Yea, this is quite possibly one of the dumbest things I've read and it's more fuel to the belief that these directors have no fucking clue what to do with the franchise. Like, I'm the sort of person who already reserved LGPE because I love the idea of Pokemon enough that just traveling with a team of pokemon I like will be satisfying to me, that's how low of a bar you need to hook me in, but then even this sort of bullshit talk makes me concerned about giving any fuck for what happens in the future. So, rant incoming.
This whole conversation about learning from what Pokemon Go did fails to understand two simple things about Pokemon Go: it's a mobile game, and IT'S FREE. Free mobile games operate under different parameters of qualities and complexity, which is why the most that Go can capture of the pokemon experience is the basic "catch them all" concept and jack-shit else. There's no real character development or growth, no real combat system that has quality or depth, no real anything except go catch thing, go to events to catch things, level up by catching things, go meet up with people to catch things, etc. Fuck, it took them years just to have a basic friend code system or trading, IN A POKEMON GAME.
But it makes sense, because it's a free mobile game. And it did well because of that, appeals to people who like collecting by simply swiping and not giving thought to anything else.
For Masuda to reason that this is something that a $60 pokemon game should be aspiring to is asinine. Yes, I have no doubt LGPE will do well, and I'm pretty sure that won't be because of home dad who is level 40 or w.e. at pokemon Go. It's going to be because of all the people who recently acquired a Switch because of Mario or Zelda or Smash who will go "hey, I haven't touched a pokemon game before and Go was popular, let me try this out." Just from the price there is no fucking way LGPE can capture just as much of an upsurge as Pokemon Go. People drawn to Go because it was free are not going to spend like $400 to get a switch, a game and a pokeball controller.
Which leads to the other core problem, of Pokemon constantly comparing itself to mobile games. This is not the first time they seem completely intimidated by the fact that if there's the slightest level of difficulty then the kid will just turn off the game and go play their easy-as-balls mobile game instead. They looks at this environment of "games" and what "games" are and fail to realize that a core game that costs $40-$60 has no real reason being compared to a mobile experience. They exist for different purposes, just like you can't have literary magazines comparing themselves to Teen Vogue. You'd think that now having this system that functions also as a console would mean they realize that now they can operate under a more serious environment where they don't compete with mobile games but with other large scope, deep games… but nope, Masuda cannot fucking let go of this idea of the least common denominator. They cannot fucking reason that the game can grow UP and not just down, while still including new players into the fold.
It's to the point where it feels we have to be concerned with the impressive stupidity of japanese developers. Like, fuck man, we all grew up with the best gaming experience from japan but idk if it's senility or just refusing to change with a growing industry, but it's hard to avoid the impression that these fuckers just accidented into success and have no fucking clue what they're doing. When talking about something as basic as going for a cartoony design for a POKEMON game he doesn't mention how the cartoony tone is consistent with the design, or how it is psychologically more likely to feel welcoming to larger demographics... nope, instead they talk about how mom and dad can look at the screen from afar and realize the kid is playing a friendly game and not jacking off to a satanic ritual. I can't tell if it's because they think like children, senile old men or maybe they just choose to talk in the simplest terms like gamers cannot possibly understand non-stupid... but it's seriously goddamn irritating that they have no serious respect for what they do or what gamers expect that they talk like they're telling five-year old why the toy daddy is making will be a safe, fun toy.
And then the fucker mentions how they're looking for feedback, positive and negative. HAHAHAHAHAHA, yea, because nothing screams as transparent about feedback as the company that reveals new content for a global game to an exclusively japanese magazine. Nothing about the history of this company suggests they give a single fuck about anyone outside of japan that has an opinion. Are there forums or discord channels where people can talk about the games and complain about issues? Fuck no... they just keep saying "we are looking at what fans say" in the least transparent way possible and we just have to sit down and hope daddy Miyamoto/Sakurai/Nogami/Masuda are actually looking at what people say instead of simply getting told by local japanese kid "this game was too hard" and taking that as fan feedback. There'll be assholes like Reggie and Bill Trinnen around to calm the fires by trying to seem as hip and understanding as possible, but it's a ploy to hide that when they go to daddy japan they probably just get told to localize what they have and deal with it.
I don't understand how game directors in charge of a multimillion dollar franchises can be so fucking dense to ignore what got the franchise there in the first place. It's mind-boggling. Sure, it's important to consider how to bring in new gamers and get them into games, but if your goal is to bring in gamers by giving them positive feedback cycles with the least effort possible, instead of doing it by creating a robust, diverse and engaging experience that RESPECTS the player.... then yea, that's just gross. Especially when all their behavior constantly indicates that it's their local japanese demographic that they're caring about and not the actual world.