Pokemon: The Next Ten Years (and beyond...)

[Goolix]

We seem to enjoy having conversations about the direction in which the Pokemon franchise is heading on Discord, so I thought it might be a good idea to discuss our thoughts on the future of Pokemon here. It is easier to write in depth, post links, and all that fun stuff. So, here's the question: what do you think will happen to Pokemon in the next ten years (or more, if you really want a long-term analysis)? What do you want to happen? How do you think the culture will react to Pokemon? And if we want to get a little meta - how have our previous predictions of Pokemon gone right - or wrong?

Here are some predictions of mine for Pokemon:
(1) The franchise will stay steady, seeing neither big spikes in popularity nor lows. The success of the two Switch mainline games show me that there is a big appetite for Pokemon across the general population yet. Pokemon merch is still omnipresent in children's departments.
(2) Gen I Pokemon will continue to be the most popular Pokemon. Fashion collabs, merchandise, will continue to focus on Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charmander (maybe Charizard), and optionally Mewtwo or Gengar. These Pokemon have the advantage of covering a wide variety of colors (yellow, green, blue, orange/red, purple) which makes them fantastic for merch. I mention Gengar because I've noticed that fashion collabs sometimes use Gengar instead of Mewtwo as a 'purple' Pokemon. (Working on a full list of this...) I suspect that the Gen 1-centric nature of things like Let's Go series or initial release of Pokemon Go is not because of "nostalgia", but because the Pokemon marketing team really wants everyone to remember the Gen I Pokemon and like them. Gen I marks the peak of Pokemon's social saturation! I can't think of a single Pokemon from Gen 2 on that has succeeded in becoming instantly recognizable to the general public.
(3) Gamefreak will continue trying to expand on the formula that Pokemon Go introduced. By which I mean, that snappy quick encounter method where you can catch a Pokemon in the overworld and have to focus on aiming and hiding. The Let's Go and Legends series seem like attempts to seriously translate this gameplay to full-fledged games. The Legends games show that people really like this! I wouldn't be surprised if they worked on a way to introduce this to Gen X while keeping the turn-based battling mechanic.
(4) Gen 10 will not be paradigm-busting. It will be an iterative improvement on S/V. There will be more attempts to deepen the story, but gameplay will remain not too different from S/V.

Lemme know what you think!

 

[Tango]

I think your predictions look pretty sensible.

I haven't followed the franchise past generation 4 but I've heard that people think Nintendo could do a lot more and better than its been doing. The popularity made them not try very hard which allowed for something like Palworld to thrive. I have heard that Black and White were likely the high point of the series. (I stopped at Heart Gold) Also, the adventures manga series seemed to have the best offical story for it. I still like the anime too though even though there are things about it that bugged me. (I've only seen a bit past the orange islands.)

I'm not sure if the quality of the games will continue to decrease as time goes on or not. That makes me wonder what everyone thinks are the worst mainline games for Pokemon? My guess would be Sword and Shield, but I'm not sure since I haven't played them. (Just going off of some vague general background knowledge) I suppose someone could say Red and Blue were the worst since they were lacking many of the features of the future games, but I don't feel like it would be a fair comparison since none of the other games would exist without them. I also thought Red and Blue were fun, so I probably wouldn't nominate them as the worst, regardless.

Are there any veterans here who have played all the games to give their input on it? (I assume on TR there should be many)

 

[Mirage]

We seem to enjoy having conversations about the direction in which the Pokemon franchise is heading on Discord, so I thought it might be a good idea to discuss our thoughts on the future of Pokemon here. It is easier to write in depth, post links, and all that fun stuff. So, here's the question: what do you think will happen to Pokemon in the next ten years (or more, if you really want a long-term analysis)? What do you want to happen? How do you think the culture will react to Pokemon? And if we want to get a little meta - how have our previous predictions of Pokemon gone right - or wrong?

