them need to be profitable in other ways. Like selling toys. And would you look at that, selling toys is it's own nightmare. Physical objects involving retailers, under shipped or over shipped stock is a problem Nintendo has had both of with Amiibo. Issues with shipping, with manufacturers, with retailers, all add management costs.
Add more and more bodies? You run the risk of over saturating the creative process and losing what made it special in the first place. It happened with Asssins Creed years back, look at Microsoft's issues with their star IP's and how making studios JUST for those series isn't being meet with the success of past entries. People like to talk about "heart" or "magic" in a game or series, it's hard to capture or pin down and if you have it, you run the risk of losing it to time, repetition, to many cooks, executive meddling, etc.
Companies like Nintendo and Disney get flack for being precious with the IP's. That each use of them has RULES you need to follow. There are literal guidelines for how Pikachus are protrayed in marketing with do's and don'ts on day the gender marker and pronouns. It seems CRAZY and restrictive and like they are holding the brands back from trying new things. But when you let anything go, you can end up like the Sonic franchise. Just look at the 2 live action Movies: Sega had no say in Sonic's nightmare design, the Pokémon company had the final say on EVERYTHING in Detective Pikachu. They got that control by never giving it up in the first place, by having already existing movie divisions, from having guidelines.
I'm not saying this way of being precious with IP is the best way however, Nintendo and Disney both go thru creative slumps where it seems like all the do is follow a formula until they reinvent it and make something special. It's why Mario is still #1 and why there are times where a newbie like Sonic or Minecraft Steve comes along and usurps his popularity for a time.
Going back to my original point tho, lol, is that the games are just one plank of the IP, and all parts support each other in such a way that no, they don't have unlimited budget and even if they did, MORE BODIES aren't always the answer.
This is the most important part of the OP.
You can tell who has ever attempted to rig a model based on their posts ITT. It's one of the most frustrating things to do. especially for creature characters like Pokemon. In another thread there were some people who literally thought you could pump out a working Pokemon in a day like what in the world.
You can tell who has ever attempted to rig a model based on their posts ITT. It's one of the most frustrating things to do. especially for creature characters like Pokemon. In another thread there were some people who literally thought you could pump out a working Pokemon in a day like what in the world.
sigh, lol.
People aren't seeing the results they want to see immediately for this kind of change, so they're getting very upset. Unfortunately i don't think they realize that part of that benefit is actually getting the game this year lol.
That's how I always saw it. They could do more, or they could do right at par and get the same amount of sales. So they aim lower than they optimally could.
Refer to my previous post as to what I consider a big step up over the previous games:
I mean you may personally think that's not enough for you to justify the Pokémon cut, but you can't really say this isn't the most ambitious Pokémon game yet. Those aren't small changes to the formula, and are in many ways bigger changes than what FE did.
Gamefreak and Creatures control >60% of TPC and get their share of the profit. That's at the low end hundreds of millions each year. All of this special pleading would make sense if they were some little indie studio with a budget controlled by some giant company over them. But that's not the case. And on top of it, they're asking 60$ for it instead of the price of the 3DS games. So they want more profit for less development expenditure.
If you just had the model, then I truly wish that was the "bulk of the work done". Texture touchups, lighting, shadows, animation, rigging, rerigging, passes practically have to be done again and again. And then something doesn't animate properly due to the import, and you have to go through it AGAIN.
I think people are heavily mistaking 'less work' for 'practically no work'.
Planning in 2011 for 2019 is impossible because of the advancement of technology over that time, it's not that easy to predict and they did try and 'future-proof' but it didn't work out. All game developers have issues and things that go wrong, regardless of 'planning' and investment (see: Square Enix, Bioware, Level 5 etc).
Yep, that's completely the same thing...
See, this is why I can't take the complaints seriously.
But they already reused some of the models for PLG. So why not reuse whatever developer tools they created to make that possible?
No amount of manpower can account for the astronomical permutations involved in a game with 1,000 monsters, 400 attacks, 40 arenas, over a hundred trainers... like Ubisoft with their network of 20,000 developers worldwide couldn't do that the kind of justice you people seem to want. FOH with this nonsense.
All Pokemon being reduced to these boring static 3D models, and now not even getting them all in games going forward honestly makes me wish they'd go back to sprites.
They did it for 900 on the 3DS. There's no excuse, they just decided it wasn't worth the effort to make a good game when it'll sell regardless.
Listen, I'm not totally against them cutting the National dex. I don't think I've ever filled it and probably never will, and I understand the issues behind balancing something like 900 Pokémon in a game when they have so many gimmicky add ons that they shot themselves in the foot with. The issue is how they approached revealing the news. They tried to be sneaky and throw it in as a passing line during a Treehouse, iirc. If they had owned up to the change, presented it in a way that showed this is the best next step for this game and the franchise, and helped people see why this decision was necessary, I think this outcome would of been different
Virtually none of that stuff is new though, and only some of it is new to Pokemon. The fact that camera control is in any conversation is just depressing. I've played games with overworld encounters, I've played games with waaaaayyy bigger environments, where weather affects things, where I can group up with friends, and yes, I've played HD games before. These aren't fresh ideas to me, they're tried and tested. You do you, but I just can't see this as notably ambitious.
