Discussion Andy Robinson: "From what I’ve heard, TPC has taken the response to S/V seriously and is acting on it for future production"

[Truno]

I'm not so sure what this could mean, as the COO of The Pokemon Company said the following regarding the series' quality moving forward

“I think in general, if you look at the past, the path we’ve taken up until now has been this constant release, always regularly releasing products on a fairly fixed kind of a cadence, you might say. Always having these products able to be introduced and new experiences for our customers, and that’s how we’ve operated up until now. I think we’re still operating in that way, but there’s more and more conversations, as the development environments change, about how we can continue to do this, while making sure that we’re ensuring really quality products are also being introduced.”

Source

One of the biggest criticisms levied against TPC is its release cadence and strict timelines, however, the COO confirms that their goal is to continue as they have. Perhaps generation 10 will be smaller in scope?

 

[cire]

S/V is my favorite mainline Pokemon game in decades. If they can keep the core from that game while providing technical improvements, that would be fantastic.

 

[Yavga]

I believe it when I see it, I remember similar sentiments were said after Sword/Shield.

That said, I really enjoyed Scarlet as a first true open world Pokemon game but there is much to be done to make it a more balanced package.
After all they're just games, they can't appeal to every single audience out there.
The only thing I can really call them out for is the lack of polish these last 2 generations.

 

[Bonejack]

I'll believe it when i see that they're giving themselves more time between new mainline games.

That would be the biggest factor to improve quality.

But they will also need to really expand their workforce, especially with young and fresh devs and artists.
And not stretch the teams thin by doing other (non Pokemon projects).

Also, i will die on the hill saying that they should also switch from an in-house engine to a licensed third party one. It reduces the amount of work and workforce they need to invest into maintenance of the engine. Sure, they would need to adapt the engine to their needs, but keeping adaptions maintained is less work than keeping a whole engine maintained.

 

[Koren Lesthe]

Also, i will die on the hill saying that they should also switch from an in-house engine to a licensed third party one. It reduces the amount of work and workforce they need to invest into maintenance of the engine. Sure, they would need to adapt the engine to their needs, but keeping adaptions maintained is less work than keeping a whole engine maintained.

Unreal Engine 5 nanite for fur and scales.
"As you can see, you can count each fur on every Pokémon and when you brush them at the camp, the physics makes it very realistic".

Instant win for the furry community and a warm welcome of UE 5 on Nintendo platforms.
Of course that would be for Switch 2. Make it so, TPC.

 

[boodream]

What completely baffles me is that TPC released Arceus and the Diamond/Pearl remake in the same year, whereas shifting one of the two games to the following year would have given S/V an extra year of cooking. It's an absurd decision, they didn't even need to sacrifice their rhythm of one release a year, they had the opportunity to avoid a technical disaster that spoiled what could have been a great critical success.


I don't know much about TPC, so someone probably understands this better than I do, but I find it staggering.

The same applies to gen 10: just give developers more time. It's simple, really.

 

[lexony]

Yeah they obviously need to change something. Even with the great initial sales of Scarlet and Violet the perception of those games had a major impact on how Pokémon is perceived, even outside the usual fan / gaming circles. If the graphical performance and the overall quality keeps to be this bad I am very certain this would also be reflected in sales numbers at some point and they know that.

Personally I hope that they will add some of the new ideas of Arceus to the next game, but try a different approach with how the open world looks like. I think it should be designed more compact in scale and more like Routes again.

The Idea of Scarlet of Violet that you go around that vulcano wasn‘t bad, though certain places where just too big. Like some of the smaller villages and towns were fine, but the empty space between, the main city and even the beginning area were just way too big and very ugly and made the game appearing even worse than it could have been.

 

[Ahmed]

I'll believe it when i see that they're giving themselves more time between new mainline games.

That would be the biggest factor to improve quality.

But they will also need to really expand their workforce, especially with young and fresh devs and artists.
And not stretch the teams thin by doing other (non Pokemon projects).

Also, i will die on the hill saying that they should also switch from an in-house engine to a licensed third party one. It reduces the amount of work and workforce they need to invest into maintenance of the engine. Sure, they would need to adapt the engine to their needs, but keeping adaptions maintained is less work than keeping a whole engine maintained.

