June 24th Pokemon Presents Discussion

[Matthew Clerkin]

Is it common for MOBAs, specifically those by Tencent, to have playable characters locked behind paywalls, or are they more focused on cosmetics?

I could also see “skins” such as shiny versions locked behind limited time events or microtransactions.

I could definitely see shiny Pokemon as skins that either require microtransactions or a fair amount of grinding.

 

[Bolt Strike]

The fact is you can compare the price and features with previous games of the same genre and that is objective. I could justify the 60 dollars or euros was the Nintendo Online included in the 60 dollars or euros. But no, and why do you suddenly have to pay to play online, unlike all the previous Nintendo installments?

You have to pay for any Switch game you want to play online, that's the way the system is designed. That's a Nintendo problem, not a Pokemon problem. For the record, the Switch's online is paid because they're trying to follow Microsoft and Sony who have premium online services, but NSO lacks many of the benefits of those services such as game discounts and offers. But all of that is out of Pokemon's control.

All right for the sake of it, let's actually compare some objective things here. I'll take the Sinnoh games as point of comparison to Sword/Shield here for the simple reason that people don't agree when exactly Pokémon started becoming bad and I've seen gen 5 (due to BW only featuring new Pokémon until postgame), gen 6 and gen 7 mentioned often enough, so we'll assume before those things were still good.
I'll compare the Sword/Shield base game content with the Diamond/Pearl content - extras from Platinum I'll compare to the DLC content.

Spoiler: Region Size

Sinnoh has 18 towns (counting the Pokémon League), while Galar has 11. Clearly, Sinnoh has more towns.
Sinnoh has 30 routes, while Galar has 10. Sinnoh has 3x as many routes by name as Galar does.
If you factor in things that do not officially count as routes, the Wild Area has 18 areas - added to the 10 routes, that would make it 28. Still less areas than Sinnoh.
What Bulbapedia claims landmarks could be added, too, though.
Which brings our count to 74 overall for Sinnoh, including Platinum content. For Galar, we would add the Isle of Armor and come to 47. If we are generous and assume Crown Tundra will add about 20 more to it, the count would come up to 67 - even that is still below Sinnoh!

In conclusion, Sinnoh (74) is a bigger region than Galar (67) by count of areas.
(We cannot measure the actual size of the region, though. Even if I had any idea how to, Sinnoh being on NDS and not a full 3D environment.)

Well you could go tile by tile for the whole region, but that would be very complicated and time consuming, so estimating based on areas is probably the best we can do.

Also, remember that Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra are DLC that costs an additional $30. So not only are you comparing these assets outright, but also compared to the cost of their games. DPPt cost $35 when it first released, SwSh cost $60 and the Expansion Pass cost $30. So you're talking 74 areas for $35 (2.11 areas per dollar) vs. 67 areas for $90 (0.74 areas per dollar). So there's a very stark difference there, in terms of number of areas DP offers three times as much as Sword and Shield.

Spoiler: Characters

Now let's compare the "meaningful characters". For this I will count every character with their own name, own sprite/model that isn't just a generic one and ones that are memorable enough.
Sinnoh has 8 gym leaders + 4 elite four members + 1 champion. Galar has 10 gym leaders (of which you battle 8 per game) + 1 champion. For now it's 13 for Sinnoh, 11 for Galar.
In Sinnoh you have one rival, while in Galar you have 3. Bringing the count to 14 for Sinnoh, 14 for Galar. (a draw.)
Sinnoh has 5 frontier brains (one of them is made of two people) which brings Sinnoh to 20, Galar gets 5 more characters (Mustard, Honey, Hyde, Klara, Avery) on the Isle of Armor. One character for the Crown Tundra was in the trailer - let's assume Crown Tundra will overall add 3 characters, adding 8 characters to Galar to bring it to the count of Sinnoh = 20, Galar = 22.
But that's not all for Sinnoh - some areas have you partner up with another trainer temporary, so we'll add Cheryl, Riley, Mira, Buck and Marley to the Sinnoh count, coming to 25. Galar stays at 22.
Now let's go count the antagonists. Sinnoh has Cyrus and his 3 admins (4 in Platinum), bringing Sinnoh to a count of 30. Galar has Rose, Oleana, Sordward, Shielbert - bringing Galar's count to 26.
Sinnoh has Rowan and Lucas/Dawn (I only count them once because I don't count the protagonist as character.) for the professor role, while Galar has Magnolia and Sonia. 32 for Sinnoh, 26 for Galar.

In conclusion, Sinnoh (32) has more meaningful characters than Galar (26).

I meant playable characters, which in this case is Pokemon, but okay.

Spoiler: Pokémon

Now let's look at the meat - the Pokémon.
The Sinnoh Dex in Platinum count 210 Pokémon - Galar's regional dex on the other hand, counts 400. Meaning, Galar's regional dex (without DLC) is almost twice the number as Sinnoh's.
Overall 493 Pokémon are programmed into the Sinnoh games. For Galar, as of the Isle of Armor, that's 510. We can assume Crown Tundra adds roughly 100 more, bringing it to about 600.

