A small thread, but thought it was worth zharing since i dont think anybody brought up thenyearly crunch angle yet. We talked about how they could/couldnt delay things but not quite the yearly quota itself
Let me be clear that I am in no place nor have any intention to blame the
x number of developers sitting at their desks at peak stress noon to dusk to deliver the game on time and then have to hear people like me: “
Man, that’s not nearly enough”.
No one in his right mind would blame anyone with no decision making power, but I guess by not disclaiming it some of us
could be considered as the ones that put some of this on them by association. That’s not remotely the case.
The higher-ups, the money people if you will, have decided that a yearly release schedule is the best course to go for their bottom line (and that’s normal behavior or corporations would cease to exist), and the lenient attitude of the consumer base, built on an incredible worldwide community that has stood with Pokemon despite a bumpy road here and there, as so far allowed them to do so. This business case (it’s what it has turned into for me, I will not be playing but at least it would be a good case history for my job) is looking everyday more and more similar, very eerily, to the transaction between Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. It’s like they went “let’s look at the case in the industry with: the most egregious breach of trust, disregard of loyal fanbase, and continuous lies when in damage control” and tried to beat them (in a bad way).
Someone mentioned Assassin’s Creed getting greedy with the yearly releases: after people caught up with what they were doing, the franchise as we knew it had been damaged, and was rebooted almost completely, effectively changing genre.
To give my stance for developers some context, I have been fortunate enough to be on a tv set recording a program (from the outside, obviously), and one staff member who had experience in the gaming industry told me how their schedule is remarkably similar. We woke up at a decent time, but worked non-stop from 8 AM to roughly 10 PM (and we were the fortunate ones, some staff had to film night takes – it was one of those cooking competitions
a là Bake Off, mind you). Nothing can be delayed, because deadlines to air times are set, famous guests have to leave, even the stupidest take (like pouring a cup of coffee) needed to be perfect and even the slightest change of weather could jeopardize a day of takes. It’s like getting a tattoo: 3 seconds on, 3 seconds off, 3 seconds on, 3 seconds of, and so on. It was excruciating. Every time you watch a pre-recorded program, know that every half-sentence is taken and thoroughly analyzed like 5 times, and then put together.
After a month or two with such 14-hours, no off days, they can be laid off for a couple of weeks to rest for the next project. Rinse, repeat.
As it was explained to me, in game development, once the release date turns official, things turn similarly hectic, just on different premises: release date needs to be met no matter what when made official, you can be required to work extra shifts with short to no notice if anything is awry, and it’s constant “do as much as you can today” because you never know when testing might discover something’s off. You basically have to constantly be ahead of schedule, with no security about how things may turn out tomorrow. It’s an incredibly stressful environment, and a discussion about working conditions when needing to meet time to market and customer standards is certainly one worth having.
That out of the chest to give some context, I am honestly going to say that it does not excuse an inferior product. It was their decision to make everything yearly, none of us asked for a new installment every November, and I am sure (or at least hope) that they considered what that would mean for working conditions. If they didn’t, we have to question the BoD planning skills, not our own judgment. Not going into the technicality of model importation or not because I don't know enough about it, but the PR about it has been laughable at best, as stated countless times.
It's almost as if Gamefreak had spent over 20 years trying to get people invested in their pokemon for the first one
or trying to sell them an inferior product for the second one
also while one can discuss how healthy is to get attached to fictional creatures, getting attached to a company is definitely unhealthy
fictional creatures cannot take advantage of you because you "love" them since they're fictional
companies on the other hand will
Thanks for bringing this to the conversation. Of course it’s emotional attachment, for two reasons.
First, it is natural in human nature, when siding on an argument, to exaggerate your own position (to the point of no return when reaching strawman’s argument) to try proving why you feel you’re right. I'm sure I am 100% guilty of it in the Dexit argument.
Secondly and more importantly, Pokemon (or any game you stick with, actually), is more than a product. When you spend so much time with a franchise, and put in hundreds or thousands of hours into it, it becomes an hobby, an aspect of your life you allocate much of your free time to. Since it’s not something in your full control like going to the gym, which depends solely on your commitment, you always run the risk of having your hobby taken from you because of corporate decisions, but you never know until it hits you.
There’s an example that’s quite fitting: the Coca Cola vs Pepsi business war (credit to Skill Up on Youtube for drawing this comparison first in gaming during his Destiny 2 review). Coca Cola was the unquestioned market leader for ages, and had built a relationship with customers that went beyond the product. Mid 80s, Pepsi, confident their product had a better taste, started doing blind tests (you sit in front of two glasses without knowing what’s Coca and what’s Pepsi), and those blind tests revealed that Pepsi was better. They marketed it by filming blind tests and people's reactions, and were quickly gaining ground on Coca Cola, who responded with studying and releasing the New Coke, a new formula that focus groups tasted and deemed better than Pepsi, and contextually announced ceasing the production of the old formula. The problem was that the product was so sweet that it could not be consumed at length without leaving (literally) a bad taste in your mouth: the new flavor was perfect for focus groups testing with small sips, terrible for large scale consumption.
The results were utterly catastrophic, and not only for that. Coca Cola had taken away a product that had meant so much for the consumer that they actually related to it, for what was a de facto worse product. To cut it short, Coca Cola had to retract everything to the old formula merely 78 days after announcing the New Coke.
What ties it to our case is that Coca Cola customer service phone lines started receiving calls en masse, and hired psychiatrists to analyze such backlash. What they concluded was that consumers were talking about losing the original coke like they were grieving the loss of a friend or a relative.
Simply put, people are fearing that their hobby is going to be taken away and have no power to keep it, a game that helped somebody navigate through rough waters in life might be gone, and have no power nor voice (outside of their wallets, not that powerful when you’re alone browsing your phone looking at sales projected in the millions) to get it back and, worse, they have no guarantees it will ever come back.
Of course you can get emotionally attached to it – this sometimes indeed derails the conversation – but the majority that I’ve seen has not turned into vitriol toxicity. It’s not just a game for many people, myself included. We're not taking a stand against the content but against who decided what content we're going to get.
Hope all of the above helps someone on the other side of the debate to understand us.