Yep, I agree.

Things will never get better (only worse imo), if they continue as they have. Especially under GameFreak. They need to expand and/or give themselves more time between games. Ideally you'd have 1 (proper sized) team make each new generation every ~5 years.
Another team on remakes or whatever every ~4 years, another making smaller experiments like Let's Go, Legends every 4~ years and then have a year in between each release. For the new gens, that would be when they release DLC.

And for the years without a game, they could fill it up with spin-offs that are made by third parties. Your Pokémon Snap, Pokken etc.

 

[Mirev]

I'm not so sure what this could mean, as the COO of The Pokemon Company said the following regarding the series' quality moving forward



Source

One of the biggest criticisms levied against TPC is its release cadence and strict timelines, however, the COO confirms that their goal is to continue as they have. Perhaps generation 10 will be smaller in scope?

Or probably they will use more studios other than GF to give them the right time for new gen games

Honestly, GF developed the two biggest game ever (PLA and SV) during Covid. Now they tested everything between LGPE and SV (traditional, linear, open map and open world).

Give them no covid and at least 1 more year of development. I still see a chance.

 

[Yamanoi]

Or probably they will use more studios other than GF to give them the right time for new gen games

Honestly, GF developed the two biggest game ever (PLA and SV) during Covid. Now they tested everything between LGPE and SV (traditional, linear, open map and open world).

Give them no covid and at least 1 more year of development. I still see a chance.

Retro Studios is not doing anything now and would be good for a spinoff Pokemon title.

 

[Brock Reiher]

Not surprising. The DLC is already a huge step up from the base game. Pokémon has been on a pretty sharp increase in quality for the past decade and change now.

 

[Bonejack]

Unreal Engine 5 nanite for fur and scales.
"As you can see, you can count each fur on every Pokémon and when you brush them at the camp, the physics makes it very realistic".

Instant win for the furry community and a warm welcome of UE 5 on Nintendo platforms.
Of course that would be for Switch 2. Make it so, TPC.

Yep, I agree.

Things will never get better (only worse imo), if they continue as they have. Especially under GameFreak. They need to expand and/or give themselves more time between games. Ideally you'd have 1 (proper sized) team make each new generation every ~5 years.
Another team on remakes or whatever every ~4 years, another making smaller experiments like Let's Go, Legends every 4~ years and then have a year in between each release. For the new gens, that would be when they release DLC.

And for the years without a game, they could fill it up with spin-offs that are made by third parties. Your Pokémon Snap, Pokken etc.

Mind you, things like that take time, especially big changes to the dev pipelines. So even if they would've already started to make changes in these parts, we're talking not Gen 10 to see those improvements, but rather Gen 11.

Or probably they will use more studios other than GF to give them the right time for new gen games

Honestly, GF developed the two biggest game ever (PLA and SV) during Covid. Now they tested everything between LGPE and SV (traditional, linear, open map and open world).

Give them no covid and at least 1 more year of development. I still see a chance.

There's a rights/contractual reason why only Gamefreak does mainline games (outside of the one time a remake was outsourced).

So using more studios would in this case mean:

Either more remakes (which would still have some connection to GF if i understood things right)
or
More spinoffs.

 

[ziggyrivers]

Can someone give me background on Andy Robinson? Who is he? Does he have good sources? Does he have sources in Japan or in any way connected to the Pokemon Company/GameFreak?

I’m finding it hard to believe that someone in this part of the hemisphere knows about the dealings of a corporation, especially one with a language barrier.

I'm not so sure what this could mean, as the COO of The Pokemon Company said the following regarding the series' quality moving forward

I read that as:
• This is how we’ve always worked, but we always have conversations about the end product’s quality

Perhaps generation 10 will be smaller in scope?

No. They just need more time in the oven. Pokemon SwSh was smaller in scope compared to both Legends and ScVi, and the 8th generation game runs questionably in the Switch, for a game thats’s sorta an HD version of a 3DS game

S/V is my favorite mainline Pokemon game in decades. If they can keep the core from that game while providing technical improvements, that would be fantastic.

