Smogon and Gamefreak...?

[Quataaaa]

Magic could actually be a good source of insight. Unlike Game Freak, which has a very opaque development system and almost never provides information about its creative process, Wizards of the Coast is very transparent. Individual designers and developers have blogs where they provide tons of anecdotes about where cards come from. They even admit when decisions have to do with sales, like sometimes making more powerful cards rarer than weaker ones.

Pokemon, like Magic, has much higher sales among casual players than among competitive ones. As several people in this thread have referenced, Generation IV sold around 15 million copies worldwide, while the number of those who have ever visited Smogon numbers in the thousands. However, most Wizards employees really love their game and enjoy the competitive aspect of it. They sometimes produce cards aimed directly at competitive play, even as counters for specific tournament decks, because they want to make the game more fun. It costs them nothing as long as they make the game fun for children, and it can make a big difference to serious players. It would not surprise me at all if, for example, Infernape developers specifically discussed disrupting Skarmbliss.

In short, the first priority is making the game fun for the middle schoolers who keep it on the map. But I would bet that several of Game Freak's 70 or so employees lurk regularly on these forums. Some may have even tried Shoddy (note that Wizards of the Coast Creative Director Randy Buehler had a famous run, while holding that job, on the Vintage Proxy tournament scene, a Magic sub-subculture with a similar "under the radar" outlaw-factor to Shoddy). Like Magic R&D at Wizards, GF is a small developer with just a few eyes on each job, and those eyes belong to real people who are aware of what a cool job they have. They think about this stuff a lot.



Somewhat counterintuitively, this is not actually true. Neither are above anecdotes about Regigigas being bad as a counterexample of concern over competitive play, etc. Actually, numerous ludological studies show that competitive play is more enjoyable when there are some "bad" alternatives which must be discarded. In non-customizable games like chess and Go, this comes in the form of extremely large decision trees, much of which consist of very bad options (like placing yourself in checkmate). In customizable games like Magic and Pokemon, this comes at least partially from the existence of good and bad options in the customization process.

For example, suppose we gave Arceus the moveset of Smeargle, with no species clause. Every Pokemon is equally viable, and the metagame would have the option to be completely diverse. Wizards has published data (and no doubt Game Freak has acquired similar insight) suggesting that people would enjoy this much less.

Furthermore, analysis of professional-level Magic tournaments (which are far more competitive than Pokemon, given the higher stakes) has shown that consistently successful players do the best in moderately diverse metagames, while minimally diverse (only one or two viable decks) and completely diverse (extremely large number of viable decks) have more "random" results relative to rating, record, etc. In other words, for Pokemon, the best metagame, both for fun and for competition, is one in which there are a large number of Pokemon, many but not all of which are competitively viable. In other words, exactly what we have. I find it impossible to believe that this is a coincidence.

excellent points. Thanks for the great insight.

but another question remains, and this relates to the good/bad options concept: did gamefreak intent on their being something of a uber/ou/uu metagame setup? Where there are truly bad options (like Beadrill) but there is a world of sort of bad options (venusaur, absol, moltres) that are balanced... around each other.

I know nothing about Magic: does it have a tiering system as well?


Also, part of me wants to think that Gamefreak really did try to create an uber metagame. Let's not forget that gen 1, the only real uber was Mewtwo, and it was a vicious attacker... and then the next two uber's added are walls (ho-oh and lugia). Then, rse, added two well rounded ubers (latias and latios), another dominant attacker (rayquaza) - then dpp really took the uber metagame to a much higher and developed level.

 

[magickzzl]

I imagine a table of executive, like the 12 apposles, sitting around in Japan picking out suggestions for the newest versions. 11 say "The childeren will love this" and 1 guy is ranting in the corner "But Garchomp is broken!"

 

[Quataaaa]

I imagine a table of executive, like the 12 apposles, sitting around in Japan picking out suggestions for the newest versions. 11 say "The childeren will love this" and 1 guy is ranting in the corner "But Garchomp is broken!"

lmao.

 

[Chou Toshio]

and one more guy is like: Fine, next gen we'll make a Water/Steel with levitate, 115 base speed and an Ice-Type Pursuit, happy?

Garchomp/Mence/Latias: No . . .

