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Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

economist.com

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Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#81

Post by technothrasher »

bubblewand wrote: post #63
alexpotato wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But today I sometimes feel like our culture is locked in time. People say this often and I agree that it does feel that way. They particularly underline "they are constantly remaking old movies!" which is also true. However, this is not a new phenomenon. As someone who loves movie trivia, IMDB is full of "this 1980s film was actually a remake of this other 1947 film". An older example: the Victorians (~1837 - ~1901…

The Wizard of Oz (the one you know of) was a remake. The Thing (the one you know of—though the other had a longer title anyway) was a remake. The version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Donald Sutherland (so, the one with that meme-able image of him pointing toward the camera) was a remake. (Franchises? There are some from like the 40s that had a dozen or so entries over the next couple decades) Many remake ex…

> The Wizard of Oz (the one you know of) was a remake.

I'm not sure it's quite fair to call the 1939 film a "remake". It was one in a line of adaptations of the book, and isn't otherwise really related to the other adaptations. It isn't the first, or the last, but it is the most famous.

Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#82

Post by dfxm12 »

ohhnoodont wrote: post #51

I loved gen 1 pokemon as a kid in the 90s. But today I sometimes feel like our culture is locked in time. Walking into a toy store is somewhat depressing - everything looks exactly the same as it did when I was a kid! It’s been 30+ years, kids should have way cooler toys and IPs.

Not exactly Pokemon related, but this would have been the coolest toy I had for a while if I had it 30 years ago.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVXryEIj8ah/?igsh=MWViMDBvZ3h...

Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#84

Post by sylens »

poetril wrote: post #37

I grew up playing the games, and still have my copy of Yellow and Red. I fell of the wagon somewhere around Gen VI, the games just got to easy. It became clear to me that Gamefreak was just throwing in the towel and gave up making interesting games. That being said, recently I started getting into the world of Romhacks and they have sparked new joy in me. The games are hard, fun, and have a lot of love poured into th…

The romhacks are definitely the way to go. I don't need much in terms of gameplay mechanics besides Gen 3 or Gen 4, what I do need is interesting and challenging dungeons/gauntlets

Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#85

Post by bubblewand »

alexpotato wrote: post #79
bubblewand wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wizard of Oz (the one you know of) was a remake. The Thing (the one you know of—though the other had a longer title anyway) was a remake. The version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Donald Sutherland (so, the one with that meme-able image of him pointing toward the camera) was a remake. (Franchises? There are some from like the 40s that had a dozen or so entries over the next couple decades) Many remake ex…

Exactly! The opposite is also true: there are MANY authors who had entire series of books in the 1920s that were wildly popular yet largely unknown today. I imagine there are probably also films that everyone saw back then but are unheard of today.

Oh yeah one of those “memento mori” things for me is browsing shelves in flea markets with tons of 1890s-1930s popular fiction and appreciating how very many of the authors are now totally unknown. You can do something similar with bestseller lists by year on Wikipedia, go back far enough and even for someone with pretty deep recognition of historical authors it soon becomes a lot of “who? Who? Who?”

> I imagine there are probably also films that everyone saw back then but are unheard of today.

Even sticking to relatively critically-acclaimed stuff it’s pretty easy to land on films that probably fewer than 1% of people in the Anglosphere (assuming initial popularity in that market) have seen, in the silent era, without going far off the beaten path. Go slightly farther and it’s likely just you and a very small number of other extreme film nerds among the living who’ve ever watched it.

Take DW Griffith, a giant of a director. Got what, 20+ surviving feature films of 40ish made? How many people alive have seen more than three of them? It’s a small number. Hell, it’s not a large number that have watched even one.

Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#86

Post by toast0 »

bogzz wrote: post #36
dlivingston wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you still have the original cartridges, highly recommend getting a ModRetro Chromatic or an Analogue Pocket to replay them. I have the ModRetro and it has been a lot of fun rediscovering my old childhood games.

