This week the Pokémon Company and Game Freak announced an Expansion pass for Pokémon Sword Version and Pokémon Shield Version. The pass contains two pieces of DLC, called The Isle of Armor, and The Crown Tundra. The first piece of DLC coming in June and the second one during the fall. This is the first appearance of DLC in the main series games. Pokémon Sword and Shield have had a vocal audience of detractors within the fandom. This is born from the announcement made months prior to the games release that revealed that not all 807 of the Pokémon from previous games will be obtainable in the games. To further clarify, this means that some Pokémon are just not in the game’s code. So, they can’t be traded or transported from the older games. They just don’t exist. This announcement upset many fans, and for others proved to be the final straw in a pile of grievances with the games they had been saving up. This being the internet, everyone loves a good angry mob, so there was a fair share of people just there to be angry for their enjoyment.
My history with disappointment in Pokémon
Now that everyone has had their nuclear takes regarding the news, I will throw my nuanced room-temperature take onto the proverbial pile. I’ll begin with a little biography on relationship with the Pokémon franchise. I am one of those people that have been with Pokémon from the very beginning. Spanning all the way back to reading about this hot new Game Boy game in Japan that would be coming to the west soon. Since then I have played every game in the main series, as well as most of the spin-offs.
In my time with the franchise, and the fandom that grew around it, I have witnessed all the big brouhahas. I’ve never been one to jump on angry mob bandwagons. So, my role as each controversy has come along has been to observe and consider why events have turned out the way they have.
This isn’t to say that I’ve never had issues with choices made by Game Freak. I disagreed strongly with the transition to 3D models. I felt that the Pokémon art and designs were best expressed as 2D sprites. I felt that 3D models in the main series would remove so much of the charm and uniqueness. I understood that it was what most fans had wanted since Pokémon Stadium. I also understood that the franchise would eventually have to go 3D as it was the necessary adaptation to modernize the games and move forward.
Another point of contention for me came with the Let’s Go games. I personally feel they were the most unnecessary, and possibly the most damaging, games in the entire franchise. The idea that a casualized Pokémon game was needed seemed like the peak of ridiculousness and redundancy. Like putting training wheels on your tricycle to attract the 9-month-old audience. When Game Freak confirmed that Gen VIII was in development and would be a true core Pokémon title, I was mostly content to just let Let’s Go exist as its own little thing. It is still my hope that we never see Let’s Go again, unless it’s in a compilation of bad decisions in game series alongside the likes of the Zelda CDI games and Bomberman Act Zero.
Then there is the one true heartbreak, the one thing that still bothers me to this day. That is when they cut the Battle Frontier from infinitely-awaited the Ruby and Sapphire remakes. My heart still weeps for what could have been.
Why Sword and Shield?
This isn’t to say that it’s all sunshine and rainbows with Sword and Shield. So many seem to have missed or ignored the context surrounding Sword and Shield’s development. This game was a full-on new generation, the first for this new hardware. It wasn’t the all-hands-on-deck project that it could have been, With Game Freak splitting their resources between developing Let’s Go, and Little Town Hero. The release window was hard set since Gen VII was over and had overstayed its welcome in the eyes of many, and Let’s Go didn’t have legs to carry the franchise for 3 months, let alone the 2+ years of development it would have taken to make a game with half the features that the fandom seemed to be expecting.
I feel like, overall, this a decent situation in terms of positioning the franchise to move forward. Sword and Shield have DLC this extends their life, and the generation. Normally the sort of content in this DLC would be the new content in a third version, or second set, with 70% of the game being the same as Sword and Shield. Something that many always lamented. They called the third version concept a cash grab because it made them buy the same game again with only a little new content added. Now many of those same people are calling the DLC a cash crab because it makes them pay to buy the new content.
I feel like this is sentiment is misguided for a few reasons. First, it’s less expensive in the end. Rather than having to buy “Pokémon Bow and Arrow Version” at $60 to get this new content, people can just buy the content for $30. That’s a comparable saving no matter how you slice it.