 

[-Eddie-]

I don't think that competitive battlers are as important as the millions of people who buy the game just for the main walkthrough. Some people are saying that the invention of Stealth Rock, Life Orb, etc. are for competitive benefit, but that doesn't have to be entirely true. GSC was a massive stallfest, so GF might think that having a Pokemon capable of 2HKO the entire metagame will be more attractive to the short-attention span of children. Honestly, what eight year old says "YES! My Blissey is totally going to toxic stall you!"

Also, the general public probably likes battling more than they do collecting compared to RBY. I'm sorry, but with 493 Pokemon (with more on the way and some of them almost impossible to obtain), I highly doubt your going to "Catch'em all." After GSC, GF didn't even write "Gotta catch'em all" on the boxes anymore.

This is just an extra question, but is it even possible to obtain a legit Celebi, excluding Japanese Bonus Disk?

 

[wavedash]

I would like to point out that a rich metagame gives Game Freak money. And Nintendo loves money.

Nonetheless, I do think that stealth rock was a gigantic mistake - it is by far the most centralizing aspect of the metagame, and really the metagame would just be so much better and more enjoyable without it. To me, this is evidence that they care about the metagame (it was clearly added to dis-incentivize switch wars), but don't test things well enough to really know what's best and what's not.

lolol
It's not a mistake; there is no feasible way for Game Freak to predict how a certain move or Pokémon will affect the metagame without a time machine.

They might put a select few that they make sure will contribute to the competetive metagame (like lucario), but they rest I'm pretty sure they do not worry much because they will mostly go to NU or UU anyway

I'm not sure you understand how tiers work. It violates the definition of the OverUsed tier to have more than 50 OU Pokémon.

You never know, there might be someone, paid by gamefreak, to go on Smogon everyday, and report, what Smogon, competitive people like.
What a cool job, if it pays good!!

I, agree that, it would be, a fun, job to have since, it's like what, I do every, day.

Someone told me that there is an entire division on gamefreak dedicated to balancing the game. Still, they could have at least gave the Platinum move tutor's more thought...

This would not surprise me. I'm sure Game Freak doesn't just give Pokémon random stats and call it a day. Someone has to make sure that nothing is game-breaking (and by "game-breaking" I mean it dominates the Uber tier).

 

[Chaoswalker]

I don't think they even know about Smogon because they don't even think that anyone in America knows about Gen 5, which means that they don't pay attention to sites like this.

It's on IGN. I think what our knowledge is common knowledge.

 

[Sandstreamer]

Ok guys, GF clearly cares about competitive play.

1. Competitive play is probably REALLY important for sales. At least more important than most of you think. I don't have exact figures, but the number of people who buy their first version of pokemon should decrease with each generation. I believe most of the people that are going to buy BW for example have already bought a Pokemon edition before. And while most of them have never even tried competitive play, they most probably have heard about natures (HGSS made it clear anyways) and breeding and stuff like that. ANd at least they know that there is a "professional realm" out there. This is an important factor, I think, because it gives you the feeling that you haven't completed the game. You can have all 493 Pokemon and all stars of your trainer pass but you very well know that there still is something you could achieve in this game. This is what lets people come back. You cannot really get to the point of saying "I'm the true pokemon master", ever. (Well, maybe #1 in the Leaderboard can, IF he wins the VGC. lol) Whatever, this is caused by competitive play. If the competitive play was bad, not even a small community would play it. And then nobody would get the feeling he can still achieve something by playing pokemon (i.e. get better at it). So in the big picture, I think, this small community is of great importance of keeping up the whole "pokemon myth" of going on a journey, becoming a master of pokemon.

