We will never live in the universe where Game Freak publicly acknowledges that they aren't interested in the hardcore fans anymore and so are working with Atlus to make a more engaging RPG spin-off series. 😞 😞 😞
Pokémon is a different beast compared to other games. The new anime just started today (they are going to Galar in episode 4), the new TCG set will launch in December, there's a lot of new merch that needs to be in the Pokémon centers and other retailers around the world in time for the holdays, there's most likely a Galar movie coming out next summer etc. You can't launch all that stuff and then launch your games (pretty much the thing your franchise revolves around) a year later. Yeah, they could've postponed all that stuff a year but that would mean another year in Alola without new Pokémon to make merch and cards of. By now everyone who wants it already owns a Mimikyu plushie, Pokémon have been on the cards a million times in the Sun & Moon sets, it's just time for new stuff, so that means new games.
It just feels the games are becoming more and more lacking, and I can't truly blame Gamefreak for it when they have such an unreasonable schedule. Like I don't give a shit about the TCG, anime and merch since I have yet to get significant merch of my favorites. Of course I'm the minority but the games are the only thing I truly look forward to with this series. Can't we get some kind of filler for the anime at least so GF can have more time to develop? Would it really kill sales of toys, figures, and TCG if there were no new species of Pokemon?
The anime could precede the game. Something like..."Enjoyed the new season of Pokemon? Then you'll enjoy the new gen game where you control the outcome of becoming champion".
What percentage does Game Freak own of TPC again?
The new anime already kind of is. They're revisiting all of the old regions (and Galar). The first episode is Pikachu's origin story and Ash is barely in it. But these things are planned way in advance. Of course, now Sword and Shield are out they can change their plans for future generations and maybe stretch this one out a bit, but these new episodes, card designs, plans for merch etc were made months ago. You can't really change things like that mid development for a franchise like Pokémon.
The only thing this thread explains is that there are a lot of people on this forum who don't understand how game development works.
You guys keep saying this. You realize the pokemon are 100% designed by Gamefreak and the rest of the company can't even start on their work until Gamefreak is done with the concepts and model sheets, right? Like people keeping putting the blame of tight deadlines on TPCi, but I don't think that's entirely the case
What's disingenuous is anytime any sort of responsibility is put on Gamefreak, someone brings up the mysterious boogeyman that is TPC. Gamefreak's small size is entirely on them not from a lack of funding to hire more people.
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You still have to think about the other companies, and the anime studio needs to be notified far in advance for extensions to a series if you plan on delaying the next game. Everything is on a tight schedule, that is the nature of multimedia. And if there's nothing to replace the current season of Pokemon then they could easily lose their time slot, and early morning time slots aimed at kids are hyper competitive.You guys keep saying this. You realize the pokemon are 100% designed by Gamefreak and the rest of the company can't even start on their work until Gamefreak is done with the concepts and model sheets, right? Like people keeping putting the blame of tight deadlines on TPCi, but I don't think that's entirely the case
What's disingenuous is anytime any sort of responsibility is put on Gamefreak, someone brings up the mysterious boogeyman that is TPC. Gamefreak's small size is entirely on them not from a lack of funding to hire more people.
Masuda on why Game Freak doesn't expand and keeps team sizes relatively small
Compared to the some of the big developers out there, Game Freak is relatively small. Companies like Ubisoft, Activision, and EA have massive amounts of staffers working on their projects. Meanwhile, the core team at Game Freak has only around 180-200 people working on Pokemon Sword/Shield...
You guys keep saying this. You realize the pokemon are 100% designed by Gamefreak and the rest of the company can't even start on their work until Gamefreak is done with the concepts and model sheets, right? Like people keeping putting the blame of tight deadlines on TPCi, but I don't think that's entirely the case
What's disingenuous is anytime any sort of responsibility is put on Gamefreak, someone brings up the mysterious boogeyman that is TPC. Gamefreak's small size is entirely on them not from a lack of funding to hire more people.
Masuda on why Game Freak doesn't expand and keeps team sizes relatively small
Compared to the some of the big developers out there, Game Freak is relatively small. Companies like Ubisoft, Activision, and EA have massive amounts of staffers working on their projects. Meanwhile, the core team at Game Freak has only around 180-200 people working on Pokemon Sword/Shield...
Ubisoft has a very different development structure.
Game Freak is a tiny studio doing yearly releases, one would hope they would be staffed well enough that a major game doesn't have to wait till its final year to get a massive chunk of its team.
Game Freak is only 200-250 people, the rest of the 1k person team was outsource work, marketing, localization, etc.
Since EAD Tokyo was a thing, 3D Marios have come out at a far quicker cadence (Galaxy - 2007, Galaxy 2 - 2010, 3D Land - 2011, 3D World - 2013, Odyssey - 2017), and Zelda's been an annualized product for years now.
Ultimately 3 years is fine, they just need 2 300 person internal teams working on games simultaneously and outsource most of the work on sequels/third versions and Let's Go games. Hell, Let's Go games seem like perfect candidates to just give to another studio.
Which is normal on Era. Don't expect any of them to learn or even care.
Not really, it's pretty misguided to compare Game Freak development to Ubisoft. Game Freak is an independent studio, not a publisher with studios all around the globe and thousands of employees. The reason Ubisoft employees work on so many games in a short period of time is because Ubisoft has a fuck load of employees and they have gargantuan staff lists for games, this is not the case for Pokemon. Game Freak is a pretty small studio for HD games, and tiny for HD annual releases + all the other little projects they do.
Well apparently they only added overworld Pokémon to SWSH because of the overwhelmingly positive reception of the feature in Let's Go, so the game would have been worse without it :p
Well they said so in interviews, but yeah the wild area without them would have been weird, unless it was originally restricted to it? But then they could have said so
