GO Gen I Pokémon at launch, smart building block or nostalgia pandering?

[Arcalargo]

So, this is a budding conversation over in the VG thread about getting R/G/B/Y remakes (again) and has derailed into a sidebar of annoying vs smart idea for Niantic to only release the Gen 1 Pokémon at launch.

Personally, I think because of the fact that they were the first 151 Pokémon released, I think that Gen 1 is a good place to start. IF the end goal is to release all Pokémon for GO. If not, then it's kind of annoying and I wish they'd released a mix of all Generations instead. What are your thoughts?

 

[Gengarzilla]

Definitely nostalgia pandering. Generations 2, 3, 4, and 6 all have less Pokémon, why not start with those? Wouldn't it have been easier to add in fewer Pokémon?

 

[Lyrebird]

Smart. Get people in it with Pokemon they are familiar with.

 

[smalllady]

Orrrrrrr maybe because it's literally the first generation, as in numerical order? Crazy, I know!

 

[Zexy]

It is smart. They wouldn't like to release everything right away as it'd leave them without content to expand on later (which would make the game boring quickly) and overwhelm players when the Pokedex needs that many species to fill up.

So they had to start more slowly, and picked Gen I of course. Both because it's the first gen in numerical order and because it could attract older players back in to the franchise. And it worked very well, apparently.

 

[dragon_nataku]

So, quick backstory on me: I grew up in a third world country so although we did have the Pokemon anime when I was a kid, often enough we didn't hear about most of the games coming out in America (let alone Japan), including Pokemon games. I didn't even know Pokemon video games existed until 2010, and didn't bother doing much with them until 2013 when X/Y was announced (that I only knew about cause my one friend was super-excited about it. Hell, he was the one who let me in on the fact that Pokemon video games were a thing).

So, basically I went from the 151 Pokemon of my childhood to whatever insane number it was in X/Y (what are we up to now, 721!? ^@__@^;; ). Obviously this was very overwhelming, so I went back and started playing everything from the "beginning" (I did start with a ROM of Blue in 2010 but didn't get very far before the lack of ability to actually catch them all made me give up, so I "technically" started with LG and SS).

Anyway, my point being that if there are people like me who had a huge gap between the Pokemon we knew and loved and the current total number in the newest Gen it might scare them off to have to deal with 721 Pokemon right off the bat. Besides, like others have said, it gives the game the potential to come out with new content in the future (and since there's a badge labelled Kanto, one would assume they are definitely going to release more in the future). If you can't give people something new every once in awhile, your game will probably die, so I think they were being really smart about it.