2. Each generation brought corrections of what went wrong competitvely in the previous gen. I haven't really played RBY, but I heard it was overly offensive and luck-based. They kinda over-corrected that in GSC: The metagame was really defensive and you would stall more often than not. This was caused by exactly what they brought in GSC: Blissey, Skarm, Suicune, Leftovers, CURSE, Sleep Talk, Heal Bell. (The latter two making Rest omnipresent.)
But GSC had it's imbalances and anomalies. So, in RS they first cut Blissey and Cune out of the metagame (anyone remembers the days of RS200?). Also, the 512 EVs limit basically stopped stall (It took a long time until people figured out how they could effectively stall nonetheless...). Imagine: If this number had been 768, RS would have been as stall-based as GSC.
GSC even had it's Garchomp (many people seem not to know about that): Curselax. I've seen many tournaments where having Curse on a Snorlax was banned (people did not mess around with the nintendo tiers that time, so nobody would have banned snorlax completely). The problem about Curse was, that Roar/Whirlwind failed when they were NOT the last move used in the round. That usually didn't matter as they had negative priority, of course, but if you wanted to roar out a cursed Pokemon, and the cursed Pokemon also used roar (predicting you trying to phaze), your roar would fail (because you certainly would be faster than a pokemon with -4 speed or something) and then the cursed pokemon would roar you out. This mechanic was changed, as you know. But I mean, wtf, guys? Who in his sane mind would have cared about that if he had not seen what it did to the metagame? (Skarm running curse just to get slower, pokemon running 0 speed dv, etc...)
As GSC had a lot of stalling, people also really liked to use evasion moves (they were so popular that a clause was needed sometimes...). They were a really pain in the ass: Imagine there is no move in the game that can OHKO and Umbreon and perhaps only Heracross and Machamp being able to manage a 2HKO. This thing double teams, and moonlights all the time right in front of your eyes. And then, it passes to Curselax...
RS fixed this: We got a whole lot of moves that would not miss (aerial ace, shock wave....) and abilities that would increase your accuracy.
And then, there was another imbalanced factor towards the end of GSC: Eevee got growth (by event). This completely turned GSC around, as you almost only used physical sweepers in GSC. Special attackers had the sole purpose of killing Skarm and Cune, but could not do much more, although, many of them were mixed anyways at that time (if they did not fear attraction, that is). So growth-eevee was the first special attacker to be theoretically able to beat blissey (and snorlax). The Eeveelutions were practically the gods of special attacking then. This was fixed by never giving Eevee Growth again, of course, but also by the introduction of Calm Mind, giving special attackers a viable option to boost their stats and attempt a sweep, giving rise to the concept of a "special sweeper". (As I said, GSC basically had 5 special sweepers, and Flareon was bad even back then, and Umbreon had no moves.)
There are even more examples of GSC's problems that were all fixed in RS, but I think you get the point.

Similiar things happened between RS and DP. The most important thing is probably that RS was full of pokemon with really good stats that were shit nonetheless because their stats did not match their typing (and going mixed wasn't as easy as in GSC). Also ChoiceBand was over-centralizing on physical sweeping once again. I believe the only real reason that we did not get ChoiceSpecs and NastyPlot in RS was that GF knew about what Growth eeveelutions did to GSC.
One big problem of RS -- a last example here -- was that there was only one weather that was really usable. DP tried to fix this by adding the Damp Rock and Abomasnow. Not bad so far. At least I now see a RainDance team from time to time...

Well, but so much for history. Btw: I do not think, Stealth Rock was a mistake, but I think that GF thought too much of roost. Also, probably not even Garchomp was a mistake, but a well thought-out new strong force for OU. Perhaps, they did not expect anyone to use Outrage anyways, because nobody did use it for the last gens. I also think they overestimated all the priority moves they added. But whatever, we'll see what they change when BW comes out. But I bet there will be something to counter Garchomp, because in the end, GF always did balance the mistakes of the past generations. xD And from that fact we can certainly say that GF knows pretty well what's going on in competitive play and really cares about it, too.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

The game is extensively and meticulously balanced, in 2v2.

The problems we come across in competitive battling are mostly a result of this shift towards 2v2 gameplay.

Stealth Rock is the greatest centralizing force in 1v1 ever. In 2v2, it's non-existant, especially in the VGC. With only 4 pokemon, and often only 2-4 switch ins total in a game, Stealth Rock is probably one of the weakest moves in the game.

Moves like Icy Wind are godsends in 2v2 and often win games, but in a 1v1 matches they are never used for obvious reasons.

Dragons like Salamance and Garchomp are uber-quality attackers in 1v1, but in 2v2, Outrage hits a random target, and only one at that. All Dragon moves except Twister only hit one target, and that really goes a long way to balancing their strength in a 2v2. You can hit one pokemon hard, but you can't pick which one. That's obviously overpowered in 1v1.

There are numerous examples of moves and abilities that show that tons of time has been spent balancing doubles rather than singles.

Nailed it.

In addition to the examples listed, other things that people have brought up as detrimental to Smogon's metagame aren't as much of a factor in doubles as they are in singles. Slow Start isn't as crippling because it can be Skill Swapped, and Shadow Tag isn't half as broken because the opponent has the option of ganging up on one target.