Ironically enough, Galar (510) wins over Sinnoh (493) in Pokémon count.
(Additionally, Galar added 86 new Pokémon and 16 regional variants to the game - overall 102 new designs. Sinnoh added 107. Sinnoh wins in this regard, although it is a close call.)

There's a couple of things to keep in mind here that makes 510 Pokemon in Galar less of a bargain than Sinnoh. For one, Sinnoh has nearly every Pokemon that was available at the time in game and everything that isn't could be traded/transferred. Meanwhile Galar only has about 60-70% of the Pokemon available that can be migrated into the game period. Second, again there's the issue of pricing. That 510 Pokemon looks a lot less impressive when you're paying twice as much for it. So again, in terms of value, Sinnoh still wins even if it has less overall.

Overall whether the games objectively have more or less content with each installment is still hard to say, now that I ran through some numbers. We do have a few less areas and characters (apparently), which hurts the playthrough somewhat. But on the other hand we'll never really have less types, moves or abilities than in the game before. Another point for added contents would be items - just think of the exp candies or mints. League cards are added content (that flesh out characters a bit more and you can customise your own.)

First of all, you're forgetting about one big category in the content, extra features and side activities. What about Sinnoh having Contests, Sinnoh Underground, the Battle Frontier, etc. vs. Galar having Pokemon Camp, Poke Jobs, and Restricted Sparring? Sinnoh has a LOT more of those types of features and they tend to be deeper as well. So I'd definitely give Sinnoh the edge there as well.

When it comes to a justified price, I use a very decent rule of thumb for myself - for every € I (have to) spend on the game, I want 1 hour of enjoyable game time out of it. If I buy a game for 60€ (Switch games full price), I want them to entertain me for at least 60 hours. Sword and Shield both justified their price for me, and the DLC is on a good way for that, too. If you wonder how I can tell for games I haven't played yet, I often check howlongtobeat if I'm not sure.

Then you should be looking into whether SwSh gave you more or less enjoyment than DPPt, by that rule SwSh should be giving you 2 or 3 times as much enjoyment as DPPt to be worth the same value since that's how much more expensive the games are. The way SwSh is, I'm betting it probably doesn't.

Also, it's good that you mentioned enjoyable content, because that should also eliminate padding from the games such as daily events. Like, I like Max Raid battles but having them change around daily inflates the amount of time I'm spending on it and having to constantly check them every day isn't enjoyable, so I would subtract those hours from your total.

Sure, you could go through and count every single individual aspect of the game and attempt to assign a monetary value to it but the things you count, what counts, and the value each thing holds are all subjective.
You call things “cheap and simplistic”. That’s an opinion. You point out that Pokémon have been cut. The degree to which that affects the quality of gameplay is, again: subjective. Your opinion of the game is different than mine.

I mean this as respectfully as possible: I am not going to spend my money based on your opinions and you are not going to convince me otherwise. If I like the game—and I most certainly do—I’m going to buy it. Point, blank, period. I don’t subscribe to the notion that I’m harming anyone by doing this. I’m not going to boycott a game because someone else doesn’t like it.

Maybe if it were an a la carte model where you could pick and choose what content you wanted, it would be subjective, but that's not the way this works. Everyone is paying for the same amount of content, you're just electing not to make use of all of it. But there's no debating how much content is actually in it, and that content has a finite value and requires a finite amount of labor to create.

Let's take an example. Let's say that you have a box of assorted ice creams that includes vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry (and for the sake of simplicity, let's say each flavor costs the same amount of money to make, so each flavor sold would make them the same amount of profit). They start out selling a 12 pack with 4 of each flavor for $30. But then all of the sudden they pull the 12 pack and start selling an 8 pack for $50 with 4 strawberries, 2 chocolates, and 2 vanillas. Now maybe if you like the strawberry, you'd be happy you're still getting as many as you wanted. But you're also paying more for them and getting less along with them (and again, in this scenario we're saying they all cost the same for simplicity to eliminate any issues with manufacturing from the equation). So there's no reason for them to be doing that, they're literally just being greedy. Even if you like the strawberries, you're still paying $50 for 8 ice creams regardless so that is how the value of that box of ice creams will be assessed regardless of which flavors you may or may not like. And there's no denying that the $50 for 8 ice creams is an objectively worse deal. And yes, you are harming the fanbase by doing this, because you're encouraging them to keep offering the objectively worse deal, and if the majority of the fanbase does then the entirety of the fanbase is subjected to that horrible deal.

It's also worth noting that this kind of practice is general illegal in other industries through fair value and price gouging laws (Amazon also has policies against this for its sellers, I work for a company that sells products on Amazon and have to deal with issues like these all of the time). So maaaybe there might even be enough for a court case to say that the recent games' cost is artificially inflated (although again, you would have to objectively quantify how much content which would be very complex), but that might be a stretch. I'd definitely say microtransactions and gacha mechanics definitely need to be illegalized or at least heavily regulated though, because those are pretty much gambling.

