Hey guys. I am gonna do my take on Pokemon Unite and put out what is going on with it, and what I think about it. I see a lot of negative feedback, so I’ll address a couple of sides of this situation.

Well, last week, we got Pokemon Presentation that has more than one thing, and it covers Cafe Mix, New Snap, Sword and Shield Isle of Armor that came out the exact day, and new things about sleep and home. Last week has a lot of content on it, and they then say next week is a big announcement. It will make it seem like it’s worth seeing since the first presentation was a good one due to its content.

When I saw the recent presentation, it was just Pokemon Unite on the entire presentation, and people seem to be disappointed of it. First off, I don’t hate it and just thought it was just a League of Legend reskin to Pokemon that is on Switch and Mobile. We will be breaking down to each problems. I will put the good, the bad, and what they could’ve done to be neutral to the situation.

First problem is the marketing and what the last Pokemon Presentation said about the next presentation on the following week that it will be a big announcement. Well, if they say it’s gonna be a big announcement, it will make people have high expectations like wanting a johto or sinnoh remake. You’re pretty much giving it more hype by saying. So, I only saw the recent presentation with no expectations, because I didn’t want them to make any remakes to begin with since Let’s Go Games cost them development time on Sword and Shield, that brought up #BringBackNationalDex situation as well as being really rushed for the holidays with less effort on animation and graphics that I saw from DistantKingdom. I wanted games to be developed well and not disappoint people that last year’s problem has. At the same time, I never really have high expectations on most panels since they always come unexpected, so the presentation didn’t anger me or anything. I just thought if the game was really worth a big presentation. Mobile and Free to Play games aren’t really a big announcement since they are just small games, but what is would be something that is exclusive on game consoles as a paid game. I do think they could’ve included the game on last week’s presentation to have at least a bit longer presentation that is with all its games being announced. That way, it would’ve been more neutral and people would be like “Okay…A Pokemon MOBA game.” instead of “THAT’S A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT?! A POKEMON MOBA GAME?”. You can see the attitude change, if they either include that game on last week’s presentation or swap it with Pokemon New Snap since it’s an iconic game, and if New Snap was covering the whole presentation from Wednesday, it would’ve been a deal breaker. People would be more happy and it should include gameplay for a little bit. I think they should’ve present Unite better. Also, a presentation should have at least two things, with a little bit of showing off merch and stuff. I know Diablo has that problem two years ago because it was marketed as a big announcement for a PC franchise and it turned to be a mobile free to play game, and it was booed on the panel and blizzard people has some attitude on the fans, especially since there was no new Diablo game for a long time. With Pokemon Unite, it wasn’t as worse since I don’t every gaming news overreacting to its feedback, so the drama is pretty smaller than Diablo’s situation.

The second problem of Pokemon Unite was it was made by Tencent, a Chinese company who makes free to play mobile games. People do not like that company and I’ll explain why based on my research. Tencent is a level of EA, aka Electronic Arts. As we should know, EA is a very greedy company that is unfriendly with its consumers, and fill their games with microtransactions and trying to get more money from people. The best example of a game that has this problem was Star Wars Battlefront 2 when it came out, and it has microtransactions that let’s players become stronger when paying powerups so it’s a pay to win kind of thing. Also, you have to pay for characters to get it instantly, as you would have to grind for too many hours otherwise. There is also a game from EA called Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, a free to play Mobile game. It was heavily forced to pay microtransaction to progress the game much quicker, and it recently banned a player for reporting that there are hackers, and they ignored him and thought he was breaking their TOS. EA is a very shady company. So with Tencent, they’re almost the same level as EA, so that is pretty much the reason why people don’t like Tencent. They do stuffs like this too as far as I heard. I don’t really play those type of games because I don’t like when they decide to make free to play games that heavily relies on Microtransaction that really impacts the enjoyment of a game, but as for Pokemon Unite, we haven’t seen more information yet besides the gameplay. I wouldn’t expect it to be as much fun since I gathered information about Tencent.

[Edit 9/22: Well, right after I post this, people told me more about Tencent. They’re worse than EA, because they have huge connections with Chinese government, and they can control and see people’s data and such, as well as censorship, so they have much more government control, and they own so many things, moreso than Disney and Microsoft. Well, it was announced a year prior that Tencent would work on a Pokemon game, but SwSh not having dex was taking over, since it was a main game. With a poor presentation, it’s theorized that Tencent paid the Pokemon Company to have their own presentation for the game, or that TPC decided to do that, but more on the former. Still, it wouldn’t get as much backlash if it was included on the presentation a week before with the other games.]

As a concept, it looks decent. The models and its gameplay looks fine. I thought it would be all right on itself. MOBA games are really big in China and any mobile games there. They barely play console games since most consoles haven’t sold there until the PS4 era, but everyone has phones so they can play games anywhere. It may be all right, but I wouldn’t expect much. If you do want to play a new Pokemon free to play game, tryout Pokemon Cafe Mix. It’s a lot more fun and its microtransactions are completely optional, and you an play the game without internet/mobile connection. Cafe Mix came out few days ago and it looks addicting. It’s on Mobile and Switch.

So, do I think the fans have the right to be disappointed by the game, or are they really toxic? Well, I do think they were expecting the panel too highly because they said this presentation was gonna be big, but it isn’t. I suggest not to make things clickbaity, and be more honest about it. Since I learned about Tencent, it isn’t that surprising. [Also, I know they’re people who will have high expectations for the remakes and such, but they should remind themselves that Tencent made an announcement a year prior.] However, I don’t think they should go after people that work on those games, or have a divide on a fandom of a particular game, because I don’t want a split fandom. I had that problem with The Last Jedi and its problems (TLJ is much worse than this, believe me). [Yes, even with all the problems with Sword and Shield, Let’s Go games, and recently Unite, I believe almost every fandom I’ve been in had toxic sides that will react, and it is the companies fault for creating a mess of this hype and announcement. I didn’t feel ashamed enough with the Pokemon situations, unlike Star Wars, which was fueled by PC culture left and right since TLJ came out, and the fandom was worse. I am not doubting that Pokemon fandom, like most fandoms, have their bad sides, and we’re living in a social media era for over a decade. I never take part of any hashtags for protest, since I was BBND taking things too far to others on Twitter, and JusticeForChloeB was another one. I’ve seen things gets worse since mid 2010s because of stuffs like Twitter and shifts with game companies deciding things like Pokemon Unite, Star Wars Battlefront 2, or Diablo Immortal in this era that creates backlash due to companies decisions.] Overall, Pokemon Unite could’ve been presented better and the company who made it should try to avoid mistakes EA has made on their records. I personally don’t play MOBA games or a couple of free to plays, so I am pretty much more neutral to Pokemon Unite itself. Still better than Sony’s recent game, TLoU2. The beginning had a meaningful description of Pokemon fans, but I think it should’ve been with last week’s presentation to have more neutral reaction. I’m glad it got sorta calm a few days after it. If you got information, you can comment.

My next take will be on Miraculous Ladybug Season 3, and my next video should be out nearly next week. Have a good night.