Collectively, Smogon is almost assuredly more knowledgeable about the workings of the game than the programmers themselves, especially when it comes to how various factors affect competitive tactics and trends. The same is likely true of any multiplayer game with a large competitive userbase. But I also think that some Smogonites suffer from tunnel vision. Smogon largely does not concern itself with doubles outside of the VGC, and according to current rules Double Team and Fissure are banworthy while Stealth Rock is not. Smogon's metagame has a certain number of quirks and antiquities to it, and competitive Pokemon is bigger than that.

 

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

1. Competitive play is probably REALLY important for sales. At least more important than most of you think. I don't have exact figures, but the number of people who buy their first version of pokemon should decrease with each generation. I believe most of the people that are going to buy BW for example have already bought a Pokemon edition before. And while most of them have never even tried competitive play, they most probably have heard about natures (HGSS made it clear anyways) and breeding and stuff like that. ANd at least they know that there is a "professional realm" out there. This is an important factor, I think, because it gives you the feeling that you haven't completed the game. You can have all 493 Pokemon and all stars of your trainer pass but you very well know that there still is something you could achieve in this game. This is what lets people come back. You cannot really get to the point of saying "I'm the true pokemon master", ever. (Well, maybe #1 in the Leaderboard can, IF he wins the VGC. lol) Whatever, this is caused by competitive play. If the competitive play was bad, not even a small community would play it. And then nobody would get the feeling he can still achieve something by playing pokemon (i.e. get better at it). So in the big picture, I think, this small community is of great importance of keeping up the whole "pokemon myth" of going on a journey, becoming a master of pokemon.

While some of what you say is true, there is no reason to believe that your main thesis (that most players are aware of "hidden" competitive mechanics or highly sophisticated competitive communities like Smogon) is true. In fact, there is a lot of marketing research to suggest that it is not. Again, Game Freak does not publish this data. But other companies do, and there is no reason to believe that Pokemon is different from, say, Magic in this regard. In fact, given its younger mean user base, it is even less likely for Pokemon.

Look here at the question for September 22. This press release is discussing the introduction of "pro player" trading cards which show biographical details and lifetime earnings stats for top Magic players. The reason for this was that they saw it as better use of their funds than ads in competitive magazines or on websites because the users of those resources are already aware of the community. The vast majority of consumers are casual players who are not even aware big cash payouts are possible. And yet, he is quick to point out that casual players are still their most important base, the group they most want to please. See also an entry from the Head Designer's blog (he is also one of the principle architects of the professional tournament program) here where he discusses efforts to reach out to the silent majority of players, individuals who never engage in organized play and are not even aware that competitive fansites exist.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I am sure that I am not alone amongst a number of players for whom the focus on doubles simply does not sit well.

Whether, as a strategic competitive game, doubles is built better or not (I have admittedly not played enough doubles to know), for many players it simply does not feel like "pokemon."

Doubles has little to no bearing on the in-game story line. To become the "champion," the goal of becoming the strongest trainer, has never been about succeeding in doubles. Both from tradition and in game flavor, it just doesn't sit well.

I am not saying that doubles is not fun (I am sure it is fun to a number of players), but I have to say that I am very put off that GF has not put any time or effort into organizing singles tournaments. I really think both styles should be supported, especially since singles is the traditional format.

 

[Sandstreamer]

While some of what you say is true, there is no reason to believe that your main thesis (that most players are aware of "hidden" competitive mechanics or highly sophisticated competitive communities like Smogon) is true. In fact, there is a lot of marketing research to suggest that it is not. Again, Game Freak does not publish this data. But other companies do, and there is no reason to believe that Pokemon is different from, say, Magic in this regard. In fact, given its younger mean user base, it is even less likely for Pokemon.

Look here at the question for September 22. This press release is discussing the introduction of "pro player" trading cards which show biographical details and lifetime earnings stats for top Magic players. The reason for this was that they saw it as better use of their funds than ads in competitive magazines or on websites because the users of those resources are already aware of the community. The vast majority of consumers are casual players who are not even aware big cash payouts are possible. And yet, he is quick to point out that casual players are still their most important base, the group they most want to please. See also an entry from the Head Designer's blog (he is also one of the principle architects of the professional tournament program) here where he discusses efforts to reach out to the silent majority of players, individuals who never engage in organized play and are not even aware that competitive fansites exist.