Here are some predictions of mine for Pokemon:
(1) The franchise will stay steady, seeing neither big spikes in popularity nor lows. The success of the two Switch mainline games show me that there is a big appetite for Pokemon across the general population yet. Pokemon merch is still omnipresent in children's departments.
(2) Gen I Pokemon will continue to be the most popular Pokemon. Fashion collabs, merchandise, will continue to focus on Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charmander (maybe Charizard), and optionally Mewtwo or Gengar. These Pokemon have the advantage of covering a wide variety of colors (yellow, green, blue, orange/red, purple) which makes them fantastic for merch. I mention Gengar because I've noticed that fashion collabs sometimes use Gengar instead of Mewtwo as a 'purple' Pokemon. (Working on a full list of this...) I suspect that the Gen 1-centric nature of things like Let's Go series or initial release of Pokemon Go is not because of "nostalgia", but because the Pokemon marketing team really wants everyone to remember the Gen I Pokemon and like them. Gen I marks the peak of Pokemon's social saturation! I can't think of a single Pokemon from Gen 2 on that has succeeded in becoming instantly recognizable to the general public.
(3) Gamefreak will continue trying to expand on the formula that Pokemon Go introduced. By which I mean, that snappy quick encounter method where you can catch a Pokemon in the overworld and have to focus on aiming and hiding. The Let's Go and Legends series seem like attempts to seriously translate this gameplay to full-fledged games. The Legends games show that people really like this! I wouldn't be surprised if they worked on a way to introduce this to Gen X while keeping the turn-based battling mechanic.
(4) Gen 10 will not be paradigm-busting. It will be an iterative improvement on S/V. There will be more attempts to deepen the story, but gameplay will remain not too different from S/V.

Lemme know what you think!

Heyo, sorry for necroing this thread, but stumbled on it while looking for something else... wish I'd noticed it sooner, these are some great questions!

So, here's the question: what do you think will happen to Pokemon in the next ten years

My personal prediction is that Pokemon is probably going to become slightly less popular. It tends to go through phases, and right now, it's more popular than it has been at any point I can remember, except for maybe the OG mania (not old enough for that one to remember myself). I figure it'll likely become less popular again for a while, before exploding back up when the kids who remember today's boom become adults themselves.

What do you want to happen?

The biggest thing I personally want to see have happen is for Pokemon to expand a bit for an older audience. Not like, guns and stuff (much as I would pay to see them try ), but more in the storytelling aspect, I'd love to see what they could do with a series that's unabashedly T. Like imagine a Legends Arceus anime where characters could actually be seriously injured, or even killed, by the Pokemon around them. Or maybe a game or series that explores the war between Kalos and Paldea in detail?

I think there's a lot of cool potential, although I very much don't expect that to happen anytime soon, if ever.

Also Game Freak gib Game Corner back plz I beg you

And if we want to get a little meta - how have our previous predictions of Pokemon gone right - or wrong?

For predictions I've made, I've been predicting a Pokemon region set in Germany for years now. I thought it was going to be Gen 7 at first, to go with Kalos. Then for sure, after Gen 8 was a thing with Galar, wouldn't Germany make sense as a follow up? Alas, they chose the other end of Kalos instead One of these days though, one of these days.

I was also positive we'd get a Unova or Johto remake, and then they announced LZA last year. Legit did not see that one coming, under any circumstances....

I also predicted we'd get a new eeveelution for the last two gens, and that didn't happen, so I've decided to predict that we WON'T get an eeveelution for Gen 10. That will for sure guarantee that we finally do.

