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If pokemon came out today on phones and you could pay $5 to catch a random pokemon they would make so much loving money
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Oct 20, 2014 14:31
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raditts posted:I think this will be the least of the problems it'll have gaining traction in the US, after all Pokemon is a portmanteau of English words and even that is never explained in the US versions. Here's the explanation: The official Japanese name of the series is Pocket Monsters, but at the time of the original games, there was a toy line called Monster in My Pocket. To avoid any trademark confusion, Nintendo decided to use the portmanteau abbreviation that Japan uses. That's just how Japan abbreviates things due to the syllabic nature of their alphabet.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:00
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Earth Table posted:At least in the west, it was a very focused/aggressive marketing campaign. If you're legitimately curious, This is a really good read on Pokemon's popularity during that time. They threw an entire year of the anime on whatever TV station would take it in the two months around the original Gameboy release. Virtually every market had Pokemon on at 6 or 7 am on their "Kidz Klub" programming blocks at the time. Then WB bought the exclusive broadcast rights and it faded into obscurity. There was a gap between October 30th and Feburary 13th which allowed for kids to forget about the show altogether. Japan kept the fever going at a constant pace with Pokemon stores and a weekly Sunday infomercial hyping the next anime episode, movie, or game with a ton of live action segments. Not to mention Pokemon giveaways at the store. E: Now that I think about it, they can't even do that anymore. All the traditional broadcast TV stations abandoned the Saturday morning cartoon block (the last hold out being the CW which ended last month) and only show edutainment now on the weekends. Dehry fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 16:41
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Dehry posted:They threw an entire year of the anime on whatever TV station would take it in the two months around the original Gameboy release. Virtually every market had Pokemon on at 6 or 7 am on their "Kidz Klub" programming blocks at the time. Then WB bought the exclusive broadcast rights and it faded into obscurity. There was a gap between October 30th and Feburary 13th which allowed for kids to forget about the show altogether. Japan kept the fever going at a constant pace with Pokemon stores and a weekly Sunday infomercial hyping the next anime episode, movie, or game with a ton of live action segments. Not to mention Pokemon giveaways at the store. I know they tried to make Pokemon stores a thing in the US with and at least one location in New York (which has since become a pretty underwhelming Nintendo store). I'm not sure if any other stores popped up?
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Oct 20, 2014 17:11
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I remember some set of short TV commercials about "Pokémon are coming" with nothing more than a vacuum sucking up pikachu, charmander, etc. ahead of the release to build hype.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:52
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The Pokemon commercials were amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tTc8__lXkM
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Oct 20, 2014 17:53
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Pokemon also hit the west when the demographics were about right. The Baby Boomers and Gen Xers all had a bunch of kids who were about 8 to 12 years old when the games came out, so a bunch of kids bought a bunch of games. Combine that with the early days of the Internet where any 12 year old could put up a homepage on Geocities or Angelfire for free and post a bunch of bullshit tricks, some of which worked and some of which didn't, and you have a recipe for a viral phenomenon before viral was a word that we used for this kind of poo poo. If Pokemon had been even a year or two late it wouldn't have worked as well, I don't think, because most of the kids would have been "too old." Certainly the heavy marketing played a big role, but it had a target base that was pretty large at the time.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:56
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Yeah I don't see this Yokai Watch game making any waves in the US unless marketing is really aggressive. Game Boy was the de-facto gaming portable when we were kids, but now the market is split between a few portables and several types of tablets/smartphones. That's just one factor that comes to mind. The game's heavy Japanese vibe might not click with American children either, but who knows?