 

[Juizel]

There’s also the fact that Sinnoh has areas completely non essential to the plot. Optional content. Which areas in Galar are completely optional? I don’t think there are many. And Sinnoh's caves are actual Multi floor dungeons whereas Galar abandons the cave dungeons entirely.

Technically the Wild Area is pretty optional in Galar apart from having to walk through it I think twice to get to the next city. You don't really have to check out most areas in the WA, really just walk/bike through it. I'd have to check the map to see how many areas exactly, but I'd estimate that you don't set foot in half the WA's areas if you really just walk through it to get to the next place. The caves are a very fair point, though, but also a pretty simple comparison as Galar technically has 2 in the base game (+ I think 2 in Isle of Armor) but they're not actually dungeons. Rather a small route with a natural roof.

I don’t think the raw amount of Pokémon is a good metric (the total ones). I'd suggest the metric should be the percentage of total amount of Pokémon introduced at the time, since it’s a really unfair comparison to Sinnoh. There’s no way the developers could stick in Pokémon from Gen 5,6,7 or 8 there. Galar has 10 years worth more of a Pokemon selection to choose from.

Well, but if you just want to compare objective numbers, SwSh have more monsters you can use than DPPt do. To be completely fair, I've never argued that going by plain numbers to compare two games is a good idea to begin with, I did the whole count to try and save SwSh's grace (which failed as Galar loses in most of those counts) and at the same time prove how meaningless this "objective quantity" comparison actually is.
If we tried to fairly compare the Dex'es, I'd personally feel like (pre) evolutions of older Pokémon and regional forms would have to be disregarded as they're not new designs from scratch but rather build on existing designs....which again brings us to a point of "how can you even fairly compare the rosters of the games"?

I think you also forgot about similar content in Sinnoh like the entirely optional aspect of contests. Galar does have lots of quality of life improvements, I'll give it to that.

I always forget contests despite doing them a lot... Shame on me, really.

Also, remember that Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra are DLC that costs an additional $30. So not only are you comparing these assets outright, but also compared to the cost of their games. DPPt cost $35 when it first released, SwSh cost $60 and the Expansion Pass cost $30. So you're talking 74 areas for $35 (2.11 areas per dollar) vs. 67 areas for $90 (0.74 areas per dollar). So there's a very stark difference there, in terms of number of areas DP offers three times as much as Sword and Shield.

It was 40€ for my Diamond, Sword 60€ (expansion pass 30€). Platinum as 40€ extra. Since my comparison went Platinum = DLC, it's 80€ for Sinnoh and 90€ for Galar. Diamond released here in 2007... some calculation website I used online to make prices comparable with inflation (you don't actually think you can compare a 2007 price to a 2019 price directly, do you?) brought me to roughly 47€ for Diamond in 2019's price. Platinum released in 2009, that gives me 45€ for 2019. So for Sinnoh the comparison price would be 92€ which is actually slightly more expensive than Galar. Sinnoh still offers more areas, though.

There's a couple of things to keep in mind here that makes 510 Pokemon in Galar less of a bargain than Sinnoh. For one, Sinnoh has nearly every Pokemon that was available at the time in game and everything that isn't could be traded/transferred. Meanwhile Galar only has about 60-70% of the Pokemon available that can be migrated into the game period. Second, again there's the issue of pricing. That 510 Pokemon looks a lot less impressive when you're paying twice as much for it. So again, in terms of value, Sinnoh still wins even if it has less overall.

If you aren't a major fan of the series (and we do know they also try to get new players into Pokémon) then you don't care as much for how many of the existing Pokémon are in, but rather how many monsters you can actually use. As a point of comparison, Digimon games don't feature all their existing monsters either, and never did. People hardly complain there.
And again, "paying twice for it"... Being realistic here, how many of the 493 Pokémon can you actually catch in one single game? At the very least for the gen 1 ~ 3 starts and a good number of older legendaries you need older games to trade them up. You have to add that to your price . Sword/Shield at least allow you to obtain the Pokémon available in them, minus some version exclusives. Though for those there were raid events, if I remember correctly... Also, you don't need the DLC to be able to use the returning old Pokémon. You could grab your old ones from earlier gens through Home.

First of all, you're forgetting about one big category in the content, extra features and side activities. What about Sinnoh having Contests, Sinnoh Underground, the Battle Frontier, etc. vs. Galar having Pokemon Camp, Poke Jobs, and Restricted Sparring? Sinnoh has a LOT more of those types of features and they tend to be deeper as well. So I'd definitely give Sinnoh the edge there as well.

"Deeper" is not really objective. What if I consider League Cards deeper than the Sinnoh features as they give more info on characters? What if I thought the Underground was just grindy and annoying and prefer letting some dude in the Wild Area dig up stuff for me for some Watts? A lot of features, I'll give Sinnoh that, though.

Then you should be looking into whether SwSh gave you more or less enjoyment than DPPt, by that rule SwSh should be giving you 2 or 3 times as much enjoyment as DPPt to be worth the same value since that's how much more expensive the games are. The way SwSh is, I'm betting it probably doesn't.