(1) The franchise will stay steady, seeing neither big spikes in popularity nor lows. The success of the two Switch mainline games show me that there is a big appetite for Pokemon across the general population yet. Pokemon merch is still omnipresent in children's departments.
(2) Gen I Pokemon will continue to be the most popular Pokemon. Fashion collabs, merchandise, will continue to focus on Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charmander (maybe Charizard), and optionally Mewtwo or Gengar. These Pokemon have the advantage of covering a wide variety of colors (yellow, green, blue, orange/red, purple) which makes them fantastic for merch. I mention Gengar because I've noticed that fashion collabs sometimes use Gengar instead of Mewtwo as a 'purple' Pokemon. (Working on a full list of this...) I suspect that the Gen 1-centric nature of things like Let's Go series or initial release of Pokemon Go is not because of "nostalgia", but because the Pokemon marketing team really wants everyone to remember the Gen I Pokemon and like them. Gen I marks the peak of Pokemon's social saturation! I can't think of a single Pokemon from Gen 2 on that has succeeded in becoming instantly recognizable to the general public.
(3) Gamefreak will continue trying to expand on the formula that Pokemon Go introduced. By which I mean, that snappy quick encounter method where you can catch a Pokemon in the overworld and have to focus on aiming and hiding. The Let's Go and Legends series seem like attempts to seriously translate this gameplay to full-fledged games. The Legends games show that people really like this! I wouldn't be surprised if they worked on a way to introduce this to Gen X while keeping the turn-based battling mechanic.
(4) Gen 10 will not be paradigm-busting. It will be an iterative improvement on S/V. There will be more attempts to deepen the story, but gameplay will remain not too different from S/V.

Lemme know what you think!

1. I think for the most part I agree. I do expect the hype to go down a little bit from today, but for sure, the series definitely isn't at risk of dying anytime soon.

2. Also agree with this - they've been around for so long, and they appeal to pretty much everyone in the fanbase. I do think that while Gen 2 doesn't have a Pokemon at Pikachu or Charizard levels of popularity, it does have a couple of Pokemon (Umbreon and Togepi namely) that more popular than most of Gen 1.

3. 100%, they definitely seem to like the quick capture system (and it seems like to me at least, most people prefer it). I suspect they'll go further and eventually phase out the turn based system from the main series games altogether, especially if Pokemon Champions sticks around and it absorbs the competitive players.

4. I actually think there might be a chance that we do see some big gameplay changes! The Switch 2 gives them a lot of breathing room that they didn't have on Switch 1, and the Gen 10 games have been in development for a while now. I wouldn't be surprised if they use this gen as the time to ditch the old capture system, or maybe do something crazy with the open world mechanics - imagine flying or diving, but actually free-form, like you can seamlessly dive or fly around wherever

 

[Axihdio]

Heyo, sorry for necroing this thread, but stumbled on it while looking for something else... wish I'd noticed it sooner, these are some great questions!



My personal prediction is that Pokemon is probably going to become slightly less popular. It tends to go through phases, and right now, it's more popular than it has been at any point I can remember, except for maybe the OG mania (not old enough for that one to remember myself). I figure it'll likely become less popular again for a while, before exploding back up when the kids who remember today's boom become adults themselves.



The biggest thing I personally want to see have happen is for Pokemon to expand a bit for an older audience. Not like, guns and stuff (much as I would pay to see them try ), but more in the storytelling aspect, I'd love to see what they could do with a series that's unabashedly T. Like imagine a Legends Arceus anime where characters could actually be seriously injured, or even killed, by the Pokemon around them. Or a game where the protagonist themselves has serious flaws and it doesn't have strictly defined good guys and bad guys.

Also Game Freak, gib Game Corner back plz I beg you



For predictions I've made, I've been predicting a Pokemon region set in Germany for years now. I thought it was going to be Gen 7 at first, to go with Kalos. Then for sure, after Gen 8 was a thing with Galar, wouldn't Germany make sense as a follow up? Alas, they chose the other end of Kalos instead One of these days though, one of these days.

I was also positive we'd get a Unova or Johto remake, and then they announced LZA last year. Legit did not see that one coming, under any circumstances....

I also predicted we'd get a new eeveelution for the last two gens, and that didn't happen, so I've decided to predict that we WON'T get an eeveelution for Gen 10. That will for sure guarantee that we do!