Nice analysis, but COMPLETELY misses my point.
Pokemon does not have what a Magic player would even call "competitive" play. The most you can win is a weekend at Hawaii. lol
Magic wants to present itself as a professional "sport", you could say. Pokemon does not want that (for various reasons). Magic want to tell their players "Hey, playing Magic can be more than just fun!". Playing Pokemon cannot.
Pokemon is different because there is no other motivation for playing Pokemon competitively besides having fun doing so. Your Magic guys don't contradict me. EVERY casual player (Magic or Pokemon) knows that there are guys in the world who invest more time than he does and are probably able to beat him. The numbers now seem to say that most of the Magic players do NOT know that there are not only a few freaks and that you can actually win a lot of money by playing Magic. But that doesn't even apply to Pokemon (despite the competitive Pokemon community being MUCH bigger than most people outside of it would guess). Still, you cannot make money.
But in both cases, Magic and Pokemon, the competitive community plays the same important role: And that is the moment when you decide not to be a casual player anymore. If you've actually beaten all your friends by investing more time than they do and search for new challenges. If you don't find any, the game becomes boring and you'll probably search another hobby. At that point, a competitive community where you find new challenges really asserts that you stay with the game. But you didn't address that.
I must say I think it is absolutely clear that Magic would not still exist today if there was no competitive community at all. (Of course, you could only achieve that by crazy means like adding a joker card for instant win or the game requiring both players to mix up their cards or simply doing some license agreements against playing more than two games a day or something...) And kinda the same goes for Pokemon. If there would not be any pattern to who wins in a Pokemon fight, Pokemon would not be anywhere near as successful as it still is. Imagine all OHKO-moves having 90% accuracy. Pokemon would SUCK. Because there would be no motivation to touch a Pokemon game after having beaten the elite four. Duel Tower, link battles, all would be like rolling a dice. No chance to determine the output. But that reason you had to play more even after having beaten the game is what made pokemon that successful. You do not want to spend even 10 hours training pokemon if your friend just goes "Oh, this move kills everything *trollface.jpg*". This would simply mean "no fans" in the long run...
Pokemon always managed to keep up this idea of "you CAN do better if you train better". And because that kinda works we have competitive battling in the first place. And because there is competitive battling, you can actually put this idea to the test. It's a self-enforcing mechanism. And it is vital to any "distant-multiplayer" game.

 

[purple crobatchop]

Yes GF cares IMO. I mean look at PBR's Electivire, identical to the physical sweeper moveset.

 

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Nice analysis, but COMPLETELY misses my point.
Pokemon does not have what a Magic player would even call "competitive" play. The most you can win is a weekend at Hawaii. lol
Magic wants to present itself as a professional "sport", you could say. Pokemon does not want that (for various reasons). Magic want to tell their players "Hey, playing Magic can be more than just fun!". Playing Pokemon cannot.
Pokemon is different because there is no other motivation for playing Pokemon competitively besides having fun doing so. Your Magic guys don't contradict me. EVERY casual player (Magic or Pokemon) knows that there are guys in the world who invest more time than he does and are probably able to beat him. The numbers now seem to say that most of the Magic players do NOT know that there are not only a few freaks and that you can actually win a lot of money by playing Magic. But that doesn't even apply to Pokemon (despite the competitive Pokemon community being MUCH bigger than most people outside of it would guess). Still, you cannot make money.

Ok, I will try not "COMPLETELY [miss your] point." To break this down, it appears that you are very concerned that the Magic competitive community is far larger, better organized, and more lucrative than the Pokemon community. Yet you acknowledge that, even though it is marketed as a "sport," most Magic players do not know about competitive Magic, or are only dimly aware of it. Somehow, you get from this to the idea that Pokemon, with its much smaller, entirely fun-driven competitive community, is somehow more likely than Magic to attract the attention of casual players?

That is my best guess as to your thesis, because you do not articulate it here. This section only highlights the differences between the two games; it provides no insight as to how I missed your point by making this distinction, which you have reiterated in somewhat more extreme terms as apparently a rebuttal? Maybe I'm not following.

But in both cases, Magic and Pokemon, the competitive community plays the same important role: And that is the moment when you decide not to be a casual player anymore. If you've actually beaten all your friends by investing more time than they do and search for new challenges. If you don't find any, the game becomes boring and you'll probably search another hobby. At that point, a competitive community where you find new challenges really asserts that you stay with the game. But you didn't address that.