I concur.

 

[Zumikoi]

I know it's impossible but Nintendo should buy GF and do what Bill Gates did to Homer.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Just making sure the next game runs well is all that's needed. Fixing the visuals would be the second step. So this comment isn't so out of the mark, it's just GF giving themselves enough time to implement them

 

[Lucifer]

Honestly, TPC/Gramefreak sounds more and more like a toxic workplace where upper management takes advantage of the employees because they don't leave easily as working on Pokemon is probably a dream for many.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Can someone give me background on Andy Robinson? Who is he? Does he have good sources? Does he have sources in Japan or in any way connected to the Pokemon Company/GameFreak?

I’m finding it hard to believe that someone in this part of the hemisphere knows about the dealings of a corporation, especially one with a language barrier.

Unironically one of the best connected journalists out there

 

[ziggyrivers]

I know it's impossible but Nintendo should buy GF and do what Bill Gates did to Homer.

They wouldn’t need to buy them, just technical assistance through a design amount of workforce.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Nintendo has that sort of action in their cards

 

[boodream]

Remakes and spin-offs are precisely what should give Game Freak more time to develop the main entries. They also have an opportunity with Gen 5, which gives them the chance to produce two remakes instead of one, which would give Gen 10 an extra year of development.

 

[Zemya]

Not surprising. The DLC is already a huge step up from the base game. Pokémon has been on a pretty sharp increase in quality for the past decade and change now.

LOL

Anyways, I want to believe they are actually gonna listen.

 

[Beanstar40]

LOL

Anyways, I want to believe they are actually gonna listen.

Just curious as to why you disagree with that users statement? I haven’t played the dlc yet but I’d like to hear both arguments, as someone who was pretty Disappointed by the technical side of the game

 

[Earthbounder]

I'll file this in my "I will believe it when I see it" folder.

 

[Kintah]

I know it might be an unpopular opinion but I wish they stopped creating new Pokémon (as in the creatures), aside from the quality of the designs (subjective) over the last few years, they could still make a new game without necessarily increasing the roster. Maybe that would make them more focused on the overall quality tough I still doubt that would make much of a difference, even if they released every 2 years instead of yearly.
I have no faith in GF, haven't had any in a long time, it would take a massive paradigm shift for me to consider buying a Pokémon game again. Last Pokémon game I bought and played was Sun and it was a disappointment for me (for different reasons compared to their offerings on Switch).

 

[ziggyrivers]

Just curious as to why you disagree with that users statement? I haven’t played the dlc yet but I’d like to hear both arguments, as someone who was pretty Disappointed by the technical side of the game

Personally, the base game, mechanics, has improved. In terms of technical and visual issues, yes, it looks unprofessional and low quality

 

[Ahmed]

Mind you, things like that take time, especially big changes to the dev pipelines. So even if they would've already started to make changes in these parts, we're talking not Gen 10 to see those improvements, but rather Gen 11.

I know, and I don't expect to see any improvements in the coming years anyway, assuming they're even going to make improvements.

One thing is for sure, they can't continue as they are much longer. Game dev will become even more complex and more expensive.

 

[BassForever]

I know it might be an unpopular opinion but I wish they stopped creating new Pokémon (as in the creatures), aside from the quality of the designs (subjective) over the last few years, they could still make a new game without necessarily increasing the roster. Maybe that would make them more focused on the overall quality tough I still doubt that would make much of a difference, even if they released every 2 years instead of yearly.
I have no faith in GF, haven't had any in a long time, it would take a massive paradigm shift for me to consider buying a Pokémon game again. Last Pokémon game I bought and played was Sun and it was a disappointment for me (for different reasons compared to their offerings on Switch).

Gen 9 has some of the best new designs in the series, and new Pokemon sell these games along with the cards, anime, toys, etc.

They'll never stop making new Pokemon, nor should they. Even spin off titles like Legends Arceus introduce new mons.