1. I think for the most part I agree. I do expect the hype to go down a little bit from today, but for sure, the series definitely isn't at risk of dying anytime soon.

2. Also agree with this - they've been around for so long, and they appeal to pretty much everyone in the fanbase. I do think that while Gen 2 doesn't have a Pokemon at Pikachu or Charizard levels of popularity, it does have a couple of Pokemon (Umbreon and Togepi namely) that more popular than most of Gen 1.

3. 100%, they definitely seem to like the quick capture system (and it seems like to me at least, most people prefer it). I suspect they'll go further and eventually phase out the turn based system from the main series games altogether, especially if Pokemon Champions sticks around and it absorbs the competitive players.

4. I actually think there might be a chance that we do see some big gameplay changes! The Switch 2 gives them a lot of breathing room that they didn't have on Switch 1, and the Gen 10 games have been in development for a while now. I wouldn't be surprised if they use this gen as the time to ditch the old capture system, or maybe do something crazy with the open world mechanics - imagine flying or diving, but actually free-form, like you can seamlessly dive or fly around wherever

Well free-form diving and swimming would be really cool if they are implemented properly.

 

[Goolix]

Heyo, sorry for necroing this thread, but stumbled on it while looking for something else... wish I'd noticed it sooner, these are some great questions!

No worries, this forum moves pretty slowly so I think anything within a year is fair game

My personal prediction is that Pokemon is probably going to become slightly less popular. It tends to go through phases, and right now, it's more popular than it has been at any point I can remember, except for maybe the OG mania (not old enough for that one to remember myself). I figure it'll likely become less popular again for a while, before exploding back up when the kids who remember today's boom become adults themselves.

It's not quite as popular as it was during the OG mania where it was the "it" thing, but in 2016 it basically experienced a second boom that's as close as we've gotten.

The biggest thing I personally want to see have happen is for Pokemon to expand a bit for an older audience.

I really would love if they had a side series for this! I like that Pokemon is friendly to all ages, but I also think it really hamstrings their writing choices. Or at least, they use it to hamstring their writing choices by making plots where it seems like nothing of consequence happens except at the very end. It's weird because the movies were more willing to explore that darker side in more detail, but the games are squeaky clean in comparison!

For predictions I've made, I've been predicting a Pokemon region set in Germany for years now.

That would be a lot of fun! I'd personally love a Pokemon game set in Poke-India - feels like something they could explore with Copperjah and there's so much diversity of aesthetics, landscape, culture, that there's no risk of monotony. But I don't think they're going to do that for quite a while, if ever; they seem to go for countries and regions that stand out in the Japanese imagination (Hawaii - popular destination in America, the USA - the USA, England, France - romanticized depictions of Europe). Spain is one I didn't see coming because I don't get the impression that Spain is a country that's especially romantic or important in Japanese pop culture, though, so maybe they're branching out!

4. I actually think there might be a chance that we do see some big gameplay changes! The Switch 2 gives them a lot of breathing room that they didn't have on Switch 1, and the Gen 10 games have been in development for a while now. I wouldn't be surprised if they use this gen as the time to ditch the old capture system, or maybe do something crazy with the open world mechanics - imagine flying or diving, but actually free-form, like you can seamlessly dive or fly around wherever

Pokemon Scarlet runs pretty okay on the Switch 2, so even if they don't change things up, it'll automatically be an improvement from the previous gen I did like the platforming you got to do in S/V and Z-A went even harder on the platforming. I've always fantasized about a sort of Pokemon-based platformer so maybe the open-world aspect will push them to go in that direction. At least someone on the team is having fun with the exploration mechanics.

 

[Mirage]

That would be a lot of fun! I'd personally love a Pokemon game set in Poke-India - feels like something they could explore with Copperjah and there's so much diversity of aesthetics, landscape, culture, that there's no risk of monotony. But I don't think they're going to do that for quite a while, if ever; they seem to go for countries and regions that stand out in the Japanese imagination (Hawaii - popular destination in America, the USA - the USA, England, France - romanticized depictions of Europe). Spain is one I didn't see coming because I don't get the impression that Spain is a country that's especially romantic or important in Japanese pop culture, though, so maybe they're branching out!

