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thekingofwinterblog · 3 years

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It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.

upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do.

This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.

After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.

It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.

Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.

It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.

if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.

his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.

Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.

Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child.

He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.

so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.

Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.

this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.

but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.

“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice... Touya... Cant surpass him.”

These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.

The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.

there are two ways to interpret this scene.

The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.

the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.

I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another.

either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.

sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.

because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.

He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.

and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.

and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.

While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.

So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.

and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.

everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.

except of course it wasnt.

His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.

frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did... from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.

Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.

And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15.

Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings.

In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.

He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.

after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.

and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.

there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.

Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.

#my hero academia #touya todoroki #dabi #endeavor #endeavour #enji todoroki #rei todoroki #character study #301 #meta

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thekingofwinterblog · 5 years

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Game Freak, Stagnation, Luck and the Refusal to Change

Its Amazing how much fucking grief Game Freak could easily have avoided if they simply said it would take a few months post launch to impliment all pokemon.

No one would have given a shit, they would have gotten away with halfassing everything else, having the A Team working on a game no one asked for, they could take their time, and all the hype would have remained at the top of the world.

Then again if they did that, it would have required actual work, and maybe expanding the company. And God forbid they actually invest any of those billions of Dollars they have earned over the Years.

Amongst all of Nintendo’s teams and Secondary companies, Game Freak is the most stagnant, and that can in Large part be contributed to their immense success. they started with around 150 people, and they currently have around 150 people. They have Stubbornly refused to expand the rooster over the year, despite the fact that they Struck gold better than literarly any other Company in the Game industry.

This in turn Lead to the Company growing stagnant, not innovating, and in general not really going foreward nearly as much as other companies.

There is a question to be made though. Was it always this way? Before this whole debacle i used to think that Game Freak used to be this amazing innovative company, that managed to score an amazing hit and pushed that for all its worth.

However after digging deeper ive kinda begun to question that at all. or Rather ive come to realise that Game Freak is a good example of how a company needs input from other sources for it to not fall into decadence, and that sometimes you need someone to come along and give you a few suggestions. Or a kick in the ass, as they need in Newer times

----GENERATION 1----

Going back all the Way to Red and Green, Nintendo gave what was quite possibly the first Mandate it Ever gave for the Pokemon franchise. This demand? Add PVP to the Game. Thats right, originally Game Freak didnt want to add PVP whatsoever. Given how Game Freak now wishes to fuck over the competitive scene permanently, the fact that they never originally didnt want to have players battle at all should not come as a great suprise.

Withouth this one feature, it seems unlikely pokemon would have been as big a hit as it became. Maybe it would have been added in the Blue and yellow versions and have been in all international releases, but this is by no means certain. Player against players would have come eventually no doubt, but its fully possible that left entierly to their own devices, Game Freak would not have implemented this feature before Gold and Silver.

How big this would have impacted the franchise in both short and long term is impossible to say, but it certainly would have drastically reduced the long term gameplay of the first Game by quite a lot.

however, i should note that im not arguing that Game Freak did not work hard for Red and Green. they did, and they worked on it to the point that right before it was released, Mew was secretly added to the game under Nintendo’s noses. but it sets the Stage for Game Freak often not implimenting the obvious, or not going out of their way to add stuff beyond their original vision of the game.

Setting the stage, we get to the first truely innovative pokemon Game. Pokemon Stadium. And as we’ll see over the course of this retrospective, the Innovative games, is not the ones made by Game Freak themselves, but instead Other companies. In this case Nintendo themselves, Hal Labratory, and its Brilliant leader Satoru Iwata, a man who as we’ll see created half of Pokemon Gold and Silver singlehandedly.

Iwata began his involvement in Pokemon History in Great Style. By taking a look at the pokemon Battle system, and memorising it withouth Code or notes. that might not seem that impressive, but he then went on to create the entire Battle System of Pokemon Stadium exclusively from his own memories, and amazingly enough he would fix things which Game Freak had fucked up in its first outing, like Focus Energy actually working and a number of other smaller mistakes Game Freak had Made being fixed for Stadium.

Stadium Would Then go on to create Pokemon Models that would be used all the way to the third Generation, where the Orre Games would simply ugrade them.