I didn't address it because there is absolutely no reason to believe that it is the case. Games like Monopoly and Settlers of Catan continue to sell very well with essentially no competitive support. Some people play games only as a distraction, never seeking "new challenges" or investing any effort in achieving some level of excellence vis-a-vis other players. In fact, I cannot find any hard data which even begins to go against the proposition that nearly all players of nearly all games are this way. Perhaps you could point me to some of the sources you apparently have, to say this with such certainty? I have already provided press materials, official corporate data, and insider anecdotes which back up my position.

I must say I think it is absolutely clear that Magic would not still exist today if there was no competitive community at all. (Of course, you could only achieve that by crazy means like adding a joker card for instant win or the game requiring both players to mix up their cards or simply doing some license agreements against playing more than two games a day or something...) And kinda the same goes for Pokemon. If there would not be any pattern to who wins in a Pokemon fight, Pokemon would not be anywhere near as successful as it still is. Imagine all OHKO-moves having 90% accuracy. Pokemon would SUCK. Because there would be no motivation to touch a Pokemon game after having beaten the elite four. Duel Tower, link battles, all would be like rolling a dice. No chance to determine the output. This simply means "no fans" in the long run...

I agree that implementation of mechanics which make game results nearly absolutely random would decrease enjoyment of either game. I fail to see how this impacts the conversation. My best guess is that you are saying this: "Game Freak, like Wizards, chose not to make their game entirely random or nearly entirely random. This has allowed strategy-intense competition to exist. Therefore, they must see strategy-intense competition as an important part of their marketing/sales model." This is cum hoc ergo propter hoc at best. Making battle results nearly random would also negatively impact "kitchen table" Magic play and the 1-player mode of Pokemon. Again, you have provided absolutely no basis for the proposition that the choice to allow a "chance to determine the output" is a solely, or even largely, competition-oriented decision.

I stand by my original position, which is that Game Freak does care about competition because individual employees care about it, and because they do generate some marginal utility/sales from its continued persistence. However, it is a very low priority because it reaches only a very small portion of the market, and as a result they will rarely if ever sacrifice casual appeal for competitive intensity.

 

[ab15]

They obviously care, but not the way where they put all there reasorces or we wouldn't keep having the same bug and flying, and rat pokemon, but you do see that they made starapter much better.And with all the inclutions of choice items, the SPD boost in sand, a moves like batton pass, ect the list could go on and theres only one reason, to make a deeper game. and they know how, and that it will be more strategic (there usually well prepared and one step ahead of the metagame before the game comes out ) but they don' t test it to 1000% whitch is why stelth rocks isnt a good idea now but was on paper. Them being humens have 1, there not perfect so they do make mistakes 2, they could do what ever they feel like, give mewtwo perfectly plased stats, giving most dragons a base of 600, and create dunceprice. (and 3 my opinion. the people who would work there would want the most ballenced game possible so tiers help and so do banning moves like fissur, so why dont we cap SRto 25)

 

[Sandstreamer]

@ Res Ipsa Loquitur
What I essentially wanted to say was that a competitive community does not need to be widely known or very big to really help the game.
Also, you will have a competitive community behind anything that is remotely usable as a competitive game.
These are my two most important points, I think.

You said, games like Monopoly and Settlers of Catan sell well without a competitive community. Look at this:
http://www.hasbro.com/monopoly/en_US/discover/tournaments/tournament-kit.cfm
Monopoly offers a tournament kit, encouraging people to hold tournaments.
And there seem to be SOME tournaments going on...
http://monopolytournaments.com/
Also, Settlers of Catan has some things going for it:
http://www.catan.com/eventnews/calendar/categoryevents/2-events-a-tournaments.html
I mean, they even have a world championship! And that since 2002!

So this should kinda help my second thesis.