Having been in previous Pokemon ERA threads I wouldn't change a word of what I said.
You let people get away with condescending shots at the work ethic of GF so why should I shrink my comments for any of you?
I was only echoing your previous posts where I drew conclusions from previous Pokemon threads on here that all end the same. It seems it's ok to be condescending only when it aligns with your views, I guess.
The 3DS is not the Switch. Developers who have only developed on the 3DS are finding it tough to develop for the Switch.
Sure dude...
THIS
Then they tried to pass it off as some insurmountable limitation, then it turns out that they aren't even the ones doing the grunt modeling/animation work.
They did it for 900 on the 3DS and the games suffered, or are the 3DS games not suddenly the least liked entries in the series due to their overall lack of content?
"They decided it wasn't worth the effort to make a good game"
a) FOH with the "lazy devs" bullshit, and
b) Yeah, I mean, it's not like they actively tried to improve the games in other ways, like going open hub, having overworld Pokemon, and so on
The budget argument is very disingenuous and is presented as 'they need to earn money and not lose it'. However, that's not how it would actually go down. Mainline Pokemon games usually sell 15 million copies at the minimum. That is in line with the biggest AAA games out there. It's more than the premier PS4 exclusives. And this time they'll be selling those copies for 60 instead of 40. The profit margins are probably gigantic. I they had to hire more people or increase the budget in any other way it would mean they'll just be making a little bit less money. Obviously shareholders still don't like that, but there is no way they'd come even close to being in the red.
If the bad PR this game is generating cost them sales then they will lose on some money anyway and be worse off for it.
If the bad PR this game is generating cost them sales then they will lose on some money anyway and be worse off for it.
Nintendo spent like 5 years developing BotW for Wii U and then just dropped it on Switch's launch.
Maybe Gamefreak is really bad at adapting but then again just outsource.
Who is only doing half their job at Gamefreak? I want to know because what you're saying is lazy dev rhetoric
Holy shit, do you people not understand the difference in developing for a 240p handheld and a 720p HD one?
Go ahead and tell me what's ambitious in Mario Odyssey, Smash Ultimate, Three Houses, Xenoblade 2, Luigi's Mansion 3, Splatoon 2 then.
Being done before =/= not ambitious
In many ways the upcoming Pokemon games remind me of Gran Turismo 5 and when they had HD models vs. standard models.
I can tell you right now, that DS Pokémon level of content is never coming back.
This should have been obvious when Pokémon Let's Go and it's 153 Pokémon roster still ended up having less content than Firered and Leafgreen.
The models were HD the whole time
Gamefreak didn't make a Wii U game, so they had more time than other Nintendo exclusive devs
They already reused the same models in PLG
Pokemon is a multi-million dollar franchise which should allow an AAA budget. I'll be honest that I would prefer if no old pokemon were included at all (apart from Eevee because he is ever encompassing and forever relevant), but excusing it because of budget is ridiculous for one of the most successful franchises in the world. They could outsource making these models with other companies if hiring was an issue.
How is this different from any other AAA video game? They have hundreds of people working on a game for several years.
Yes, to include all the Pokemon they would have to either take a longer time between releases or increase development costs. The reason they chose to do neither is because they know that the games will sell 15 million units regardless, so not doing it is more profitable. Unless you're a shareholder, you shouldn't be happy with this decision.
Yes, to include all the Pokemon they would have to either take a longer time between releases or increase development costs. The reason they chose to do neither is because they know that the games will sell 15 million units regardless, so not doing it is more profitable. Unless you're a shareholder, you shouldn't be happy with this decision.
Hey, there's an addendum on the site. Can we get that added too?
A. From the [original post]:
"Gamers are notoriously bad at gauging how much work it takes to do something in game development."
"… only with better textures" you say. So you admit they improved the textures? Better textures means that Gyarados also needed new normal maps, new shadow maps, shadow mask, shader work, etc..
And guess what? If Gyarados needed these, how many other pokemon do you think also need new textures, shadow maps, normal maps, etc.? Here's a quick answer: ALL OF THEM.
Few things in game dev scare me as much as exponentially scaling scope. Seriously.
I'm not calling them lazy. I'm sure they are giving their all to get the game done. I just think they're handling their priorities poorly.
This doesn't look marginally better than the 3DS games. The 3DS games suffered because of it but cutting Pokémon hasn't improved things. If it looked amazing and new instead of the same shit in HD there wouldn't have been this level of blowback. You can pick one or the other and act like everything is fine but not both.
They're not lazy, they're just being cynical businessmen. You have a higher return by putting out an inferior product faster when you have a brand as big as Pokémon.
Pokemon games haven't been good for two generations now and the number of pokemon was not the reason. Pokemon has had issues with game engine stability and weird design choices for a long time now.
The decision that baffles me is this: start with a regional dex and then treat the game like a GaaS. Have expansion packs that you charge for that add new regions and pokemon. Pokemon GO didn't start with all the pokemon, they are adding them slowly.
The decision that baffles me is this: start with a regional dex and then treat the game like a GaaS. Have expansion packs that you charge for that add new regions and pokemon. Pokemon GO didn't start with all the pokemon, they are adding them slowly.