 

[Zemya]

Just curious as to why you disagree with that users statement? I haven’t played the dlc yet but I’d like to hear both arguments, as someone who was pretty Disappointed by the technical side of the game

Same, if not worse, performance. Story potential was wasted, too much grind-gated content and the grind itself isn't the fun kind, plain af locations but that's not a novelty. Nothing like the Crown Tundra Dynamax Adventures that added a cool online experience with the drafted mons that vaguely resembled Battle Factory

 

[Beanstar40]

Personally, the base game, mechanics, has improved. In terms of technical and visual issues, yes, it looks unprofessional and low quality

Thats really a shame. While I love the idea of game freak making convincing looking hd fully explorable open worlds, I’m not convinced they have the team size, time, budget, or experience to do it effectively. It’s important to remember that for a lot of these developers, hd game development is still pretty new to them. There are interesting comparisons here to the struggles that many Japanese game companies faced during the early 360 and ps3 era, where a few of them struggled to acclimate to the more demanding nature of making games for hd systems.

I think they were smart to start with something small like let’s go pikachu and evee, which are essentially hd 3ds level games, and then gradually get bigger. But I think they still need to hone their skills a little more. Hopefully the next game makes meaningful improvements to visuals and performance

 

[Mirev]

Mind you, things like that take time, especially big changes to the dev pipelines. So even if they would've already started to make changes in these parts, we're talking not Gen 10 to see those improvements, but rather Gen 11.



There's a rights/contractual reason why only Gamefreak does mainline games (outside of the one time a remake was outsourced).

So using more studios would in this case mean:

Either more remakes (which would still have some connection to GF if i understood things right)
or
More spinoffs.

This is what I was talking about.

See u in february, I'm sure the remakes won't be by Game Freak.

 

[Shinespark]

Also, i will die on the hill saying that they should also switch from an in-house engine to a licensed third party one. It reduces the amount of work and workforce they need to invest into maintenance of the engine. Sure, they would need to adapt the engine to their needs, but keeping adaptions maintained is less work than keeping a whole engine maintained.

I feel like the intense marketing effort for UE5 and the scapegoating BioWare and did with Frostbite has contributed to this belief that game engines are a panacea. GameFreak and the Pokemon company have direct access to Nintendo, who manage to make all of their first party games look amazing on their hardware. I don't think it's an adequate tools issue, it's a time/scope that will cause problems in any development environment.

The likely outcome from a change to a 3rd party engine is that GameFreak leadership would start ignoring recommendations from UE technical support instead of Nintendo technical support.

 

[9-Volt]

I think it's best go back to 4 year cycles (or even 5) for Game Freak. And leave every spinoff to the external studios.

I also think the successor can hold up until the big hitters, Animal Crossing and Pokémon new gen arrive. Even the first party lineups are insufficient, it can make up with actually competent third party lineup. I mean, we're talking about a launch window Monster Hunter here.

 

[ziggyrivers]

Unpopular opinion:
• Gen 10 should not try to be 4k
• Gen 11? Yes

 

[Kintah]

Gen 9 has some of the best new designs in the series, and new Pokemon sell these games along with the cards, anime, toys, etc.

They'll never stop making new Pokemon, nor should they. Even spin off titles like Legends Arceus introduce new mons.

As I said, that's a matter of opinions. I personally don't like most of the newer designs (especially stuff like the paradox Pokémon that just seem lazy and gimmicky in the worst possible way to me) but that's OK if others do. It's personal preference at the end of the day.
Doesn't detract from the rest of my post though.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

Pokémon's issues are so deeply ingrained in their release cadence that any attempt to fix the mess they've gotten themselves in has to start there. A new generation every three years is simply untenable if they also want to do all of the stuff inbetween like remakes and Arceus. Still don't entirely understand why they don't support the mainline games for longer. Two seasons of DLC should be the norm going forward if they insist on yearly Pokécontent.

 

[ziggyrivers]

Remakes and spinoffs should fill their release schedule more. And DLC. If they’re releasing new gens every three years, use the aforementioned softwares to release them every 5-6 years

 

[stodesign12]

That's actually exciting. But S/V problems go beyond just perfomance and it would still look ugly at solid 60 fps since it's pretty rough in a lot of aspects.

Pokemon games deserve much better animations, lightning, textures (not meaning realistic), vegetation, landscapes, 3D models... And these problems apply to Legends Arceus too, which in my opinion is the better game.