So why does a competitve community help? I think it helps in multiple ways...
(1.) It is quite clear that it is an enormous testing ground. As many people in this thread already said, you cannot balance hundreds or thousands of factors in a small team and be all that good. And then Pokemon has an enormous amount of factors, considering that one attack on one pokemon can turn half the game around (see bullet punch scizor). The competitive community will play more games of Pokemon than everyone else combined (and probably a LOT more than that). And you pretty much get an overview of the experience of these millions of battles just by looking at some Smogon statistics. Without the experience earned in all these battles, GF would not have been able to provide in-game experiences like the Battle Tower.
(2.) The competitive community is a perfect "backup plan". We may not that many, but our bond with the product is much stronger. This has the nice side-effect of us buying some more stuff, like you mentioned. But it has some other side-effects, too: The first I can think of is the media. GF can be pretty sure to have a certain number of pre-orders on every version of Pokemon they release in pretty much an instant. That helps greatly when the game manages to achieve a "critical anticipation level" just by that. Then, newspapers and game magazines and stuff like that begin to talk about it and more people will hear of it.
You're right when you say that you just need any kind of "hardcore fan" to have that, it does not need to be a "competitive gamer". But then again, of course they come in handy, too. I mean, Nintendo produced a whole anime series just to increase their number of "hardcore fans", they just need to check Smogon once in a while to maintain "competitive players".
(3.) Long-term motivation. It's not about "producing" long-term motivation. As you've said, MOST people will not care. It's about USING long-term motivation. You WILL have some people willing to invest more time into the game. If you do not have anything to offer to them, they'll most likely get bored. And being boring is the last thing a game wants because if a player remembers his experience as boring, he'll most likely leave forever (or until nostalgia hits). Of course, this offer towards motivated people works gradually. At first, it means they'll have exciting wifi matches, THEN they'll learn about game mechanics (if they still have motivation), THEN ...
(4.) Giving the game a sort of social factor. If there are experts, there are people you can actually ask. You can go to some gaming website and ask if you should teach "flame wheel" or "fire punch" to your infernape and while they are not that many competitive pokemon players, I think there are enough that every decent gaming website has some. It makes a big difference if your answer is "my infernape has flame wheel because I like the animation better" or "You should use Fire Punch because its so-called 'base power' is higher, as you can check when pressing A in the overview screen of the attacks of your pokemon." The last answer also gives some importance to what you do -- a feeling especially Pokemon thrives on. Thus, GF really wants Pokemon players to hear the last answer when talking to others.

To conclude, a competitive community may not be a selling factor in the first place, but it really helps to keep a nice athmosphere and lets the business run more smoothly.

 

[General_Norris]

The reason why GF cares about competitive players it's because focusingon kids will only be useful as long as those kids are kids. You need to make a better game if you don't want to be swept when the fad passes.

It's not like they have to choose between one and the other. They have enough money so as to spend some in balancing the game a little.

Also given that the main theme of the game is competition, ambition and becoming the best it would be incredibly rare if GF employees don't' like to battle each other with their new pokémon. They are organizing the VGC for a reason ad let me tell you that it's an expensive thing.

If you don't give Pokémon any deep you will not keep players. You are wasting a lot of potential.


And yes, bad pokémon and bad competitive choices are neccesary for a competitive game. Players need to learn that some things work and some doesn't. Bad choices are needed. Also GF has no way to know if a certain strategy is good or bad and something that we now see as horrid will break the metagame tomorrow. What fun is there in teambuilding if you know that something will work? What fun is there if the team is already made before you start?

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Yes GF cares IMO. I mean look at PBR's Electivire, identical to the physical sweeper moveset.

Any 10-year old could come up with that set and that's why it sucks horribly.

The reason why GF cares about competitive players it's because focusingon kids will only be useful as long as those kids are kids. You need to make a better game if you don't want to be swept when the fad passes.

Once those kids grow up, other kids will come by and play the new games.

There's a reason they always release a new generation every four years.

 

[Calm Pokemaster]

Pokemon was intended for everyone, though it is most popular with kids and pre teens. Since most competitive players are above 12( from the harsh language used on in-battle chats), Gamefreak doesnt mind about Smogon.

The only watched activity MIGHT be CAP, since they are creating new Pokemon but only for use within Shoddy.

I dont see Gaefreak banning only competitive websites/server anyway.

 

[CRASHiC]

What people in this seem to be missing is that balance has NOTHING to do with competitive play. Yes, it is in competitive play that this element becomes MOST important, however, balance is necessary in ALL modes of multi player. Case in point: Puzzle Fighter. Puzzle Fighter is a fun little casual game for Street Fighter fans, its a blast. However, its competitive scene, if there is one, is small. Despite this fact, Capcom payed Sirlin to rebalanced it, a purely casual game. Why? Because the more balanced something is the better it is.

However, going against this is the need to make fun pokemon, stuff like Castform, Keckleon, etc.

Also, someone mentioned that Gamefreak could predict EXACTLY what would happen with stealth rocks, I don't believe this is the case. I'm guessing that they saw that giving every flying type access to Roost would be potentially game shattering, and needed something to balance out this fact. Or perhaps it was the other way around, they made stealth rocks, then made roost to compensate. When has Smogon ever been able to predict what a change in the metagame would do, exactly? No one saw Scizor's bullet punch in Platnium till it hit them. Predicting these things aren't as easy as you imagine.