Again, consider inflation - if DPPt would release today, they would be more expensive than they were back then - if you want to talk prices.
And actually, I do get more enjoyment out of SwSh than I did out of DPPt (and I say that as someone who loves Sinnoh as much as Galar.) The DLC content actually helps, since it gives me an excuse to get back to the game and do more, new stuff, even half a year after release.

Personally Sinnoh and Galar are my favourite regions, with Platinum and Sword/Shield being on the same level for me. Needless to say, I'd be all up for a DPPt remake on the base of the Galar games - a modernised Sinnoh game would be a dream come true.

In general I'd say we should agree to disagree, Bolt the Cat. I do see your point, but my priorities are just different from yours.

I'd definitely say microtransactions and gacha mechanics definitely need to be illegalized or at least heavily regulated though, because those are pretty much gambling.

We're absolutely on the same page when it comes to this, though.

 

[AngryBinacle]

Galar has nothing on Sinnoh. It doesn't even have normal dungeons.

 

[Matthew Clerkin]

It's also worth noting that this kind of practice is general illegal in other industries through fair value and price gouging laws (Amazon also has policies against this for its sellers, I work for a company that sells products on Amazon and have to deal with issues like these all of the time). So maaaybe there might even be enough for a court case to say that the recent games' cost is artificially inflated (although again, you would have to objectively quantify how much content which would be very complex), but that might be a stretch. I'd definitely say microtransactions and gacha mechanics definitely need to be illegalized or at least heavily regulated though, because those are pretty much gambling.

While I definitely agree with the sentiment that newer Pokemon games have less things to do and that gacha based microtransactions need to be heavily regulated, I'm doubtful that the Pokemon Company/ Game Freak can/should be held liable for the former. There is a lot of wiggle room to legally argue that the newer games have enough "value" to be worth $60 price tag. The Order 1886. infamous for being super short and having zero replay value, didn't get a fair value suite so why would Sword and Shield?

That being said, some aspects of Pokemon Home might end up causing the Pokemon Company trouble later down the road if specific Pokemon are absent from main series games for an extend period of time.

 

[Matthew Clerkin]

Galar has nothing on Sinnoh. It doesn't even have normal dungeons.

Galar's dungeon design is about the same quality as names of mines in the Galar region.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Spoiler

Maybe if it were an a la carte model where you could pick and choose what content you wanted, it would be subjective, but that's not the way this works. Everyone is paying for the same amount of content, you're just electing not to make use of all of it. But there's no debating how much content is actually in it, and that content has a finite value and requires a finite amount of labor to create.

Let's take an example. Let's say that you have a box of assorted ice creams that includes vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry (and for the sake of simplicity, let's say each flavor costs the same amount of money to make, so each flavor sold would make them the same amount of profit). They start out selling a 12 pack with 4 of each flavor for $30. But then all of the sudden they pull the 12 pack and start selling an 8 pack for $50 with 4 strawberries, 2 chocolates, and 2 vanillas. Now maybe if you like the strawberry, you'd be happy you're still getting as many as you wanted. But you're also paying more for them and getting less along with them (and again, in this scenario we're saying they all cost the same for simplicity to eliminate any issues with manufacturing from the equation). So there's no reason for them to be doing that, they're literally just being greedy. Even if you like the strawberries, you're still paying $50 for 8 ice creams regardless so that is how the value of that box of ice creams will be assessed regardless of which flavors you may or may not like. And there's no denying that the $50 for 8 ice creams is an objectively worse deal. And yes, you are harming the fanbase by doing this, because you're encouraging them to keep offering the objectively worse deal, and if the majority of the fanbase does then the entirety of the fanbase is subjected to that horrible deal.

Well then, you agree with me. Since it is not realistic to go through the game and count and quantify every single aspect, the game is going to be slapped with the same price as every other Switch game. Now, whether it’s appropriate for Switch games to be priced at $60 overall is a different question entirely. The question of whether Pokémon Sword and Shield are on-caliber with the many other titles that are $60 is subjective and depends entirely on what you value in a game. Which, we come back to: is subjective. The amount of content in the game is enough to justify it being classed in the $60 tier that currently makes up Switch games, in my opinion.
Also please stop telling me I’m harming the fanbase by purchasing the game. It’s dramatic, childish, and false. If you don’t like the game or its price, don’t buy it. But don’t attempt to guilt trip people who have a different opinion than you.

It's also worth noting that this kind of practice is general illegal in other industries through fair value and price gouging laws (Amazon also has policies against this for its sellers, I work for a company that sells products on Amazon and have to deal with issues like these all of the time). So maaaybe there might even be enough for a court case to say that the recent games' cost is artificially inflated (although again, you would have to objectively quantify how much content which would be very complex), but that might be a stretch. I'd definitely say microtransactions and gacha mechanics definitely need to be illegalized or at least heavily regulated though, because those are pretty much gambling.

I don’t disagree regarding gacha games, but Sword and Shield don’t even remotely fall into that category.

 

[Phosphene]

(removed)
I'm fairly certain they were talking about a hypothetical example were you could possibly make a case that the price of SwSh are artificially inflated, and not that they actually want to sue GameFreak.