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Oct 20, 2014 18:01
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Terper posted:The Pokemon commercials were amazing. this poo poo right here
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Oct 20, 2014 18:02
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Leofish posted:Pokemon also hit the west when the demographics were about right. The Baby Boomers and Gen Xers all had a bunch of kids who were about 8 to 12 years old when the games came out, so a bunch of kids bought a bunch of games. Combine that with the early days of the Internet where any 12 year old could put up a homepage on Geocities or Angelfire for free and post a bunch of bullshit tricks, some of which worked and some of which didn't, and you have a recipe for a viral phenomenon before viral was a word that we used for this kind of poo poo. It feels weird being a part of it and realizing nothing in videogaming like that will probably happen again.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:06
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KingSlime posted:The game's heavy Japanese vibe might not click with American children either, but who knows? Pokemon had the benefit of coming around at the time of the initial anime boom, so that probably helped it a lot (in addition to the other factors that have been mentioned). The japanese vibe (and the  attempts to remove it i.e. the "donuts" in Pokemon) probably would have been a plus back in '98.That said, Anime is so integrated into american cartoon culture at this point that it may not matter.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:09
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Volt Catfish posted:It feels weird being a part of it and realizing nothing in videogaming like that will probably happen again. Actually it still does, all the time, you're just too old to notice it. Minecraft is just one example, the Let's Play/YouTube craze is another. Or phone games (Angry Birds, Cut the Rope) with their own TV shows and merchandise, loving Skylanders, etc. There's always something. Lot of old people opinions ITT. Katana Gomai fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 18:12
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Did somebody say the Pokemon anime faded into obscurity? because I don't think that's true.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:15
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Katana Gomai posted:Actually it still does, all the time, you're just too old to notice it. Minecraft is just one example, the Let's Play/YouTube craze is another. Or phone games (Angry Birds, Cut the Rope) with their own TV shows and merchandise, loving Skylanders, etc. There's always something. He's not talking about fads you doof, of course those will always come and go. I think he's talking specifically about "gotta catch em all" games like Pokemon. I think he's at least mostly right in that sense, the only thing that has come close are collectible card games like Yugioh and I don't think those are nearly as popular in video game form. raditts fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 18:20
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It's pretty unfair to blow off something like Minecraft as a fad.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:22
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Breadallelogram posted:Did somebody say the Pokemon anime faded into obscurity? because I don't think that's true. That goddamn show is definitely still on, but I think it only comes on Saturday mornings on Cartoon Network now. So not obscure, but nowhere near the ubiquitousness it had in the late 90s / early 2000s where they put the goddamn movies in theaters.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:25
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I remember rumors of drug dealers selling Pokemon cards or something. Churches would call it demonic (the Pope was actually pretty cool with Pokemon). Minecraft and Skylanders may be pretty popular right now, but Pokemon was inescapable back then. Nintendo sent me a VHS tape about it. It was a live action commercial with Ash Ketchem's aunt talking about Pokemon.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:27
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Isn't Minecraft the bestselling video game of all time? If you're talking purely about seeping into the public consciousness, that's a bit of a different qualification for denoting how 'big' something is.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:29
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loving lol if you didnt see the movies multiple times in order to get all the cards
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Oct 20, 2014 18:30
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KamikazePotato posted:Isn't Minecraft the bestselling video game of all time? Wii sports and tetris beat minecraft
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Oct 20, 2014 18:31
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I went on a cruise two months ago and the kids play area was minecraft themed and they had a dedicated facilitator to manage all the children w/ ipads running minecraft, additionally a kid dropped his ipad w/ minecraft into my lobster bisque at the formal dinner because he was exploding it like a creeper does. It's really popular. Also when I did an excursion to Kennedy Space Center they had an entire section of the place dedicated to an Angry Birds Space experience. They're pretty popular IPs with kids.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:33
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Dred Cosmonaut posted:loving lol if you didnt see the movies multiple times in order to get all the cards Remember when they had those tourneys or special events to get Mew? Ah back before we had YT, nobody knew how to get Mew legit in the game (well with a bug of course)
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Oct 20, 2014 18:33
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I went to a pokemon game tourney for red and blue at some mall as a kid and you got badges for winning, I got owned by a dude using a team of all the legendary birds and then I had to sing the jigglypuff song infront of like 40 other people, well that's my pokemon story.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:40
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Also your pokemon had to be level 50 and my Arodactyl wasn't so the staff rare candy boosted it, and said no to hyper beam so I didn't have it. Lame as gently caress.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:41
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KamikazePotato posted:Isn't Minecraft the bestselling video game of all time? Only if you disqualify Tetris and Wii Sports since many of their respective sales came from pack-ins.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:42
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Also your pokemon had to be level 50 and my Arodactyl wasn't so the staff rare candy boosted it, and said no to hyper beam so I didn't have it. Lame as gently caress. but...but hyper beam is the most stongest move...
