The issues plaguing the recently released Pokemon Scarlet & Violet games are so prolific, it almost feels redundant for me to go over them. If by chance you haven’t seen them, the worst offenders are definitely worth checking out if you want a good chuckle. These funny glitches and the abysmal frame rates have obviously been shared around the most, but the truth is the issue goes much deeper.
These are just part of a larger overall problem the game suffers from. Its woefully subpar technical state seeps into the overall presentation and ruins things regardless of if you couldn’t care less about how smoothly a game runs. The empty open world, the constant fades in cutscenes in lieu of animations, and the characters and Pokémon disappearing when you walk less than ten feet away from them all detract from the core experience.
These elements falling flat obviously hurts immersion, and I’m far from the first person to say that the Pokémon franchise deserves better. So what’s the problem? Game Freak, the series’ long-time development studio, isn’t incompetent, after all. They made Pokémon what it is. And even underneath all the issues, there’s a fun game in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet. The problem surely isn’t money. The game series, and the larger Pokémon brand, is immensely profitable. No, the problem is time… although, it’s a rather self-imposed limitation.
Game Freak has released 20 mainline Pokémon games in the 26 years the series has been active, counting remakes and alternate versions. This year alone, the studio released Scarlet & Violet in November, despite having released one of the biggest games they’ve ever made, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, in January. Anyone could see Pokémon Scarlet & Violet needed delaying, yet why wasn’t it? Sadly, there’s no official word on the decision to proceed.
What may be the culprit isn’t even the games themselves. Pokémon is much more than a game series – it’s a money-making brand. Pokémon doesn’t profit most of its money off the games, but its merchandise. However, the games are typically the foundation of everything else. As a result, they have an awkward priority amid the franchise. In a purely financial sense, the games are more of a stepping stone, a necessary building block to create the actual money-making products.
Game Freak is the exclusive developer and creator of the Pokémon universe. The team designs the new Pokémon and these are used to create cards for the card game. Game Freak comes up with the new region and gym leaders, which appear in the anime series/movies. And Pokémon sells a lot of licensed merchandise, like clothes and plushies, which are obviously based on the Pokémon Game Freak creates.
Delaying the games would risk needing to delay everything else in what would likely be a logistical nightmare. Everything is likely planned out in advance with toy manufacturers and animation studios. That puts a lot of money on the line, and whether out of greed or production necessity, there’s more incentive to cut corners than to make the best choices for quality over quantity.
These generation cycles could simply take five years or six, but they don’t. They traditionally take three, and haven’t even taken an extra fourth year since 2010. This has been the case since the series began, so it’s likely become established as the expected time goal the devs are meant to hit every time, but though this was perfectly functional back in the handheld space, making large-scale AAA 3D titles is a whole different beast.
We first saw it with Sword & Shield back in 2019, and though these weren’t as glitchy or buggy as Scarlet & Violet, they were mostly considered underwhelming first leaps into the realm of home consoles. Except for a few creative towns, they mostly felt like they took the old Gameboy games and gave them 3D graphics, with little to no innovation in terms of map design and exploration. Many routes were even shorter and more linear than those from the 2D titles.
So, why wasn’t the development process lengthened when Pokémon moved to Switch? Well, to examine the possibilities, we need to look at how the Pokémon Company is structured. Contrary to popular belief, Pokémon isn’t fully owned by Nintendo, they’re only one third. The other two-thirds of the company are owned by Game Freak, and Creatures, the card game makers. Now, if there’s one thing Nintendo has consistently shown they care about, it’s the quality of their software. They delay their flagship titles constantly to make sure the quality is there, even major titles like Breath of the Wild being delayed so long it became a launch title for Nintendo Switch when it started as a Wii-U exclusive. They even restarted Metroid Prime 4’s development from scratch. It can take 6 to 7 years to between mainline Mario games, for crying out loud!
Then it must be the other two companies, right? They’re the greedy ones who don’t care about game quality, right? Twirling their mustaches, cackling in their fortresses of doom? Well, it’s likely not that simple. Like I said, they have a firmly established three-year cycle, and, with so many moving parts relying on that, this is probably something that’s very difficult to change. However, it’s clear it’s high time it was changed, because Game Freak is clearly having trouble keeping up with their own home-console ambitions.
Nintendo may not have full ownership of the franchise, but they have some level of say in what happens, so it can, at least, try to bring forth some change. Now, this is purely speculation on my part, but I can’t imagine Nintendo is keen on the S&V situation, especially given how visible the drop in quality has become. Pokemon is associated with Nintendo as closely Mario, and it’s not a good look for such a big franchise to be so unpolished. Nintendo even acknowledged the performance problems in an update page.
If Nintendo wants one of biggest exclusive series to be at the same level as their own first-party games, then they need to do something about it. They need to rock the boat, as difficult or uncomfortable as that may be. Obviously, the financial incentive is to not do anything. The games still sell like hotcakes, and they allow for the sales of other Pokémon products, so, investors surely prefer that the games come out as quickly as possible. There would be resistance, I know, but it’d be worth it. Besides being a revenue stream, Pokémon is one of the most beloved game series ever – it deserves to be treated with care and respect.
The solution doesn’t even need to be that drastic! Yes, Pokémon Company, keep on making a bunch of money, but just a little less, or don’t lean entirely on the games for each new wave of content. Maybe lengthen the generation cycles, or let some other external team make the remakes/spinoffs – whatever ensures Game Freak can use four (or more) years to focus exclusively on the mainline games. They already did that with Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and it’s a trend they should continue.
Perhaps these are vain hopes of a series diehard. It could be that Nintendo is very satisfied with the current paradigm, where it can easily earn a lot of passive income from Pokémon, yet all I have to hope that that isn’t the case. If we’re lucky, Scarlet & Violet was the wake-up call the Pokémon Company needs, and they come out stronger than ever for the series’ 10th generation.