 

[Minnale101]

I'm fairly certain they were talking about a hypothetical example were you could possibly make a case that the price of SwSh are artificially inflated, and not that they actually want to sue GameFreak.

The price is what there selling it for

Nintendo is porting wii u games full priced and no ond bats an eye lol

 

[colours]

figured i should make a few points. this announcement has most certainly made things worse and caused people that are mostly on the anti-Game Freak/TPC train to certainly dig their heels in due to the disappointment, as they do feel understandably vindicated. on a personal note, i miss the pokemon fanbase how it was pre-SM. hell, even during the SM speculation era, things were going pretty well for the most part. i'm not sure if XY were super well-liked games (i suppose if we were to use sales as a metric, this would likely be the case), but i think during that time, there wasn't as much division as there seems to be today. if you like playing pokemon, you're a "shill". and if you don't like playing pokemon, you're "toxic" (i don't like this word), and the reason why there's so much negativity going on these days.

i will say this: whether you (generally speaking) like it or not, the value of a product is up to the individual. if two people were to get the same pokemon game and one person gets more value out of it than the other, well, that's where subjective opinions come into play. sucks that not everyone can enjoy the same product, but that's just how it is. and this is where my biggest grievances lie: the outright shaming of people who still enjoy playing pokemon games, as if doing so means they "bootlick" Game Freak or TPC or whatever the case may be. i'd like to think we're better than to resort to such childish attempts at dragging people for playing the games they've enjoyed since they were a kid, even recognizing the flaws of the company that made them.

i understand the frustrations of those who are jaded and fed up with Game Freak and The Pokemon Company to the point where they seem to be at their breaking point. these people feel that by boycotting Game Freak or The Pokemon Company, this would force either company to have standards when making the next game, perhaps taking the "core" playerbase seriously. and look, i personally have issues with a lot of the way Game Freak does things. i think HOME is dumb considering Game Freak can probably port Bank to the Switch and have people's subscriptions carry over. i think that would be a far easier pill to swallow considering the cost of Switch Online, as well. i don't personally like how Galar's attempt at a plot was hamfisted near the very end, and i'm more than likely not the only person here that believes that the base Wild Area could use some work. the Y-comm is also an absolute disaster of a communication system. so it seems, for every step forward Game Freak takes, there's three or four steps backwards, and this has been driving these sorts of players up a wall.

well, i'd hate to be the bearer of bad news but it's not like insulting other players that enjoy playing the games for what they are isn't going to help accomplish any sort of goal whatsoever. for those who are jaded of the games, you do the heavy consideration of whether or not the next generation games (or any subsequent pokemon games, period) are going to be worth it because it's your wallet in the end, but this is no reason to drag other people or shame them because, even though they're quite frankly likely very aware of the same faults that you are, they're still able to manage enjoyment out of playing the games in a similar fashion they've manage to enjoy every other pokemon game in the past. for me personally, i like seeing my shiny creatures in battle, i like shiny hunting, and as perhaps flawed as it is, i like seeing my pokemon follow me around in the Isle of Armor. i think IoA, for me, is proof enough that Game Freak is at the very least making an effort, as the different biomes there are vastly more interesting than anything in the mainland Wild Area. sucks that it costs money, and we can debate about whether it should or shouldn't until the end of time itself, but it does. and hopefully this is an indication that Crown Tundra might be worth something, as well.

as far as this particular announcement goes, i wasn't a fan. i'm not a MOBA player, and this sort of genre of gaming hasn't really appealed to me. i do have large concerns about Ishihara's priorities and whether he feels (which is likely the case) that pokemon's future is in mobile. i disagree because mobile gaming isn't my thing. but i hope that, if Pokemon Snap does well, it should at least be an indicator of where the playerbase's interest are. after all, a company does pay attention to profits at the end of the day, perhaps to the chagrin of many. at least we've had a decent one such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX (and in the future, Pokemon Snap), so it's not like TPC is completely abandoning console spin-offs. but the prioritizing of mobile is rather grating to me, so i can understand the frustrations and grief, there.

tl;dr: debate about quality if you must, but keep things respectful. i understand i'm caving to the naive part of me, but i do hope that one day the broader pokemon community would mend its wounds and things would be as it was in the past without things being as split as they are when they don't have to be.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

It was 40€ for my Diamond, Sword 60€ (expansion pass 30€). Platinum as 40€ extra. Since my comparison went Platinum = DLC, it's 80€ for Sinnoh and 90€ for Galar. Diamond released here in 2007... some calculation website I used online to make prices comparable with inflation (you don't actually think you can compare a 2007 price to a 2019 price directly, do you?) brought me to roughly 47€ for Diamond in 2019's price. Platinum released in 2009, that gives me 45€ for 2019. So for Sinnoh the comparison price would be 92€ which is actually slightly more expensive than Galar. Sinnoh still offers more areas, though.

I don’t think considering platinum equivalent to the DLC is a fair comparison. Platinum actually can be played alone and can provide 95% (if not 100%) of the full Sinnoh experience, whereas you need the base Sword and Shield games to be able to use the Isle of Armour. Adding the prices of both Diamond and Platinum is unfair in this comparison since Platinum can provide most of the content alone anyway, and you don’t need the earlier versions to experience it, whereas you need $60 worth of investment to buy Isle of Armor in the first place.