 

[Calm Pokemaster]

After all, its Gamefreak who designed the movesets shaping the metagame, so
I think they know what and how to predict.

 

[Quataaaa]

What people in this seem to be missing is that balance has NOTHING to do with competitive play. Yes, it is in competitive play that this element becomes MOST important, however, balance is necessary in ALL modes of multi player. Case in point: Puzzle Fighter. Puzzle Fighter is a fun little casual game for Street Fighter fans, its a blast. However, its competitive scene, if there is one, is small. Despite this fact, Capcom payed Sirlin to rebalanced it, a purely casual game. Why? Because the more balanced something is the better it is.

However, going against this is the need to make fun pokemon, stuff like Castform, Keckleon, etc.

Also, someone mentioned that Gamefreak could predict EXACTLY what would happen with stealth rocks, I don't believe this is the case. I'm guessing that they saw that giving every flying type access to Roost would be potentially game shattering, and needed something to balance out this fact. Or perhaps it was the other way around, they made stealth rocks, then made roost to compensate. When has Smogon ever been able to predict what a change in the metagame would do, exactly? No one saw Scizor's bullet punch in Platnium till it hit them. Predicting these things aren't as easy as you imagine.

Great points. But remember that prediction is difficult... but possible. With enough testing, experimenting, and research, they should have been able to see that Stealth Rock would have a greater impact than roost.

Also, this brings me back to a point I made in my original post, that got overlooked. Since there are SO many battles going on on Shoddy, and SO many intelligent players here, the metagame is able to evolve very quickly. Furthermore, Shoddy battle acts, in a way, as a gingantic experiment with tons of trials conducted. Because of this, people are able to gain deep knowledge of what is effective and what's not, and also what's broken and what's balanced.

SO the incredible amount of data and analysis that come out of Shoddy/Smogon should be useful to Gamefreak. Simply put, Shoddy and Smogon generate more data, analysis, and insight into the metagame than five asian guys sitting in a room at Gamefreak headquarters ever could. Even if they INVENTED pokemon, and have been around this game for 15 years, they could still learn a lot about the metagame by reading the data and analysis on smogon.

So if they are very serious about balancing the metagame, have plenty of free time, and know about smogon - then chances are they are mining the usage stats and pokemon analysis on smogon to build a better metagame for gen 5.

 

[General_Norris]

Once those kids grow up, other kids will come by and play the new games.

There's a reason they always release a new generation every four years.

That model is not sustainable. It will fall sooner or later. You know the trend Disney is following? In some years those class Z celebrities will be gone or will be turned into "adult" entertaiment like they did with that girl who starred in Lizzie McGuire.

If you want to see your product kiled there's nothing better than labelling it as something kiddie. Once they get to High they will hate it and soon, the new kids wil imitate the teenagers, killing the franchise. That's how Pokémon fell from the top after GSC.



And it may be obvious but Stealth Rock as a mistake is nothing. It is not even banned here, that says a lot. Other games have had far worse mistakes around for longer and often not even the players noticed that a certain strategy was broken.

 

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

That's how Pokémon fell from the top after GSC.

I don't necessarily disagree with most of your reasoning, but that statement isn't really true. Pokemon stayed on top after GSC. In fact, GSC is only the third best-selling version, behind RBY and DPPt. Plus, if you want to talk about being on top, Pokemon versions Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, and LeafGreen are the top 5 selling titles on the GBA, total. That's incredibly dominant. In fact, if you total up all versions, Gen III was only about 4 million copies away from outselling Gen I and Gen II combined. And then on the DS, DPPt, if you total all 3 versions, is the bestselling game on the DS, passing up Nintendogs by over a million units.

When it comes to handhelds, Pokemon has been king since it was released. The only game to ever beat any trio on any console was Tetris on the original Game Boy. And it came with the system!

 

[Testing...]

Nintendo's known about Smogon since Skarm got second place in that Emerald JAA if I recall correctly, well maybe even before that, but definitely by then, though most people in this thread didn't even know about Smogon back then.

More on topic, I think Gamefreak does care about competetive battling, but not at all in regards to what Smogon, or any other organization that's outside Gamefreak thinks. It seems pretty obvious through each generation that Gamefreak has a metagame in its mind but, that's not necessarily what we end up playing, which can be seen most readily with our self made clauses.