The core gameplay of the Nintendo games wasn't terribly complex, but had tons of replayability.
As someone who left that rural background and now lives in a smaller, but proper city, my response is a lot colder and less sympathetic. Living rurally is a trade off. Cheaper land and housing, more space, less culture, fewer people, and less socialization. The internet _helps_ but it doesn't _cure_ this issue. Until we have teleportation living rurally will always be more isolating.
It's not really surprising that a walking-based game with a social streak that seeks to have 10 to 30 interactions per user per hour (pokes to catch, teams to form, battles to fight, etc) wouldn't work well in areas of the world where there aren't even 10 to 30 _people_ per square mile.
Of course, that's anecdotal evidence. Here's an article about Fantastic Beasts ticket sales: https://deadline.com/2016/11/fantastic-beasts-moana-doctor-s...
For Fantastic Beasts 2: https://deadline.com/2018/11/venom-crosses-800-million-ralph...
The latter article states:
> it held the No. 1 position in 37 markets this session. Japan, a typically important hub for the Wizarding World, opened to $13M (including $1M on 31 IMAX screens) for WB’s biggest start of 2018 and similar to FB1.
This isn't even remotely a reason for why the game should fail of course, merely absence of an obvious reason for it to succeed. But IMO: while having absolutely huge potential to be great, neither Ingress nor Pokemon Go turned out to be a particularly good game. Maybe HP will be different, but for now I stand by the opinion that Niantic actually isn't a great game-making company.
Similar franchises (star wars/trek etc) did not attempt to 'grow up' alongside fans. So, decades later, they can still be relevant to new people. Star Wars VIII isn't attempting to be any more mature than Star Wars IV. But compare potter's first and latest movies. They are aiming at totally different age groups.
Somehow you're simultaneously complaining that the Potter series offers something for the older fans, and that the Potter series is too childish?
Star Wars is a similar franchise, but I think it shows the opposite, because the fandom was strong during the 16 year gap between movies from 1983 to 1999, which shows that once successful, a fandom like that will stay intact for years, whether or not anything new gets added to it. Harry Potter fans can ignore the new stuff that's coming out. A lot of Star Wars fans disliked or didn't pay much attention to the new movies but remained part of the fandom.
It will be interesting to see how successful this is, given that unlike Pokemon, Harry Potter isn't really a franchise defined by the location-based hunt-and-collect mechanic that drives Pokemon Go and Ingress.
I bet a Harry Potter skin will be even bigger than Pokemon Go. I'd wager most people are on no more than can-recognize-pikachu terms with the Pokemon franchise yet Pokemon Go was a cultural phenomenon.
Meanwhile most people I know have at least seen most Harry Potter movies. I know 30- and 40-somethings that have gone to Universal Studios' Harry Potter exhibit... dressed up. And the Harry Potter world has a particularly popular faction system (the Hogwarts houses).
Certainly curious to see if Niantic can pull it off again.
Umm... what? Pokemon was already a massive global cultural phenomenon before Niantic got it, an entire generation more or less grew up with the franchise. Hell, a lot of people were shocked Nintendo allowed an unknown company like Niantic anywhere near such a property.
The existing popularity of Pokemon is the reason Pokemon Go was so popular, not the other way around.
Pokémon itself wasn't location driven either before the launch of Pokémon Go.
I am very curious how close VR with gaze and body language tracking will get us.
Do you have anything to back it up?
My understanding was that they just have a small team and aren’t very good (ie. brave enough) at making changes beyond ‘text fixes’
I rage uninstalled pokemon go after that and my data bill has been rational ever since :)
Pokemon has diversified the franchise selection though, there are now many goods (themed tableware etc.) aimed for more mature audience.
If you value your karma score, on no account should you say anything like "It's OK, Pokemon is a game designed for children, and while that doesn't mean you must now make an angry face at it, growl, and loudly announce that you're too grown up for it now, it does mean that you're likely going to want to move on. Consider {GAME LIST} for similar more mature takes on the ideas."
In the meantime, my 8 and 10 year olds, while not necessarily mega-fans, are decently into it, and will probably be even more so when they actually get their hands on the games. System is working as designed.
I think the later games make more concessions to them, but it feels more like it was just a normal rpg that somehow got big for kids due to ancillary merchandise, like trading card games and cartoons.
This is one of those "don't underestimate children" times. I was playing Ultima 4 at the age kids play Pokemon nowadays. But it's definitely designed for 10-14 year olds, and I wouldn't even be surprised a 14 year old not wearing nostalgia goggles would actually start to notice it's getting kinda easy.
A lot of that "complexity" is just fluff. Non-competitive Pokemon is still like most other (J)RPGs; ultimately, an answer to every problem (not the answer, but an answer) is to trade time for levels and just blast your way through the next boss. And time is what kids have at that age.
A systemic problem with the genre and the exponential-power-gain treadmill. There are solutions, like the Shin Megami Tensei approach of greatly raising the power of non-level-related elements, or the Disgaea approach of just embracing it and going nuts, and some other things (Elder Scrolls has tried a couple of solutions though I'm not in love with either of Oblivion's or Skyrim's attempts to solve this) but the exponential-power-gain approach is still pretty dominant.
Many also criticize the potter franchise for similar reasons.