 

[Shib]

as far as this particular announcement goes, i wasn't a fan. i'm not a MOBA player, and this sort of genre of gaming hasn't really appealed to me. i do have large concerns about Ishihara's priorities and whether he feels (which is likely the case) that pokemon's future is in mobile. i disagree because mobile gaming isn't my thing. but i hope that, if Pokemon Snap does well, it should at least be an indicator of where the playerbase's interest are. after all, a company does pay attention to profits at the end of the day, perhaps to the chagrin of many. at least we've had a decent one such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX (and in the future, Pokemon Snap), so it's not like TPC is completely abandoning console spin-offs. but the prioritizing of mobile is rather grating to me, so i can understand the frustrations and grief, there.

I think we’re still just seeing the tail end of the previous comments about expecting the Switch to flop - given that we’ve had a Mystery Dungeon remake and now Snap announced as well as the Let’s Go games and Sword and Shield on Switch I think the focus is shifting back to more of a balance.

I’m not a massive fan of mobile gaming but I think as long as micro transactions aren’t too aggressive then it’s fine. I’d rather have a full game that requires payment up front and is all in but freemium models are so much the basis for mobile gaming that any that try to launch at a cost of more than £1 seem to draw massive criticism for it.

I actually have a feeling that mobile gaming is starting to become a lot like PC gaming was in my youth- originally the basic hardware was all so similar that you could basically play any game on any PC, but the divide between gaming PCs and standard family PCs kept growing to the point that for the average family it made more sense to have a family PC and a games console for the kids. a lot of mobile phone producers are now doing frequent releases of phones where they have a high end mode that can run just about anything and a budget mode that doesn’t run a lot of the more complex stuff like AR. I think this divide could completely shift the mobile gaming conventions with the freemium model more important to the budget lines and more advanced phones COULD switch to more fully developed games at an up front payment. Of course things could just stay exactly as they are now too depending on how the industry moves and how consumers react.

 

[AngryBinacle]

All this talk about disrespect, yet I see quite a respectful discussion here and in other threads on this site. Even Reddit has lots of good and well thought out threads about the myriad of Pokémon's issues.

There's the internet and a fanbase this big. 1+1, there will always be shitheads. Can't we just ignore that part and focus on the essence of the discussion? I see many valid points being drowned in the respect/toxicity-debate.

 

[colours]

my general points should not be interpreted as pointed towards specific individuals in this thread. it's something to keep in mind as discussions that are involving criticisms and the value of Gen 8, as well as the intentions of Game Freak/TPC are naturally pretty fragile as there are people that feel strongly on both sides. trust me, if someone was really acting rude, you'd hear from me or the other VG staff in a more official way, to be rather honest, lol. thankfully things haven't gotten bad here yet but proactiveness and all. plus i wanted to add my own personal two cents and whatnot.

also in the last page or so it seems to be more about a) sinnoh vs galar (for some reason, i think that's a whole separate thread in itself) and b) mixed in with a separate debate about gen 8's value, so to be honest, this thread's discussion is rather all over the place. feel free to continue if you'd like but it does feel like two separate conversations in one thread from what i'm seeing (idk, maybe i'm wrong). my last paragraph was intended to reel things into the core topic at hand which was about Unite in particular (or rather the reactions to it, and maybe some subsequent thoughts, which is... the point of this thread). i personally don't mind topic divergence a bit if it's to make a broader point or if there's reason for it but if we're going to compare the value and quality of other regions to galar that might be better in its own thread. something to consider.

 

[Defiant]

So I've heard that Tencent gives user data to the PRC's government. Is there any reliable source(s) verifying this? Thanks.

All companies owned by a Chinese national or based in China (Tencent, Huawei, Douyin (who own Tik Tok), Zoom etc) are required to share user data with the Chinese government under a national security law. This isn't like the west where there is a due process that must be followed, no warrants, no appeals, you're not even informed your data has been passed on. The company is simply asked by an official to hand over the data under this law and they must comply or face criminal proceedings (Chinese courts have a 99% conviction rate).

Recently users living in the west received bans from Zoom for holding an online vigil to remember the Tienanmen Square massacre of 1989 because mentioning Tienanmen contravenes Chinese law.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Not to mention that certain Chinese apps like TikTok have been found to have access to even the clipboard on phones, discovered due to iOS 14 monitoring that. Having someone being able to access what you copy-paste is problematic to say the least.

 

[Bolt Strike]

It was 40€ for my Diamond, Sword 60€ (expansion pass 30€). Platinum as 40€ extra. Since my comparison went Platinum = DLC, it's 80€ for Sinnoh and 90€ for Galar. Diamond released here in 2007... some calculation website I used online to make prices comparable with inflation (you don't actually think you can compare a 2007 price to a 2019 price directly, do you?) brought me to roughly 47€ for Diamond in 2019's price. Platinum released in 2009, that gives me 45€ for 2019. So for Sinnoh the comparison price would be 92€ which is actually slightly more expensive than Galar. Sinnoh still offers more areas, though.