I donated mine with my GameBoys to Red Cross when I turned 19 :( But I ordered the new Pocket Taco, which is like a controller that is taco-shaped and clamps around your smartphone, kinda turning it into a gameboy.

> Pocket Taco, which is like a controller that is taco-shaped and clamps around your smartphone

Nokia's N-Gage was a taco shaped smartphone before its time!

Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#87

Post by nitwit005 »

ecshafer wrote: post #28

Its interesting that elementary kids have this kind of evergreen introduction to Pokemon. There is always a new set of games coming out, cards to buy, toys, anime. So kids see older kids with it, they want to get it, then they get introduced. So this "fad" has gone on for 30 years. However, even as someone who plays JRPGs. I can't for the life of me understand how adults are playing the games. The pokemon games are p…

The grinding is less of an issue than being too easy. You can play through a number of the games with just your starter pokemon, playing with close to no strategy at all.

People add artificial difficulty through extra rules, which seems like a strange thing to have to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuzlocke

Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#88

Post by tayo42 »

popalchemist wrote: post #80
ohhnoodont wrote: post #51

I loved gen 1 pokemon as a kid in the 90s. But today I sometimes feel like our culture is locked in time. Walking into a toy store is somewhat depressing - everything looks exactly the same as it did when I was a kid! It’s been 30+ years, kids should have way cooler toys and IPs.

While there IS innovation and novelty in the toy industry, I can tell you from experience in the field that the people with the money are the parents. So the nostalgia play is a very strong tactic. Sell what the parents had because they will INSTANTLY want to give the same to their kids.

I get the logic, I didn't grow up with my parents youth culture though.

Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#89

Post by bombcar »

ohhnoodont wrote: post #51

I loved gen 1 pokemon as a kid in the 90s. But today I sometimes feel like our culture is locked in time. Walking into a toy store is somewhat depressing - everything looks exactly the same as it did when I was a kid! It’s been 30+ years, kids should have way cooler toys and IPs.

"Block" games existed in the 90s, perhaps, but Minecraft is from 2009.

"Factorio" type puzzles may have existed, but nothing of that detail until 2016.

Part of the big advancements of the 80-90s was that the technology was advancing insanely quickly, which meant that things that were simply impossible a year ago were commonplace next year.

LEGO still exists, but the Lego of 2026 is not the Lego of the 90s (for good or ill).

Toy cars existed in the 80s, but the Cars franchise started in 2006.

Part of the problem is it's hard to see what will be huge in 20 years that already exists today.

You also have "sideways cannibalization" where something in one area never really expands to another: Harvest Moon never moved to PC/Mac and so there was an opening that Stardew Valley took advantage of, and now has moved way beyond. In a way it's "the same thing locked in time" in another it's not.

What do they say about there being only seven stories?

Re: Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

#90

Post by estimator7292 »

technothrasher wrote: post #81
bubblewand wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wizard of Oz (the one you know of) was a remake. The Thing (the one you know of—though the other had a longer title anyway) was a remake. The version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Donald Sutherland (so, the one with that meme-able image of him pointing toward the camera) was a remake. (Franchises? There are some from like the 40s that had a dozen or so entries over the next couple decades) Many remake ex…

> The Wizard of Oz (the one you know of) was a remake. I'm not sure it's quite fair to call the 1939 film a "remake". It was one in a line of adaptations of the book, and isn't otherwise really related to the other adaptations. It isn't the first, or the last, but it is the most famous.

The difference is between "I can tell this story better/more engaging/more entertaining/more realistic" vs "let's cash in on the success this movie had five years ago"

The Wizard of Oz was a new interpretation of Baum's original story. They put enormous effort into making the new film better than other interpretations, of which there were several. Which is why it's a successful, beloved classic!

The same really can't be said of this week's Marvel/DC remake of whatever they made a few years ago. It's just about being a cash grab and nothing else.

P.S. If you've never heard of the sequel 'Return to Oz', do yourself a favor and watch it without doing any research. Just go in straight blind, it really enhances the experience. If you drink, keep a bottle nearby, you'll need it.

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