Another innovative feature was to unlock a Game Mode which let you speed up your Game Boy Game while playing it on the stadium. An Amazing tool for anyone who wants to Grind, and a really good reward for anyone who put the effort into unlocking it.

Stadium is by no means a Perfect Game. but it Set the tone for it being the Other companies Nintendo Employes being the truely innovative game makers in regards to pokemon. Iwata in particular being a truly important figure for the second Generation of Pokemon Games.

So after the golden Ticket that Game Freak had in the Original Red and Green, you would expect them to heavily invest them into making sure that when the sequels rolled around, they would have everything in place, a bigger more experienced team, and all the resources they would need to get the Second Games rolling. If you had this expectation, the actual development is actually quite a sad affair.

----GENERATION 2----

Now there was an obstacle which wasnt their fault at all, which was the game boy colour. Given its sudden and unexpected release, Game Freak now had to Port the second generation Games so they would work on both the original Game Boy and the New Version. that would have been a daunting task, but if the development was going well to begin with, they would propbably have pulled it off.

that however was not the case. Long story short, the Games were a complete Mess, they had a hundred ideas, but There seems to have been no hard leader who would wrangle them in line and decide what to cut and not cut. and as the first Release Date which they would delay another year began to creep closer, they had come to a point where they neared the end of the Capacity of the Game Boys Cartridge power to handle. yet they were only halfway through the development. It reads like an eerily similar Development which Anthem would go through around 2 decades later.

So, what happened? why did the Second Pokemon Generation not end up as a dysmal failure? the Answer is Satoru Iwata. at this Point the Brilliant Future president of Nintendo Stepped in to save the day, and he Decompressed the entire work the team had done, to such a degree that they unexpectedly had so much extra space that they decided to just port Kanto over to the newer Games.

To put it bluntly, Game Freak was about to Completely Blow it, and was only saved thanks to the genius of a single man they only had access to thanks to their bosses at nintendo.

in other words, Pure Luck and chance.

Between gold and silver, and the third generation there was Crystal and pokemon Stadium 2. Crystal very much reads like a game where game freak had more breathing room to just impliment the ideas they originally had for Gold and Silver, and while not the most expansive third Game, it certainly was a step in the Right Direction. Stadium 2, was not created by iwara, and feels more like a game where the team from the previous Game just polished up the old stuff and added more pokemon. and there is nothing wrong with that. at least they gave and delivered on the expansion of new pokemon which this update promised. i mean, its not like Game Freak would be forced to cut features from gold and Silver for their next games right?

----GENERATION 3----

Generation 3 was, and probably is the most divisive released generation of Pokemon at the time of this writing. there are a lot of Reasons for this. the first and most obvious reason, was that there was no way to port over all the pokemon from generation 1 and 2, but unlike the newest development in sword and shield, there was actual Mechanical reasons for it, as well as a generally overhaul of the way stats and mechanics worked. More Glaring is the the fact that this was the most difficult set of pokemon games Game Freak ever worked on. which shouldnt be a suprise. it was entierly now hardware after all.

Junichi Masuda famously worked himself to the abslute brink while doing work on the game, and up to the very release date he had nightmares about them completely failing and bombing. this did not happen of course. Ruby and Sapphire were great Games, even if they did miss a lot of pokemon, didnt have the day and night cycles(or at least not as obvious ones) and had completely scrapped the idea of Online capability which Crystal had dipped its toes in.

However commendable how much crunch and work the workstaff over at Game Freak were willing to put themselves through for Generation 3, one cannot help but wonder, if the entire Development hell couldnt simply have been avoided if they had hired maybe a hundred new people to work on the third generation. after all, the limited manpower undoubtedly contributed to the hell that was the development of Gold and Silver. surely they would have learned from those mistakes and prepared for the next round right? what with the billions they had made from all the pokemon sales, they surely could have afforded it. but they did not. in fact, not only did they not learn anything in regards to the limited manpower they had for Gold and Silver, but they would in fact not learn it from this debacle either. nor would they ever.

After the whole not all pokemon being a thing in Ruby and sapphire, the next few games entire role for existing would be to rectify this, and to game freaks credit, they laid the ground work for this from the beginning, by making sure that a national dex existed in the game which would be unlocked if you transferred over older pokemon that didnt exist in hoenn.