Inflation seems to have little to do with the price considering the price of a new game remains stagnant throughout the console generation. It seems to have more to do with the increase in technology from generation to generation (hence why handheld games have been traditionally cheaper and the price from 3DS -> Switch has jumped 50%). So no, I'm not going to take inflation into account.

Also @PkmnTrainerV brings up a good point in that DP is not needed to experience Platinum's content.

And again, "paying twice for it"... Being realistic here, how many of the 493 Pokémon can you actually catch in one single game? At the very least for the gen 1 ~ 3 starts and a good number of older legendaries you need older games to trade them up. You have to add that to your price . Sword/Shield at least allow you to obtain the Pokémon available in them, minus some version exclusives. Though for those there were raid events, if I remember correctly... Also, you don't need the DLC to be able to use the returning old Pokémon. You could grab your old ones from earlier gens through Home.

That logic applies to the old Pokemon added to the DLC though, if you don't buy the Expansion Pass, you need to buy a Home subscription + 3DS + 3DS game to transfer them over. So either way you won't be getting access to 510 Pokemon with just the purchase of the base game.

"Deeper" is not really objective. What if I consider League Cards deeper than the Sinnoh features as they give more info on characters? What if I thought the Underground was just grindy and annoying and prefer letting some dude in the Wild Area dig up stuff for me for some Watts? A lot of features, I'll give Sinnoh that, though.

By "deeper" I mean that they were lengthier and more multifaceted. And yes, that is objective. League Cards are a short conversation with a character out in the overworld and a blurb about the characters. Contests are an entire sidequest with a goal that involves enhancing a Pokemon's condition stats, collecting accessories, selecting moves that have different effects in contests, then competing in minigames and trying to appeal the judges to win. Then working your way up through multiple difficulties. One's more involved than the other. As for Underground vs. Digging Duo, again you may not like the digging mini game in the Underground, but just having it adds more value than just speaking with an NPC. Furthermore, there's more to the Underground than just getting treasures, there's also Secret Bases you can decorate, finding and setting traps, interacting with friends. What does SwSh have that's equivalent to those features?

And actually, I do get more enjoyment out of SwSh than I did out of DPPt (and I say that as someone who loves Sinnoh as much as Galar.) The DLC content actually helps, since it gives me an excuse to get back to the game and do more, new stuff, even half a year after release.

Again though, the DLC costs extra, so of course it should give you more enjoyment. SwSh + DLC is 90€. Platinum is only 35€. So SwSh, cost you almost 3 times as much, so you should be getting 3 times as much enjoyment. Are you actually getting that much? If not, then it's a worse deal.

Well then, you agree with me. Since it is not realistic to go through the game and count and quantify every single aspect, the game is going to be slapped with the same price as every other Switch game. Now, whether it’s appropriate for Switch games to be priced at $60 overall is a different question entirely. The question of whether Pokémon Sword and Shield are on-caliber with the many other titles that are $60 is subjective and depends entirely on what you value in a game. Which, we come back to: is subjective. The amount of content in the game is enough to justify it being classed in the $60 tier that currently makes up Switch games, in my opinion.

No, I don't agree with you. The point is that regardless of how much you like the content, it does carry an objective value in terms of how much time and resources it took to develop, and how much time is required to consume that content. A larger game is inherently worth more than a smaller game. More Pokemon is inherently worth more than less Pokemon. You may not like the bigger game or more Pokemon, but it took more resources to develop, and the market as a whole would value the larger game (even if they disagree on which specific aspects of it they like), so it's still worth more.

Also please stop telling me I’m harming the fanbase by purchasing the game. It’s dramatic, childish, and false. If you don’t like the game or its price, don’t buy it. But don’t attempt to guilt trip people who have a different opinion than you.

I have no issue with people having a different opinion over whether or not they like the content provided, that's not why I'm saying they're harming the fanbase. They're harming the fanbase because they're accepting a product that took less resources to make and offers less (in general, not necessarily less that they would like) at a higher cost, all quantitative measures that aren't a matter of opinion.

also in the last page or so it seems to be more about a) sinnoh vs galar (for some reason, i think that's a whole separate thread in itself) and b) mixed in with a separate debate about gen 8's value, so to be honest, this thread's discussion is rather all over the place. feel free to continue if you'd like but it does feel like two separate conversations in one thread from what i'm seeing (idk, maybe i'm wrong). my last paragraph was intended to reel things into the core topic at hand which was about Unite in particular (or rather the reactions to it, and maybe some subsequent thoughts, which is... the point of this thread). i personally don't mind topic divergence a bit if it's to make a broader point or if there's reason for it but if we're going to compare the value and quality of other regions to galar that might be better in its own thread. something to consider.

And I do have a larger point to make. My point is that the fanbase isn't taking into account the quantity of content offered when deciding on whether or not to buy Pokemon games and that's why we keep getting games like Unite. I see the comparison of Sinnoh vs. Galar and the issues with mobile games to be related by virtue of both the Galar games and the mobile games being low budget affairs with artificially inflated costs.