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Oct 20, 2014 18:45
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If I remember correctly, didn't the Charizard holofoil card go for like 200 bucks in value?
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Oct 20, 2014 18:45
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raditts posted:That goddamn show is definitely still on, but I think it only comes on Saturday mornings on Cartoon Network now. So not obscure, but nowhere near the ubiquitousness it had in the late 90s / early 2000s where they put the goddamn movies in theaters. Nowadays you can just watch the series from the Pokemon site. Or from the Pokemon TV app with your fancy pantsy iPads. drat kids.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:46
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fad /fad/ noun an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object's qualities; a craze. Yep minecraft sure is a fad guys, just like those iphones and powerpads kids are into these days
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Oct 20, 2014 18:49
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I'm glad we're in agreement.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:51
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Dred Cosmonaut posted:but...but hyper beam is the most stongest move... I still tear up a little everytime I see my Blue cartridge.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:51
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Rexroom posted:Nowadays you can just watch the series from the Pokemon site. Or from the Pokemon TV app with your fancy pantsy iPads. drat kids. While stuck at an airport I learned you can use that Nintendo Zone thing on the 3DS to watch full episodes of Pokémon.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:52
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KingSlime posted:fad Everyone who's invested in Amazon or Google is going to be screwed when this whole internet fad ends.
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Oct 20, 2014 19:19
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Shindragon posted:If I remember correctly, didn't the Charizard holofoil card go for like 200 bucks in value? Yes and because this was in the days where my mom was horrified of the internet, she wouldnt let me sell mine on ebay. gently caress you, mom!
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Oct 20, 2014 19:21
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Volt Catfish posted:It feels weird being a part of it and realizing nothing in videogaming like that will probably happen again. It's like any other cultural touchstone. There will be more of them, but never again like the one you experienced. There will never be another Beatles, another Simpsons, another '72 Summit Series. But there will be other things that will happen, and some of them will mean nothing to you because, as was mentioned, you're too old now. The parents of the kids who played Pokemon didn't experience it in the way the kids did, and so on. Take a snapshot of the way the Internet is today, and then think back on it 10 years from now, for example. I bet the Internet will be wildly different.
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Oct 20, 2014 19:26
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^^ agreed. ^^raditts posted:He's not talking about fads you doof, of course those will always come and go. I think he's talking specifically about "gotta catch em all" games like Pokemon. I think he's at least mostly right in that sense, the only thing that has come close are collectible card games like Yugioh and I don't think those are nearly as popular in video game form. Well of course it didn't, you don't (usually) get to be the latest craze by mimicing something else. Once again, lot of people ITT thinking their childhold thing was exceptional when it's not.
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Oct 20, 2014 19:59
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Waffleman_ posted:Here's the explanation: The official Japanese name of the series is Pocket Monsters, but at the time of the original games, there was a toy line called Monster in My Pocket. To avoid any trademark confusion, Nintendo decided to use the portmanteau abbreviation that Japan uses. That's just how Japan abbreviates things due to the syllabic nature of their alphabet. I'm not sure it had much to do with Monster In My Pocket, and probably a lot more to do with the fact that American news networks had picked up on the story of the Pocket Monster anime causing seizes in children. They had to change the name of the brand at that point, because it would be product suicide to launch it in the USA under a name that parents already associated with being potentially dangerous to their children.
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Oct 20, 2014 20:12
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Tyma posted:I'm not sure it had much to do with Monster In My Pocket, and probably a lot more to do with the fact that American news networks had picked up on the story of the Pocket Monster anime causing seizes in children. They had to change the name of the brand at that point, because it would be product suicide to launch it in the USA under a name that parents already associated with being potentially dangerous to their children. I don't think any American news networks cared much at all about a TV show in Japan causing seizures in Japanese children, much less the average parent.
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Oct 20, 2014 20:30
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Saagonsa posted:I don't think any American news networks cared much at all about a TV show in Japan causing seizures in Japanese children, much less the average parent. You are wrong, friend.
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Oct 20, 2014 20:37
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Volt Catfish posted:It feels weird being a part of it and realizing nothing in videogaming like that will probably happen again. Minecraft. Oh wait literally everyone said this. But yeah, it happens still.
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Oct 20, 2014 20:39
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