Game Freak themselves then did the remakes of Firered and Leafgreen, which are great games in their own right, but as far as innovation goes, i dont think anyone would argue that they were revolutionary in any way.

instead we turn our eye to another Game, Pokemon Colosseum for the Gamecube, the little Lunchbox that almost could. Pokemon Colosseum was made by Genius Sonority, a VERY small company owned by nintendo and The Pokemon Company. as of this writing, they have around 20 employees, dwarfed by even the modest 140-150 employees Game Freak has. they would be the first to actually challenge Game Freak as Makers of pokemon games.

Colosseum is a truly experimental pokemon game, from the way you catch pokemon, to its protagonist, to its actual difficulty. but in my opinion the thing that makes the game so much different than any other game in the franchise is its sense of idendity. its very different than any other game in the series, being in general rather dark in many ways, with a protagonist that used to be a thief which dealt with stolen pokemon, the mechanics of actually having to steal pokemon to save them from what was done to them, and an unfliching difficulty where the game was not afraid of not pulling its punches. all goes to make it a rather unique pokemon experience.

Sadly, Colosseum was not to reach true mainstream success. while it did the job of filling in the pokemon not covered by Either sapphire and ruby, nor Firered and Leafgreen, this limited array of pokemon had its price. while it was certainly not a failure by any means, and sold well, there is no denying that it simply didnt sell better, nor nearly as well as the regular pokemon games. thus Game Freak did not need to take notice of it. never the less, it was the first challenge to Game Freaks status as the main Creators of pokemon Games. it would take a while before a new contender would arise to credibly challenge them for the throne.

after colosseum, there was pokemon emerald and XD:Gale of Darkness, the sequel to collosseum. Emerald very much feels like crystal. A game where Game Freak got to take it a bit easier and add some stuff they had planned for Sapphire and Ruby, but had to scratch. the fact that they did not add day and night cycles, boggles the mind, but it would probably have been to much work. XD was a good game in its own right, but it simply lacked a lot of what made Colusseum work so well. it very much feels more like a mainstream pokemon game on the big screen, instead of a sequel to probably the game with the most unique idendity in the franchise. it also adds very little new gameplay vise.

after xd and emerald there were no other pokemon Games which werent spin offs in their own sub franchise, like Pokemon Mystery dungeon, before generation 4. which for once didnt have any major problems.

----GENERATION 4----

Generation 4 was a turning point in many ways, but not for the better. it was the first Generation which was developed withouth major problems, except a small delay to put the finishing touches on the game. some might say that is a big development mistep, but i would have said that in a vacum, this would be fine. if this had simply been the only time Game Freak had a bit of time problems, there would be nothing to complain about here. however, taken in context of the history of Game Freak as a whole, the major problem that Game Freak refuses to Expand, despite the fact that their situation very much demands they do so, rings very true here.

other than this small delay though, Generation 4 came along with no hickups. it was critically loved, it was a sales success, and in general was just a great sucess. the problem is that by now, Game Freak had discovered a way of doing things, and as far as they were concerned it worked. Diamond and Pearl being the first time they didnt have an existensial crisis developing a new generation. now the good about this is that they generally did a good job. Gen 4 is just good all around.

innovation vise though, its probably the least impressive of all the generations. unlike gen 2 and 3 it didnt introduce any new types, unlike gen 3 it didnt introduce entierly new ways of battling, and unlike generation 5 it didnt make a ridiculous leap in animation, very much sticking to the old way of doing sprites with just a bit more power.

this was in hindsight a very bad thing, because the great success of Gen 4 established a pattern that would repeat itself over time. namely the lack of innovation to things such as story, character, the way you progressed through the game. everything that was in gen 4 in this regard it had all been established in generation 1-3. The gym system was from gen 1. the evil team also dates back to gen 1, with their grandiose plans being a thing established in gen 3. the post game was established in gen 3 mostly and a bit in gen 2. safari zone from gen 1. casino from gen 1. the event pokemon system(probably the worst mechanic in the franchise) had also not changed much at all, with gen 1 being where it became a mix of pokemon you simply could not capture, and those you needed special items to capture.