I'm fairly certain they were talking about a hypothetical example were you could possibly make a case that the price of SwSh are artificially inflated, and not that they actually want to sue GameFreak.

No, I do think there could be a case to be made for a lawsuit here. They probably wouldn't be successful, but I think there's enough here to be worth a legal debate.

 

[Matthew Clerkin]

An idea that could potentially unite the entire fanbase. An app where if you take a picture of an animal/object, it will show you what Pokemon are based on said animal/object.

 

[swiftgallade46]

No, I don't agree with you. The point is that regardless of how much you like the content, it does carry an objective value in terms of how much time and resources it took to develop,

This is speculative. No one except those who worked in the game has any idea exactly how much time and resources went into the game.

and how much time is required to consume that content.

This is subjective. Everyone can take a different amount of time to do things.

A larger game is inherently worth more than a smaller game. More Pokemon is inherently worth more than less Pokemon. You may not like the bigger game or more Pokemon,

Again, subjective. The “worth” of more Pokémon to less is up to the consumer.

but it took more resources to develop, and the market as a whole would value the larger game (even if they disagree on which specific aspects of it they like), so it's still worth more.

Just because an alternative would be valued more, doesn’t mean this one should be valued less. They could have included 20 more Pokémon introduced in Gold and Silver. That doesn’t mean they weren’t priced correctly as they are.

They're harming the fanbase because they're accepting a product that took less resources to make and offers less (in general, not necessarily less that they would like) at a higher cost, all quantitative measures that aren't a matter of opinion.

Your points are:

• Sword and Shield are factually overpriced meaning anyone who disagrees is automatically wrong.
• I and anyone else who purchased them should feel bad because we’re harming the fan base.

I’m not sure how you can read that and not immediately see how ridiculous it sounds. Passing off everything you say as fact while telling everyone who disagrees that they should feel bad and that they’re being harmful is not a great way to get people to agree with you.

I am going to continue to hold my opinion on the worth of the games and I am going to continue to purchase the games where I see fit. If you personally lose sleep over that, that’s on you. But I still love and support this community.

 

[Bolt Strike]

This is speculative. No one except those who worked in the game has any idea exactly how much time and resources went into the game.

We don't, but we do know the relative value compared to other games. More assets takes more time to create, each additional Pokemon they add also adds additional development time modeling and coding them into the game. Same with each new area, each new character, each new feature.

This is subjective. Everyone can take a different amount of time to do things.

That's usually due to either human error in trying and failing to accomplish the task or wanting to enjoy the game at their own pace. They can be objectively compared based on the optimal time it would take to complete the task, i.e. if you were to speedrun those tasks which would be longer or shorter?

Again, subjective. The “worth” of more Pokémon to less is up to the consumer.

No, no it's not. Higher quantities of products are always priced higher than lower quantities. This is because it costs more to produce higher quantities and because customers are more likely if not guaranteed to enjoy more of what's being provided. Let's say you pick any given pool of 200 Pokemon vs. any given pool of 100 Pokemon. Are you more likely to find more Pokemon you like from the pool of 200 or the pool of 100? Of course the answer is 200, and this should be common sense. More Pokemon means a higher chance of finding one that fits your personal tastes. Now is it going to be 100% the case that you'll like the pool of 200 every time? No, depending on which ones you do like it's entirely possibly you could like the pool of 100 better. But in general, on a macroeconomic level (meaning looking at the fanbase as a whole vs. personal opinions), overall fans are going to value 200 Pokemon more than 100 Pokemon. And businesses tend to operate on the macroeconomic level when making these types of decisions, so a higher quantity is always going to be priced more than a lower quantity with all else equal. I shouldn't need to explain this to you, this is something everyone should instinctively understand.

Just because an alternative would be valued more, doesn’t mean this one should be valued less. They could have included 20 more Pokémon introduced in Gold and Silver. That doesn’t mean they weren’t priced correctly as they are.

Well yeah, there's always that factor where every game could always have more content that it does. Still, whether or not they're priced correctly based on quantity depends on several factors:

1. How much money it cost to develop the game.
2. How much it offers relative to past games.
3. How much it offers relative to competing games of other IPs.

Now 1 you're right, we don't know for sure, but based on the lack of assets and content in the games, it's unlikely they need to price the games at $60 to turn a profit. The games were likely made on the cheap and so many people buy them that they should easily profit on these games even if they were at a lower price. 2 I've addressed with the Sinnoh vs. Galar comparison, and there's definitely less assets in SwSh than past games. As for 3, look at other Switch games such as BotW, Mario Odyssey, Smash Ultimate, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, Super Mario Maker 2, the list goes on and on. All of these games are going all out to include as many areas, as many characters, and as many features as possible. Pokemon is not.

This isn't an exact science, but just by eyeballing the games you can tell there's less to them. It's like looking at a mansion and then looking at a trailer and trying to figure out which is bigger (without a measuring tape or any other tools to help you). You don't know the exact size, but you don't need to because you can already compare the relative sizes with your eyes. Just because you can't exactly measure them doesn't mean it's an opinion.