Oh 100%, India would be a very strong choice, and it wouldn't be without precedent either - if I remember from Legends Arceus (granted it's been a few years), it was implied that Professor Laventon was from a different region where Copperjah are originally from?

Pokemon Scarlet runs pretty okay on the Switch 2, so even if they don't change things up, it'll automatically be an improvement from the previous gen I did like the platforming you got to do in S/V and Z-A went even harder on the platforming. I've always fantasized about a sort of Pokemon-based platformer so maybe the open-world aspect will push them to go in that direction. At least someone on the team is having fun with the exploration mechanics.

I wouldn't be surprised if you get your wish! It's not the main series games, but I played Poke Park a few years ago for the first time... The official appeal of the game is mainly supposed to be all the minigames, but for me at least, the highlight was just getting to run around and interact with the world as a Pokemon. Lots of potential to add more platforming and other ways of exploring the world around you, and with the Synchro Machine in S/V, I think GF actually does have that on their minds!

What I'd especially love to see is if they were to make something akin to the PMD games, but in an open world / active 3D setting, instead of a 2D rogue like. You could explore the world, solving puzzles, battling, and slowly expanding your team / friend circle, with each new Pokemon having different moves and a different way of interacting with the world. You could backtrack to earlier areas, uncovering new secrets and places to get to that you couldn't reach before. And the whole time, maybe you're slowly uncovering a grand mystery of some kind, with each new place getting you one step closer to finding the answers you're looking for

 

[K_S]

It's not quite as popular as it was during the OG mania where it was the "it" thing, but in 2016 it basically experienced a second boom that's as close as we've gotten.

Having lived the OG mania I sorta hope it doesn't ascend to that level of madness again. It was an adventure, kinda like how climbing mt. everest is an adventure, not one to repeat more than once.

I really would love if they had a side series for this! I like that Pokemon is friendly to all ages, but I also think it really hamstrings their writing choices. Or at least, they use it to hamstring their writing choices by making plots where it seems like nothing of consequence happens except at the very end. It's weird because the movies were more willing to explore that darker side in more detail, but the games are squeaky clean in comparison!

I'm still low-grade salty at how badly done in my favorite 'mon median, the MANGA, was treated. On a sliding scale, the games were softest, the movies and anime bopped from irrelevant to the edge of serious/grim dark based off of scenario... But the Manga has a tone that was shockingly realistic. Consequences cued up from the start and hung over people, even if it was just as trauma from surviving the insanity of the last episode.

Granted having each category cater more to an audience kinda kept the age groups cued up with their respective media but there was so much richness in all three avenues... i wish thered been more overlap.

That would be a lot of fun! I'd personally love a Pokemon game set in Poke-India - feels like something they could explore with Copperjah and there's so much diversity of aesthetics, landscape, culture, that there's no risk of monotony. But I don't think they're going to do that for quite a while, if ever; they seem to go for countries and regions that stand out in the Japanese imagination (Hawaii - popular destination in America, the USA - the USA, England, France - romanticized depictions of Europe). Spain is one I didn't see coming because I don't get the impression that Spain is a country that's especially romantic or important in Japanese pop culture, though, so maybe they're branching out!

Hopefully. I'd personally like to see them wrangle greece, the biodeversity is awesome.. and the rich folklore ripe for legend opportunities.

Pokemon Scarlet runs pretty okay on the Switch 2, so even if they don't change things up, it'll automatically be an improvement from the previous gen I did like the platforming you got to do in S/V and Z-A went even harder on the platforming. I've always fantasized about a sort of Pokemon-based platformer so maybe the open-world aspect will push them to go in that direction. At least someone on the team is having fun with the exploration mechanics.

Which is scalds better than the tm slave nonsense us older players had to put uo with...