in this Light gen 4 is where the pattern really established itself. it might not have been the ones who invented anything going foreward, but it was the ones that hammered out how things would work in almost all games going foreward.

after Diamond and pearl, the next non game freak game to try and contend with the mainstream ones was Battle Revolution, which was a failure of such proportions that it killed the very idea of ever there being more colosseum or stadium type games. the Game Freak Dominance stayed supreme.

following Diamond and Pearl, there was the third game, and remakes. pretty much the same story as the previous time, third game being the first two but better, while the remakes are great games in their own right, but not immensly innovative.

----GENERATION 5----

generation 5 was in many ways a geniune innovative attempt at remaking the franchise. it was also a game that unknowlingly or not, tried to establish itself as a type of successor to Colloseum, but which did not quite pull it off. while the game has an actually good story, it still didnt quite manage to divest itself from the regular pokemon formula the way Colosseum did. while the story was better well told, it was still when it came down to it, just the same beats as the two previous generations.

the big difference of course was N, the most compelling villain in the games so far. he managed to give the game a lot of grandiose which the two previous sets of leaders lacked. unfortunatly, him alone was not quite enough to make the story stand out from all the rest. it was however a great sign of innovation on Game Freaks Part, and it goes to show that at this point there was still a spark in actually wanting to improve the games fundamentals.

going along with a better story, there was also the jump to actually moving sprites, which in my opinion was the best the combat of Pokemon has ever looked. just having the sprites move and the camera being a bit more dynamic made the battles far more alive than any previous mainstream game.

not everything can be a sucess though, and as we see in the triple and rotation based battle, there were also some new concepts which simply didnt work nearly as well as intended. There was also the removal of Contests, which had always been a bit problematic, but rather than trying to fix it, Game Freak instead opted to remove it entierly. this fate would later befall the much better implemented mega Evolutions, but the pattern was already there.

after the Failure of battle revolution, no alternative to Game Freak created Games would arise this generation, which mean that the next games in the series would be the only other core RPG games for the generation. Black and White 2.

Much and more can be said of black and White 2. for one thing, it was a very good sequel to a very good game. it built upon the plot of the previous games, sold well, and while not that innovative in gameplay, none of the third games before it was such, so why should this one be critiqued for that when none of they were?

unfortunatly, this streak would not continue with the next games in the franchise. X and Y.

----GENERATION 6----

now i want to make some things clear. i like X and Y. but other than one single element, and a graphical update, it was probably the generation with the least innovation in story, character, plot and general idendity.

the biggest change was of course Mega Evolution, probably the biggest and best change since double battles. it was a game play mechanic which completely altered the way the game played, both in singles and doubles, as well as breathing new life into many old pokemon.

other than that, there was the jump to full 3d, which was okay, and the game looked nice, as well as being the first game to let you customize your trainer(though not to insane degrees, generally only clothes, hairstyles and color) made the game look far better overall(though i still prefere gen 5′s more dynamic combat.

unfortunatly, that is where the innovation ends. because pretty much everything else is pretty much rehash of older games.

the evil team is as generic as possible. the main villain is the same as gen 3′s villains, just with a different solution. the plot is pretty much the same as gen 3 and 4. the league mechanics arent different at all from what had come before. the Game traded the 2 interesting rivals from gen 5 for a whole entourage of generic characters who all supposedly served as your rival. the only truly interesting part of the plot was AZ, a character that was criminally underused, despite a really interesting backstory.

all in all, despite a huge change in gameplay generation 6 is probably as “standard” a pokemon game as there has ever been. following afte X and Y, there would be no third version, a first in pokemon(if one counts white and black 2) but there would be remakes, which as ive said about its predessesors, were good games in their own right, but not terribly innovative(other than having better flying than any game that came before it.). after that however, there were no other major games until the seventh generation.

