Pokemon Sword and Shield are the latest entries in the wildly popular Pokemon video game series. While the series originally released only in Japan, the games have since attracted a large American fanbase. This American fanbase is overall highly critical of the new games for a variety of reasons. By far the most prominent, however, is a controversy dubbed "Dexit" (a reference to the Brexit controversy), in which many of the Pokemon characters that have appeared in the "Pokedex" featured in all the games would no longer return in certain installments. At first glance, this outrage might seem baffling. While it is understandable that fans would be disappointed that some of the characters they have grown attached for nearly 20 years would no longer make appearances in newer games, the sheer venom from the fanbase seems like a severe overreaction. However, one of the core causes of American fans' reaction is the series' marketing in America.
In the lead-up to the game's release, the game's directors made several statements directly to their American audiences about why they had cut so many Pokemon from the game. Some of the most common reasons given was that they were reducing the number of characters so they could focus more on the overall graphical quality of the games and that they were attempting to make the competitive gameplay of the series more balanced. At first glance, statements like these seem like smart decisions. Choosing to support a controversial decision with reasonable claims about why it would made seems like an ideal form of marketing in this difficult scenario. However, when the game released, these claims backfired. The graphical improvement from the previous games, while present, was smaller than anticipated, even though the previous games were on a handheld system and these games were on a much more powerful home console. Furthermore, the competitive gameplay was not remotely close to being balanced, and many even claim that new additions to the game actually make battles less balanced than they ever were in the past. While it was a good marketing decision to defend the decisions made in the game's development, the lack of substance behind those definitions ended up only making the problem worse.
A much bigger reasoning that Pokemon's marketing only made fans more angry was the emphasis on building a relationship with your Pokemon throughout the whole series. As a whole, the Pokemon games have always been advertised as a series where your main goal is to find as many Pokemon as you could. After all, "Gotta catch 'em all" was the series' main slogan in Western markets in the past. Many disgruntled fans use this motto as a rallying cry to support their belief that all Pokemon should be available in all Pokemon games, but the marketing of the series has had much more of an impact on American fan backlash than just a single catchphrase. Several add-on apps have released as a way for players to transfer Pokemon from old games into more recent ones, emphasizing the idea that you are meant to create a lasting bond with your individual Pokemon over many years and across many games. Other forms of advertising for the games, like the TV series and the card games, also emphasize this idea. Even a trailer for Pokemon Sword and Shield themselves features a "recap" of all the past games, showing how the idea of your past "adventures" staying relevant still remains throughout the series. This emphasis on nostalgia for the "bonds" you have made with your Pokemon is effective marketing, because it simultaneously allows new fans to enter the series to experience what older players have been doing, and makes returning players more likely to stay invested, because their playthroughs of past games are still relevant. However, this form of advertising helped to serve to increase the negative reception to Sword and Shield, because it made players feel an emotional connection to the Pokemon. While this emotional connection drove more players to buy the game, it also caused more to be outraged at some of these connections being taken from them.
While Pokemon Sword and Shield still sold extremely well, they have undoubted received a much more negative reception from American markets than previous entries in the series. In the end, while the issues fans have absolutely stem from the games themselves, a large factor exacerbating the issue is the good marketing that these and previous games have received in comparison to the final product.
In the lead-up to the game's release, the game's directors made several statements directly to their American audiences about why they had cut so many Pokemon from the game. Some of the most common reasons given was that they were reducing the number of characters so they could focus more on the overall graphical quality of the games and that they were attempting to make the competitive gameplay of the series more balanced. At first glance, statements like these seem like smart decisions. Choosing to support a controversial decision with reasonable claims about why it would made seems like an ideal form of marketing in this difficult scenario. However, when the game released, these claims backfired. The graphical improvement from the previous games, while present, was smaller than anticipated, even though the previous games were on a handheld system and these games were on a much more powerful home console. Furthermore, the competitive gameplay was not remotely close to being balanced, and many even claim that new additions to the game actually make battles less balanced than they ever were in the past. While it was a good marketing decision to defend the decisions made in the game's development, the lack of substance behind those definitions ended up only making the problem worse.
A much bigger reasoning that Pokemon's marketing only made fans more angry was the emphasis on building a relationship with your Pokemon throughout the whole series. As a whole, the Pokemon games have always been advertised as a series where your main goal is to find as many Pokemon as you could. After all, "Gotta catch 'em all" was the series' main slogan in Western markets in the past. Many disgruntled fans use this motto as a rallying cry to support their belief that all Pokemon should be available in all Pokemon games, but the marketing of the series has had much more of an impact on American fan backlash than just a single catchphrase. Several add-on apps have released as a way for players to transfer Pokemon from old games into more recent ones, emphasizing the idea that you are meant to create a lasting bond with your individual Pokemon over many years and across many games. Other forms of advertising for the games, like the TV series and the card games, also emphasize this idea. Even a trailer for Pokemon Sword and Shield themselves features a "recap" of all the past games, showing how the idea of your past "adventures" staying relevant still remains throughout the series. This emphasis on nostalgia for the "bonds" you have made with your Pokemon is effective marketing, because it simultaneously allows new fans to enter the series to experience what older players have been doing, and makes returning players more likely to stay invested, because their playthroughs of past games are still relevant. However, this form of advertising helped to serve to increase the negative reception to Sword and Shield, because it made players feel an emotional connection to the Pokemon. While this emotional connection drove more players to buy the game, it also caused more to be outraged at some of these connections being taken from them.
While Pokemon Sword and Shield still sold extremely well, they have undoubted received a much more negative reception from American markets than previous entries in the series. In the end, while the issues fans have absolutely stem from the games themselves, a large factor exacerbating the issue is the good marketing that these and previous games have received in comparison to the final product.
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