I know Game Freak is not a big AAA studio, but they can do much better with more development time.

EDIT: Game Freak is an AAA studio.

 

[Bonejack]

This is what I was talking about.

See u in february, I'm sure the remakes won't be by Game Freak.

I think the general mindset about the upcoming Pokemon Presentation in Feb is that there will be another "in-between" game, like Arceus or Let's Go instead of the next remake wave.

So, likely a Game Freak made game.

I feel like the intense marketing effort for UE5 and the scapegoating BioWare and did with Frostbite has contributed to this belief that game engines are a panacea. GameFreak and the Pokemon company have direct access to Nintendo, who manage to make all of their first party games look amazing on their hardware. I don't think it's an adequate tools issue, it's a time/scope that will cause problems in any development environment.

The likely outcome from a change to a 3rd party engine is that GameFreak leadership would start ignoring recommendations from UE technical support instead of Nintendo technical support.

They can ignore them as much as they want, the engine core, the big part everything rests on, would still be maintained and developed by Epic.

Not having to take care of that is a massive time and resources saving.

Beyond that, GF would be free to "Frankenstein" the engine as much as they want to their needs. I doubt Epic would care.

 

[Kintah]

I know Game Freak is not a big AAA studio, but they can do much better with more development time.

They are AAA though, I don't even think that's debatable? Unless I'm missing something and you meant it in a different way

 

[Zemya]

Mind you, things like that take time, especially big changes to the dev pipelines. So even if they would've already started to make changes in these parts, we're talking not Gen 10 to see those improvements, but rather Gen 11.

By now Gen 10 should be roughly 1,5-2 years in dev right? I'm assuming if there's been any shift in their mentality it already happened months ago, why would it be unrealistic to see improvements in gen 10?

 

[Estew]

That's nice to hear. I hope it reflects in future games. S/V at its core was a very enjoyable experience, but the performance was so bad that it's only the second or third game to ever make me get a headache from how frequently it would stutter, not to mention the eye strain as chunks of the world flashed in and out of existence. There were some general design flaws as well, of course (like it feeling deeply unrewarding to actually go "out of order"), but the core was actually quite good I felt.

I've said for a while now that I would really love if they took extra time to develop each new generation game, and were willing to outsource more things - not just remakes like BDSP, but even experimental Arceus-like experiences - if they're really desperate to have yearly "mainline" content.

 

[stodesign12]

They are AAA though, I don't even think that's debatable? Unless I'm missing something and you meant it in a different way

If I'm not mistaken... is not their main dev team smaller than most AAA studios?

 

[Bonejack]

By now Gen 10 should be roughly 1,5-2 years in dev right? I'm assuming if there's been any shift in their mentality it already happened months ago, why would it be unrealistic to see improvements in gen 10?

Simply because changes like more workforce would be done "on-the-fly", as in while development goes.

You can't just throw new devs, especially if they're young and lack some work experience, into "set up" teams and expect improvements. If anything, it would lead to delaying things.
You would rather do something like Monolithsoft did, form a team out of young and new devs and have them get used to the dev pipeline and workflow by doing a "smaller scale" project of their own. Xenoblade 1 HD was done that way.

As for changing engines, that should be avoided mid-dev. See how many problems SQEX had with DQ 11 Switch when they had to change simply versions of UE4.

So it's likely that dev of Gen 10 goes on just as dev went for Gen 9.

Although i should've made it clear that when i said improvements, i mean "big" improvements. I'm not trying to say that Gen 10 won't have any of them.

 

[Zemya]

Simply because changes like more workforce would be done "on-the-fly", as in while development goes.

You can't just throw new devs, especially if they're young and lack some work experience, into "set up" teams and expect improvements. If anything, it would lead to delaying things.
You would rather do something like Monolithsoft did, form a team out of young and new devs and have them get used to the dev pipeline and workflow by doing a "smaller scale" project of their own. Xenoblade 1 HD was done that way.

As for changing engines, that should be avoided mid-dev. See how many problems SQEX had with DQ 11 Switch when they had to change simply versions of UE4.