----GENERATION 7 and Onwards----

there is so much good to say about generation 7 that im generally not gonna delve into it here. what i will focus on, is that what made generation 7 so innovative, was that it pretty much just took the standard pokemon guidebook, and threw it out the window, for better or worse. this has lead to a game that is truely different than the previous games, but also not quite a true successor to them. this is probably best shown in that generation 8 didnt want to follow up on the direction 7 put foreward, and instead went back to the older style.

this is not to say that generation 8 was bad by any means, but that it was never going to be the next step. it was an experiment to see how far you could stretch the boundary of the mainstream pokemon games away fromt he standard, and while it had elements that should have carried on over, it was never gonna be the definite way pokemon games would go foreward.

so after such a drastic change of pace, we only have to ask one simple question. WHAT. THE. HELL. HAPPENED?

after Sun and moon was released, the follow up was Ultra sun and moon, which was just the previous game with slight changes. it was for all intents and purposes a reskin. no third version even comes close to how much a cash grab it was.

so what the hell happened after the release of sun and moon? two words. Pokemon GO.

Pokemon Go was the first real challenge to Game Freaks exclusivity over the mainstream Pokemon RPG experience since colosseum way over a decade ago, and to say it was a bit more successful, would be like saying the mongol empire killed a few people.

Pokemon GO, or rather the way Game Freak has reacted to it, completely changed the way the pokemon franchsie would go foreward. At the time of this Writing, Pokemon GO is responsible for around 5% of the entire pokemon franchise earnings. it is to put it simply, a massive and insane success.

which is what has lead to a massive problem for Game Freak, as they have come to the rather disturbing conclusion that they can be replaced. the success of Pokemon GO has killed the myth that Pokemon Needs game freak to succed going foreward, and the stark realisation that there is literarly nothign stopping nintendo and the Pokemon Company from handing the franchise over to the hands of some other team.

the ownership of pokemon is a complicated mess between nintendo, Creatures INC, the pokemon Company and Game Freak, but the base line, is that nintendo owns it. they can hand over the franchise to any company they want if they so desire.

this is why when the time came for a sequel to sun and moon, the absolute cheapest alternative was taken. because Game Freak needed to move on to other projects.

One would think that this would mean that they would pump all their effort into making the newest Pokemon Games. alas, that is not the case, instead they sent the A Team of Game Freak over to work at an entierly new Game called The Town. this is an insane move, as they are at a critical point in regards to pokemon games going foreward. but when taken from Game Freaks point of view it makes sense. as they are desperate to prove to nintendo that they can in fact make other games than pokemon, and that even if they dont get to make more of them, they are still a valuable company under their umbrella.

again, from a purely business perspective this makes sense. from every other perspective its insane. having an already miniscule manpower pool to draw from, Game Freak cannot afford to majorly split their resources for any single major release. yet that is exactly what they are doing.

Every bad decision taken by game freak in regards to Sword and Shield, every corner cut, every single decision, is to make this game as playable as it can be, with the miniscule amount of probably 70 or so people working on it. hence the lackluster animation, primitive looking trees, load times, the cutting of around 60% of the total amount of pokemon from previous games, the removal of mega evolutions in favor of the much simplier Dynamax.

all to get this game out knowing from experience that as long as its a standard Pokemon Game it will probably be a great success.

this hole however, is entierly their own fault. the one big release a year, could easily have been made drastically easier, if they hired a hundred people and made them exclusively devoted to the extra releases while Game Freak as a whole could focus exclusively on their big games. instead, they dug in their heels, and refused to expand on their business, even though it was clear all the way back in generation 2, that change needed to happen. that their current way of doing things simply didnt work.

the rest of the industry changed to cope with the changing market. some embraced DLC, some decided that mmo style was the only way to go, Even Nintendo themselves is finally embracing the concept of DLC, Patches, online multiplayer in large scale and so on.

Game Freak however is still operating like its the early 1990′s and they are still a small studio with no big demands on them, which they can handle on their own. they purposefully ignored the lessons that they should have learned in generation 2 and 3, namely that they needed to expand and build better infrastructure. instead they have stubbornly refused to change, until now when they fully willing to cleave their own franchise into pieces, when simply embracing the concept of a Patch or Two would have solved all their problems.

#pokemon #game freak #stagnation #gen 1 #gen 2 #gen 3 #gen 4 #gen 5 #gen 6 #gen 7 #gen 8 #pokemon sword and shield #sword and shield #dexcut #dex cut

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