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Speculation At some point - does Gamefreak need to slow down on the production of new regions and Pokemon?

I think they need to hire a bigger team of programmers tbh. I feel like Gamefreak as a company is unusually small and that they need to expand and create the core games faster too, because I've noticed around social media and forums like this one that fans get bored with the core games very fast (sometimes within just a couple of months after their release), so Gamefreak needs to pick up the pace and start releasing new core games annually imo.

Also while on the subject, I agree with those who say that Gamefreak just goes through the motions these days. Their recent work has been very derivative and bleak to the point where I feel like they don't even have the same passion for the games that they once had and that they're making the games simply because Nintendo has Gamefreak at gun point.
I mean, people wouldn't get bored so fast if the games still included some proper post-game content. Stuff like the Battle Frontier kept players busy for months!
 
I'd be more than happy for another company to produce the main series Pokémon games if Gamefreak can't meet the demands to an acceptable degree.
 
First of all, those anime examples were all about nostalgia. Why expect the same company to handle a different concept well? Give it to other people. The key to Game Freak improving the main series is not spreading out.


Shuffle and Duel probably did better than the 3DS spin-off games (including SPMD). Go's success is unparalleled by anything but the original games.

According to some interview, GF wants their younger staff to get experience, so why not letting them have different approaches? I honestly can't see how having GF make only main series games has lead us through a better road so far, in my opinion it has been the exact way around.
 
Yes. Apparently, the alien invasion theme found in Alola was the original main story for X and Y, but it was cut due to time constraints. If they'd given it another year, then maybe XY would be better very different to what they are today.
Source:
View: https://medium.com/@pankopop/the-xy-files-the-lost-plot-of-pokemons-6th-generation-d0d140881148


I've seen a lot of people point out that games can't be delayed because of anime and merchandise releases. But since it's the games that dictate anime/merch releases, I see no reason why they couldn't slow down game development and reschedule the other two to match. We've had filler seasons of anime before, after all, and it's always nice to see cameos of new Pokemon in films or merch.


I'm not sure if the games dictating anime releases is that true nowadays...I'm not seeing a certain season to keep going for more than a couple years and to wait for a new game to be released.
I think I already read the XY stuff in another site...In my opinion, things have been out of the way since Gen. V! Seeing a lot of French-inspired Pkmn being thrown into a game based in NY seems like a filler when they would be better in Kalos (Serperior, Escavalier, Lilligant, Musketeer trio, Swanna) and then XY being easy and short and now Sw and Sh.

Edit: source from what I read: Rumor: Pokemon X & Y's Story Originally Involved Aliens, But Was Cut For Time And Being "Too Weird" | NintendoSoup
 
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Their recent work has been very derivative and bleak to the point where I feel like they don't even have the same passion for the games that they once had and that they're making the games simply because Nintendo has Gamefreak at gun point.

Another rumour I heard is that Masuda lost his passion for Pokemon after his efforts making Black and White were met with backlash from fans. For quite a while, BW were seen as the black sheep of the series, although people's views have become more favourable now.

While I can't give a specific source, if you read this article (Pokemon Historia: Generation 5 (Part 4): Character Origins) Masuda and by extension Game Freak definitely sounds like they had more energy than they do today.
 
some of my favourite games are games that have taken a long time to develop. breath of the wild, for example, which took 5 years, is a game i don't really get bored of at all. there's so much to do and everything feels really thought out. in comparison, i feel like the pokémon games are substituting quality for quantity if that makes sense. instead of spending more time on planning and designing their games they focus on making new games more often. as a result i often feel like the games could have been more than they are. for X and Y i didn't even feel like the game was finished when i completed the main plot + side stories. there were fewer pokémon, the side characters felt rather bland, the battles were way too easy and the plot with the legendaries didn't feel as fleshed out as they have been earlier (even if those never were my favourite part of the games). i get that making everything 3D takes more time and effort but i think that's a good reason to spend more time making them too. i would rather have really good pokémon games every 3-5 years (including remakes) than games i find decent at best every year or so.
 