So it's likely that dev of Gen 10 goes on just as dev went for Gen 9.

Although i should've made it clear that when i said improvements, i mean "big" improvements. I'm not trying to say that Gen 10 won't have any of them.

I think that even if the team members and tools stay the same they can deliver something good by just having more time and common sense.

We'll see I guess.

 

[Bonejack]

I think that even if the team members and tools stay the same they can deliver something good by just having more time and common sense.

We'll see I guess.

I mean, "more time" is likely the one change that's not going to happen (at least anytime soon), soooo.

;]

 

[Kintah]

If I'm not mistaken... is not their main dev team smaller than most AAA studios?

Depends on how you look at it, they are the same size of Blizzard Albany that made Diablo IV. That and multiple studios actually end up working on games for example SWSH had creatures and another team of debuggers working on it along with the main core of GF. (I will exclude PR and the such but they are there even for other studios so it's not much of an argument)

There was an interview recently where you [Ohmori] mentioned that a thousand people had been involved in this game in one capacity or another, and I know that involves not just Game Freak but lots of other companies and departments. I’m curious what the biggest resource pull is. What aspect of these games requires the most people?

Ohmori: So, yeah. The number being close to a thousand, that of course includes all the different functions like marketing and PR and everyone that would be associated with the game ahead of release. But I think at Game Freak, really the core team of people that worked on the game was around 200 people. And of course, Creatures is another partner company that develops 3D models of the Pokémon. There are various teams that handle debugging at our partner companies as well. So there’s a lot of people involved and I think in terms of just the sheer number of the most resources required to make something happen for the development, it was definitely more on the graphical side of things. Like I mentioned, Creatures was involved with creating the models, but even at Game Freak, with the increased power of the Switch, we tried to make richer, more expressive visuals. We definitely needed more people this time around. […]

This it the most relevant part:

I mean, there’s more than a hundred people who worked on debugging the game, the testing and all of that. And Creatures, they probably have a hundred people working on 3D models and everything. Now that we’re on the Switch, there’s the graphical stuff but also creating the data for the various systems in the game and everything. It just requires a lot of people to be involved.

From:
Polygon's interview about sword and shield

 

[Zemya]

I mean, "more time" is likely the one change that's not going to happen (at least anytime soon), soooo.

;]

Postponing Gen 10 from 2025 to 2026 would be such a simple yet intelligent move. You are celebrating the 30th anniversary AND listening to feedback.

It would very much help giving disgruntled fans some faith (Sure we don't affect sales too much).

There's also the fact that it's gonna be on the new Switch. If they don't take this aligned stars opportunity I don't know what to say.

 

[stodesign12]

Depends on how you look at it, they are the same size of Blizzard Albany that made Diablo IV. That and multiple studios actually end up working on games for example SWSH had creatures and another team of debuggers working on it along with the main core of GF. (I will exclude PR and the such but they are there even for other studios so it's not much of an argument)



This it the most relevant part:

From:
Polygon's interview about sword and shield

I really need to stop thinking that they are a small/medium size team making Gameboy games (therefore the situation is even worse that I thought). Thanks for the info.

 

[Razgriz]

Hope that the release of S/Vs technical mess and subsequent feedback got them the room to make the improvements to their processes that they need to make. From what I heard, Game Freak had a lot of technical knowledge problems making the 2D to full 3D jump that still plague them to this day; they just weren't really that noticable on the 3DS.

The dev time being as short as it is probably doesn't help them on that either. The games run a custom engine, which means they can't just hire 3D specialist programmers as easily either.

 

[rêverie]

what do you guys think is more likely: TPC not enjoying the bad press about the mess S/V was or TPC really enjoying the record sales of S/V?

putting on my capitalist hat - i'm sure they recognized the problems, but i don't really think management is going to change anything unless the sales start to look much different. what's the point?

also, who is andy robinson? i see his twitter handle says VGC, but why would he know specifics about internal mumblings at TPC?

 

[Individualised]

So could anyone tell me what the general consensus on Andy Robinson is? Does he actually know his shit? Because every time I see one of his tweets posted here there's at least one person who implies that he isn't credible. Especially for Switch 2 related stuff.