The Poke-ddiction

 

So as I recently mentioned on my yearly Christmas roundup- I recently got around to wrapping up my time with Pokemon Scarlet, barring the epilogue event coming soon and any promoted dens that Gamefreak decide to throw our way and I have to say- getting to this point kind of felt like overcoming addiction through the most unorthodox manner- trying every type of drug on the market. I do have the tendency to hyper fixate this way or that whenever it comes to the sorts of games that I like to play. I'll juggle about eight different games and then one will just become my to play game for the next few days whether I complete it or it loses me over the course of my 'try-harding'. But then I get the most insidious variant of the 'obsession period'- when the game overrides my 'am I having fun' sensors and somehow grips me in it's vices anyway.

The Ubisoft games always manage to do that with their annoying 'collect everything' design philosophies that whittles down every aspect of an open world, from the people to the locales to the free spirit of adventure itself, into a mindless activity of 'fill the checklist'. Whenever you play those games it isn't long before the curiosity of 'what's around the corner' no longer drives you, your primal 'completionism' brain is just thirsting for those 'ticks' on the map screen so you can move on to the next section. That is not additive game design in my mind, but rather just a trick on our brain chemicals to lull us into a mild passive state of 'finishing for the sake of finishing'. Games like that never occupy my fond memories of the activity. That languish in my memories of the industries worst tendencies- and their own desires to steal as much of your time as they can get away with.

Because let's be fair here: Capturing the most of your audience's time is not the metric for a good game. The metric is based on how people feel about the time they spent and whether they feel like they got anything worthwhile or whether all of that was hopelessly wasted in the grinding machine of the game's industry and their damned statistics. When Call of Duty developers, in a kneejerk salty reaction to the light ribbing they got at the Game Awards, boasted their player retention numbers as being higher than God of War's ever was- it really does show their ass as to what counts as 'quality' in their developing mind. It's not about keeping people entertained, but locked in recurrent loops of grinding for levels, for the Battle Pass, for season ranking, for the new gun that destroys the old meta- whatever it is- you have players held captive.

And I bring up all these examples in order to put into perspective exactly what it is that makes the damned Poke-dex completion obsession that every Pokémon player struggles with, so darned inescapable. We are hardwired to want to see things through to competition, and failing to do creates a little rift in our hearts that gnaws and nags at us until we go absolutely crazy and are forced back- or manage to painfully cut the emotional thread off. The blank spaces of the Pokedex have exploited this since the very first game, and Gamefreak have been exploiting that exploitation ever since the first Pokemon- which actually makes them business-minded pioneers. Afterall, how do you take advantage of people's brain chemicals drawing them to complete each game's collect-athon? Release two games and ensure there are certain Pokémon that only appear in one over the other, encouraging people to get their friends to buy the other game, or the truly desperate to buy two versions of the game. Marketing genius- in an evil madman's eyes.

The Pokemon franchise has always excelled in creating these obscure events and loops for their player base to jump through which is both frustratingly inconvenient but also, a fantastic way to turn people into active fans. I mean what is the game you're going to remember from you childhood; another one of the dozens of RPGs on your Gameboy Advance, or the Pokemon game which made you wait in line at Gamestop in order to get a special code that gave you a Mythical Pokemon that can't be got any other way? Why, that's going to be the sort of Pokemon that you want to transfer to the next Pokemon game, which means you have to buy that too! Suddenly you're keeping up with the National Dex with every release, trading like a fiend, sipping the crack-cocaine that is the Pokemon franchise more than you speak to your own family!

I remember that circumstance forced the Pokémon Company to adapt with the times a little bit. During the height of Sword and Shield's wind down, there was this little thing going around that made it a little bit inappropriate for the company to just demand it's players to wander out to their local game store. A little pandemic going around killing people meant that the company had to get a little bit more basic for their generational Mythical give-away, and thus they allowed people to sign up via email. (And then gave out those Email codes to every one who applied for the newsletter. They didn't even check IP addresses. I got four sets of Mythicals that giveaway. I am the reason we can't have nice things.) But something tells me that example isn't going to stick come Scarlet and Violet's Mythical period. I mean sure, the first Mythical is going to be part of a free event next year, but I know they have something else planned like applying for Mensa in a foreign language or something.

As Pokémon has tried to adapt to modern standards of game design in so many substantive ways, they bitterly refuse to walk back on the winning formulae that drove success- albeit at knife point, back in the franchise's heyday. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet pushed the game into shuddering open world glory, with a brand new Legendary who rides with you throughout the entire adventure- but tradition dictates every Legendary must be version exclusive and tradeable, and the developers couldn't really let you just trade out your only means of decent travel- and so a stupid compromise was made. Now there's a second version of your Legendary you can capture and send off- which kind of defeats the unique nature of the Legendary to begin with. And that in itself begs the question- what exactly about either of this generation's Pokémon are 'Legendary'? They're not really tied to any prevailing myth, they're not gods of some primordial element? Why does it seem like the tighter Pokémon tries to make it's design, the more the concept falls apart?

At the very least the Poke-ddiction is one of the least detrimental gaming addiction you can be fraught by- because afterall you can reach the other end just by completeing the damn Pokédex- that's more than can be said for your average Live Service that wants to keep you on ice for seemingly ever! I wish I could say that 'something has to give' and 'it's time for Pokemon to grow with the age'- but the truth is that the Pokémon franchise is one of the most profitable franchises on the planet Earth, any change they make is not in pursuit of success but spurred on by idle fancy. They're like gods tossing about small playthings that are our lives with a passing interest between changing the fates of nations. Somehow, someway, The Pokémon Company probably has it's hand in ever major world event in the past twenty years- and the world they're making? One that is easier to sell Pokemon games in. Be afraid.