People are saying that Pokémon games are being simplified. I can certainly see where they're coming from - even as a kid, I found Unova a lot quicker to traverse than Sinnoh or Johto - but is that really the case, or are we just better at video games? I always knew that Diamond and Pearl were badly-designed, but it was so rewarding to finally overcome something I'd been stuck on for months.
 
Also while on the subject, I agree with those who say that Gamefreak just goes through the motions these days. Their recent work has been very derivative and bleak to the point where I feel like they don't even have the same passion for the games that they once had and that they're making the games simply because Nintendo has Gamefreak at gun point.

Yeah Nintendo seems to have a bigger influence on the games these days than before and Game Freak as a company seems like it's going through a slow downward spiral.
 
I think Game Freak do want to slow things down, and maybe have a Generation last 4 or 5 years, but they just can't, because of all the pressure they get from Nintendo and TPCi.

A new Region, and a new batch of Pokémon, always sell much better than a revisit to an old region, with an old Dex. So naturally, Nintendo and TPCi want new content every 3 years, rather than every 4 or 5 years. And Game Freak are kinda forced to satisfy their partners.
If they wanted to slow down they wouldn't be doing so many other things though. They are making more non pokemon projects then before. The last gap year was in 2015. They haven't expanded. Overworking themselves is a conscience decision. Nintendo could easily get someone else to take the remakes off of their hands if Gamefreak let them.
 
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Another rumour I heard is that Masuda lost his passion for Pokemon after his efforts making Black and White were met with backlash from fans. For quite a while, BW were seen as the black sheep of the series, although people's views have become more favourable now.

If he's so afraid of backlash, why is he one of the few Gamefreak staff members who gives interviews and interacts with fans? He's said a lot of controversial stuff in the past 5 years, and I have a hard time understanding why he makes things so difficult for himself.
 
I feel like we're seeing the unfortunate consequences of the relationship between Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak whereas it's not as simple as Nintendo telling Game Freak to go away and that they're choosing another developer for the main series games. For better or worse, Game Freak owns 1/3rd of the rights to Pokemon, so Nintendo would quite literally have to take them to court for it if they want to strip them of those rights. This is all assuming Game Freak doesn't want to sell off those rights themselves. This seems like an incredibly unlikely scenario to happen unless the Pokemon games somehow tank in value.

Times like this that I really wish the games wouldn't tie in so much with the TCG and the anime so Game Freak would have some breathing room even to delay the games for a few months to make some tweaks here and there. I can't help but feel that some of this is out of their control due to how Pokemon as a franchise is pretty much tied to the games to market the other aspects of the franchise. I also can't help but feel that maybe there should be more effort from Game Freak executives to negotiate with TPCi and Nintendo about release schedules from here on out? Idk, I'm not a business person or know how that all works, but just a thought that came to mind.
 
Times like this that I really wish the games wouldn't tie in so much with the TCG and the anime so Game Freak would have some breathing room even to delay the games for a few months to make some tweaks here and there.
Diamond and Pearl were delayed. Then again, even as a kid I knew that those games were poorly-designed; specifically, the slowness of battles and confusing layout of Sinnoh. I don't know why they delayed it.
 
Diamond and Pearl were delayed. Then again, even as a kid I knew that those games were poorly-designed; specifically, the slowness of battles and confusing layout of Sinnoh. I don't know why they delayed it.

That's kind of the thing though − the why is pretty important to me − and also whether it'd even happen again.
 
I feel like we're seeing the unfortunate consequences of the relationship between Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak whereas it's not as simple as Nintendo telling Game Freak to go away and that they're choosing another developer for the main series games. For better or worse, Game Freak owns 1/3rd of the rights to Pokemon, so Nintendo would quite literally have to take them to court for it if they want to strip them of those rights. This is all assuming Game Freak doesn't want to sell off those rights themselves. This seems like an incredibly unlikely scenario to happen unless the Pokemon games somehow tank in value.