Next is the 200+ Pokémon added to the nationaldex. I think this may be the weakest argument, but the one that people have the most emotional connection to. This isn’t a gotcha. The 200+ Pokémon were the ones that were already going to be transferable from the old games through Pokémon Home anyway. They even mention that in the direct, if someone doesn’t want to pay for Pokémon Home or the DLC, they can just trade with others to get the Pokémon. It’s not a paywall if people can just walk around it.
Could all this DLC content have been baked into the base Sword and Shield? Possibly. However, seeing as this DLC is just finishing development this year, it can be inferred that if all the content from this expansion pass was put into the base games, they would be releasing this Fall, and this is a positive estimate. Keep in mind that, from what is known so far, the expansion doesn’t change the laundry list of complaints that have been offered up on the alter of outrage to condemn Game Freak as a developer with predatory practices on the scale of EA Games (This is the gamer’s version of Godwin’s Law). So, Sword and Shield would not only be arriving a year late, but it still wouldn’t have all 807 previous Pokémon obtainable, it would still have the “Nintendo 64 trees” and the slowdown in the wild area, and the “static” battle animations, etc. The end result would be that not only do the games still not please the detractors, but the number of detractors has now grown by a factor of how many people were ready to buy the games last year and are now upset over a game that was “done” being delayed for a year.
Delay was never a viable option
From the moment the announcement was made that Sword and Shield would not have every Pokémon obtainable the only viable course of action was to finish and release the games, and to continue to work on the DLC which offers the value that would normally be found in a third version. Announcing a delay would have doubled the bad press on the games on the spot because every site that wrote an article about how mad fans were over the nationaldex would then write another article about how the games were delayed due to fan backlash. The fandom would have a whole extra year to stew in anger because people that have decided to be angry will, likely, stay angry regardless of anything. And the news of a delay would anger many people that were fine and eagerly awaiting the game.
From a PR perspective it was better not to delay the game, it came out on schedule, the people that were mad continued to be mad, everyone had a chance to play or not play the games, and the controversy has had ample time to die down rather than to further intensify as a delayed game grows closer to launch.
Looking to the future, the DLC model for Sword and Shield means that it is very likely there won’t be any third versions or second sets in this generation. This leaves the doors wide open for Diamond and Pearl remakes. It also puts more future DLC on the table for Sword and Shield. If Game Freak handles the development cycles this generation well, they can free up resources to put into the development of Generation IX eventually.
Where to go from here?
Everyone knows that “for every action there is a reaction” I feel that there is an equally fundamental principle that more people should remember: “for every decision made something is given up” this is called opportunity cost. If you spend an hour playing baseball, you can’t spend that same hour practicing piano. When you chose something, you automatically forego something else. As imperfect as it may be, the Wild Area was a huge step. If I had to make a guess, I would think that the creation of the Wild Area and the communication features within were a significant chunk of development resources. The opportunity cost for that? Porting over, testing, debugging, balancing movesets/TM compatibility, adding breeding mechanics with new Pokémon, Pokémon Camp Animations, Pokejobs Animations, Dynamax Animations, deciding if that Pokémon should get a Gigantamax, deciding if it should be a version exclusive and if so what should its counterpart be, deciding where it should appear, at what levels, and more. Same is true with the, in my opinion terrible, decision that Let’s Go needed to be a thing. The opportunity cost of making Let’s Go? Adding Pokémon to Sword and Shield.
It is a possibly that must be considered; this may be the end of the games having a nationaldex with all the Pokémon in them. As much as people don’t want to believe it, all resources are finite, and as the number of Pokémon is nearing 1000 it is a daunting task to manage that. Am I making excuses for Game Freak? I don’t believe that I am, others may believe different. That doesn’t change the reality of the matter. Resources are limited, and every decision has a cost. If there has been any message that has been made clear to Game Freak by the haphazard mess of a reaction that was “dexit”, it was that keeping the nationaldex should always be a priority of utmost importance.
The next time Game Freak is looking at a decision between doing something they haven’t done before and keeping all of the older Pokémon we will see if that controversy has created a point where Game Freak has learned to always err on the side of keeping more of the nationaldex, even if it means sacrificing new ideas.
