Don't worry about it, we're just having a friendly conversation as two fans with "different" viewpoints. Different abbreviated because I think we actually both in agreement about the whole situation but we're approaching it from different aspects. I think we can all agree the general thing we want can be summed up as such: GF should be doing better with consumer engagement & value equaling cost.
The way I do things is that I consider some things as a constant (in this case, GF aren't going to change the $16 a year), so I'm trying to point out ways for GF could give us stuff that we would consider worth that value while also it not being too work intensive. Yes, I understand they don't need to do a damn thing and they'll probably make bank. But I don't feel I added anything without at least spit-balling some ideas within what I at least believe to be reasonable limits. GF is sticking with $16 a year and probably don't want to do much work cause they know it'll sell, so why not try to earn some playerbase "trust" back by adding on what I think are easy things to implement such as the Dream World. Another thought I also had was, since Bank was pretty much the
Pokemon Box Ruby & Sapphire, why not have HOME be like
My Pokemon Ranch? They could even bring Hayley back as the host of HOME like they did with Brigette being the host of Bank (thus giving HOME some personality).
All their development is permeated by an astounding lack of ambition in delivering anything that the user would find surprising or a good bang for your buck, if you will. There has been a lack of developmental experimentation and improvement that would have eaten alive any other IP since at least the release of XY. But they rest on fat laurels. And, when you deep dive into the data and the details like I've been doing, torturing myself in the last months, is when you realize there is little hope.
This is a matter of principles above all, but 16 USD is ridiculous no matter what. Judging by estimates I've seen around, Pokemon data is incredibly simple, and to store all 6000 Pokemon in Jail, you would need little north of 2 MBs. 2MBs! All extra added features are moot as an argument because they're not added features, they're features that were stripped from the game and readded behind a paywall. And yes, Jail
is a paywall. No matter how you spin it with technicalities.
They are applying a mobile game model. "
Look, you can have the base minimal features for free. However, here's the good version of it, with 200 times (literally)
the space available"
The 16 USD pricetag is just a little trick to make even more money at absurd margins. And there is no "they're trying compatibility, or doing new things" excuse. All that is included in Jail is a sum of Gen 7 ingame functions + bank. They're not Bungie, who's experimenting with cross savings across platform, or project X Cloud. The amount of work for them is likely comparable to what they're doing with bank and they're asking three times the price: they know longtime fans more or less need the feature and they're milking us. Plain and simple.
The pricetag is as ridiculous as needing to buy a different Expansion pass if you have both games. The dual game model is thoroughly outdated until they do some major disruption, but you know what let's double the expansions' price for people that have already committed 120 USD because why not.
All you suggest would be nice and fun but the sad reality is that there's nobody that internally looks at the game and strive to deliver quality for fair money or, if there are, they're hampered by higher-ups. It's the same situation that occurred between Bungie and Activision before they split. It would be fair cost wise, of course, and also a neat treat for the player base, but since it's not necessary why deliver it?
The whole situation also confirms, once and for all and again, that ShSw were in fact pushed for the holiday release, and the overwhelming majority fell for it and is ok with it: I've finally seen how trading with friends work in game now, and any other compatibility feature in a game in the neighborhood of that would have the player base putting the HQ on fire. We're not, so they don't care.
I know it's depressing, I know it's narrow-minded but until 99% will put up with it, we're lame ducks hoping for a good roll of the dice in terms of Pokemon design, which is objectively the only thing they need to deliver at least decently.
Rapti is right, one thing is to face the reality of bottom line first, one other is to swallow the pill no matter the sourness. Things can be changed and have been.
I want to see what Ohmori does once Masuda fully steps back. I'm hoping the problems are mainly Masuda and his oddball decisions and maybe Ohmori will start directing the games toward something at least admirable. Also them giving the next games a few years in the development cycle would probably really help and have them cut corners less.
Not as confident. The higher-up structure is probably more or less set in both people and, most importantly, values, for the next few years. If you look not only to GF, but to Nintendo as well, recent news aren't encouraging (both the price model of Mario Kart mobile and the recent court case about refunds in Germany).
What needs to happen is, like with Josh Hamrik with Destiny 2, someone from below BoD who is really passionate about the games gains some ground, a decent position and showcase the value of consumer satisfaction. Doubt Ohmori fits the description, that's all I'm saying.
If by that you mean they don't learn any lessons because they always made a lot of money, then I agree.
But if you're saying they're cutting corners because they know they'll make a lot money I actually don't think that's the case. I more put that toward GF being overly ambitious, impatient, and not great programmers. Oh yeah, they had this grand vision, but that vision would take some time to setup properly which is BORING so better rush on through all that to get to the good stuff! Oh, huh, actually putting their vision down in code is requiring a lot of programming work, let's simplify & brute force a few things that'll have it take up a lot of memory but we've got the space for it... what do you mean there's not enough room for all the Pokemon? Etc..
And sadly with Sword & Shield being the top selling Switch game last year & the highest selling Pokemon game of recent generations they still won't learn any lesson.
I honestly think you're unnecessarily splitting hairs here in search of a silver lining (which is totally understandable, to be fair).
Not learning any lessons and cutting corners are, in my opinion, strongly correlated - if anything, you could argue for causality of the former that leads to the latter: I make heaps of money, I keep making it, I release something more lackadaisical, I still make it, I don't learn anything and I don't have significant backlash --> if I'm required to do so, I'll keep cutting corners until I'll be caught red handed.
And this spirals further and further until we end up where we are today. Call me cynical, call me disillusioned, but I haven't seen anything in terms of this "grand vision" in a long time (at least since B2W2) so I'll assume there is no grand vision at all (and yes, DLCs look good but a couple of new mons and more regional variants are no "grand vision").
TLDR: if there were a grand vision, it wouldn't be unfathomable to implement at least a sliver of it, even in the face of all the greed in the world.