Times like this that I really wish the games wouldn't tie in so much with the TCG and the anime so Game Freak would have some breathing room even to delay the games for a few months to make some tweaks here and there. I can't help but feel that some of this is out of their control due to how Pokemon as a franchise is pretty much tied to the games to market the other aspects of the franchise. I also can't help but feel that maybe there should be more effort from Game Freak executives to negotiate with TPCi and Nintendo about release schedules from here on out? Idk, I'm not a business person or know how that all works, but just a thought that came to mind.

I definitely think there's a lot of friction between each of the partners right now and they have completely conflicting visions for what they want out of the series. Game Freak seems to want a fairly traditional Pokemon experience and doesn't seem to be interesting in adapting the game for console. Nintendo probably agrees with the fans and wants Game Freak to make an ambitious, high quality AAA console game, they're having a lot of success on the Switch right now with innovative, high quality experiences that break boundaries in their respective series (Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey being prime examples) and probably want Pokemon to follow suit. Creatures, meanwhile, makes their money on merchandise and spinoffs, and considering the spinoffs are going mobile, they probably want the series to shift to mobile. Really makes you wonder just how much longer this partnership can last.

I'm actually kind of wondering if Creatures is actually the one pushing for all of the things that fans are complaining about. If you think about it, the biggest moneymakers for this series are merchandising and mobile games, both of which fall under Creatures' purview. So they're benefiting the most from the current status quo. They don't care all that much about investing more into making a quality AAA console game, Game Freak and Nintendo benefit more from that, not Creatures. In fact, they may even be hurt by that, if they have to fill more time in between generations with merchandising and spend more money on AAA mobile games, they're probably not going to make as much money. So they're probably pushing for cheap mobile games and short generations.

If I'm right about all of this, then Nintendo and Game Freak need to get on the same page and work together. Creatures is never going to approve to investing more in the main games, so they need to force the issue by overruling them. Otherwise, I think we're going to see even more of a shift from console to mobile, with the current issues with the main games adding fuel to the fire.
 
I feel like we're seeing the unfortunate consequences of the relationship between Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak whereas it's not as simple as Nintendo telling Game Freak to go away and that they're choosing another developer for the main series games. For better or worse, Game Freak owns 1/3rd of the rights to Pokemon, so Nintendo would quite literally have to take them to court for it if they want to strip them of those rights. This is all assuming Game Freak doesn't want to sell off those rights themselves. This seems like an incredibly unlikely scenario to happen unless the Pokemon games somehow tank in value.

Times like this that I really wish the games wouldn't tie in so much with the TCG and the anime so Game Freak would have some breathing room even to delay the games for a few months to make some tweaks here and there. I can't help but feel that some of this is out of their control due to how Pokemon as a franchise is pretty much tied to the games to market the other aspects of the franchise. I also can't help but feel that maybe there should be more effort from Game Freak executives to negotiate with TPCi and Nintendo about release schedules from here on out? Idk, I'm not a business person or know how that all works, but just a thought that came to mind.

Now that you mention it, I think that if there's a petition to be made is not for GF but for Nintendo as a whole, while also addressed at TPCI, GF and Creatures, so that the games have more development time even if that means halting other stuff. At the moment, the PKMN franchise is like Star Wars with Disney wanting more movies so that they can also shove mechandising, side movies, comics, games.
 
If he's so afraid of backlash, why is he one of the few Gamefreak staff members who gives interviews and interacts with fans? He's said a lot of controversial stuff in the past 5 years, and I have a hard time understanding why he makes things so difficult for himself.
Being affected by backlash =/= fearing it - he's probably used to some fans getting upset at his statements, but that doesn't mean he can prevent it from affecting his feelings. At the end of the day, though, we don't know exactly what the guy's thinking.

Game Freak seems to want a fairly traditional Pokemon experience and doesn't seem to be interesting in adapting the game for console.
Agreed. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like if Pokemon continued to use sprite art like the DS games and/or became something like Octopath Traveler. The move to 3D in Gen 6 gave it a somewhat more modern feel, but it was still a very 2D sort of experience because they stuck with the old overhead view for the vast majority of areas and didn't update move animations to be like Battle Revolution's. Maybe this is because Game Freak takes very slow steps when it comes to graphics.
 
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