Nick DeChicchis remembers when he got a . became pokemon fan. Some of his earliest memories saw him hunched over a Game Boy, his pokemon team.
“It was definitely before I should have been playing video games,” explains the Brooklyn-based Twitch streamer. “I remember Pokémon Gold and Silver just came out so my brother gave me his Pokémon Blue cartridge. I played it non stop. It’s been a part of my life as long as I could talk.”
Nick’s story isn’t particularly unusual for those growing up in the 90s, when Pokemania had the world in its grip. Exploded in the video game market in 1996, pokemon (short for Pocket Monsters) quickly became an international phenomenon.
Franchise maker Satoshi Tajiri was inspired as a child by his own experiences of playing outside and collecting insects. It was this fairly simple idea that made pokemon so intoxicating for children, imbued the franchise with its universal and timeless appeal: it allowed young people to embark on their own thrilling adventure from the comfort of their couch.
pokemonIts wide popularity was only further aided by the numerous entry points to the franchise. Even if you didn’t have a Game Boy, you could still get carried away in Pokemania due to the amount of resources devoted to this fictional world.
“pokemon has excelled in transmedia storytelling,” said Dr. Rodrigo Perez-Vega, an expert in digital marketing and new technology at Henley Business School. “It started with video games, but then there was the trading card game, TV shows, movies. They built something around the whole story, and they had the knowledge and budget to keep building bigger and bigger.”
In February 2022, The Pokémon Company had its best year in 26 years, with sales of £1.49 billion ($1.6 billion) and operating profit of £429 million ($460 million), an increase of 115 percent. Electronics retailer Curry’s reported that the latest game in the franchise, Pokemon Legends: Arceushad the second highest presale orders in the store’s history.
While every generation of pokemon attracting new fans who were too young for the Pokemania of the 90s, there are still plenty of fans in their late twenties or early thirties who have remained loyal.
Perez-Vega describes the novelty of new pokemon games as an important part of the franchise’s marketing strategy. “If franchisees want people to come back, they have to “take over the sticky journey,” he explains.pokemon does this by adding new elements.”
“Constant innovation is important, so fans enjoy new experiences. This could be through new characters, or with emerging technology – think of pokemon goand how it combined geolocation and augmented reality.”
But between the sometimes long and difficult waiting times between each new generation of pokemon games, the franchise’s OG fans have come up with unique and original ways to breathe new life into a well-trodden story.
While some of these PokeChallenges include the ‘Shiny Collection Challenge’ (catch the extraordinarily rare different colored variations of each Pokémon), speedruns, and the ‘Monotype Challenge’ (catch only one type of Pokémon), the most famous and most attempted is the Nuzlocke Challenge. Created by Nick Franco for his web comic (the name Nuzlocke is a portmanteau of Nuzleaf and actor John Locke) Nuzlocke challenges are based on two basic rules: any Pokémon that gets knocked out is now “dead” and must be released, and players are only allowed to catch the first wild Pokémon they encounter in each area.
Nuzlockes are extremely popular among the pokemon streaming community, with countless YouTube videos garnering hundreds of thousands of views and much discussion.
Nuzlocke playthroughs are characterized by helping experienced pokemon fans are developing more strategic ways of playing, developing movement combinations and a more tactical way of fighting instead of just catching the strongest Pokémon and maximizing the level.
Some of these battle combos were on full display this year pokemon World Championships, where some of the game’s most powerful Pokémon were easily wiped out by weaker opponents using strategic moves and combos.
Nick is no stranger to a Nuzlocke playthrough, having played over 50 in the past decade. “While I still love the traditional pokemon style, it’s really hard for me to play that way again,” he explains.
“Even with new games coming out every year, pokemon can only take you this far if you’ve been a lifelong fan of playing a ten-year-old game for the 10th time.”
RT Game (real name Daniel), a Youtuber who regularly streams Pokémon playthroughs to his 2.73 million subscribers, agrees.
“The standard pokemon experience can be pretty easy once you’ve grown up with the franchise,” he says. or not thinking properly.”
“I think they’re making for great livestream viewing given this risk. I’ve completed two Nuzlockes so far and I think my anxiety needs a rest before I start my third.”
While a significant portion of pokemon“The fan base is now mature, the game hasn’t grown with them, and the general consensus is that the games have gotten simpler. Instead of running around in the long grass training each of their Pokémon to a higher level, newer games have the Experience Share enabled, meaning all Pokémon level up much faster together, rather than one at a time.
For RT, this made later games easier. “I was able to beat everything” Sword and shield with only a Wooloo, which I got at the third gym at level 100,” he recalls. “It would be better if you could turn that off.”
But that’s not to say that the appeal of a Nuzlocke challenge just depends on its increased difficulty. For Nick it harks back to the nostalgia of playing pokemon as a kid, see each pixelated Pocket Monster as a friend.
That’s why in some Nuzlockes we see streamers getting really emotional when a miscalculation means a beloved team member gets knocked out or has to be sacrificed in battle. They could just reload from their previous save point, but this is disallowed as it goes against the spirit of the challenge.
“Outside the games, the idea of camaraderie between trainers and their Pokémon is so important, but that’s not something you really feel in a traditional playthrough,” explains Nick.
“Having only a few wild encounters throughout the game and one life for each Pokémon really nurtures them and creates a deeper bond than you otherwise would. The idea of getting rid of them can be overwhelming and it makes you think more critically about every move to make sure nothing bad happens to them.”
The concept that pokemon are your friends is a concept Nintendo flirted with in pokemon go, which brings the anime to life as best it can. Not only can you find your next Pokémon partner while you’re away to buy coffee, you can also join friends and catch them all together.
The Pokémon franchise now encouraging this sense of community is another indicator of its longevity and success, Perez-Vega says. “Unlike the 1990s, it is now accepted and encouraged for adults to play games,” he explains. ‘pokemon is accessible to all generations; I installed pokemon go on my seven-year-old’s phone – it’s an activity we can enjoy together. The brand community aspect of pokemon is super important.”
Elliot enjoys too pokemon‘s thriving community. “The game world can be very toxic and problematic, but pokemon has always felt like a safe place for many marginalized people,” he says. “It’s been all my life and I don’t know who I would be or where I would be if I didn’t have it as an outlet. It gave me a way to connect with other kids growing up, and now as an adult it has given me a community and platform that I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
The long-awaited Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are due out in November, which will bring some significant changes to the franchise: for the first time, the core games will have plenty of adjacent storylines and an open world to explore in any order you like.
The changes have been widely acclaimed in the pokemon community, but RT still hopes the new games will be more challenging than previous iterations.
However, Perez-Vega believes that, even if pokemon down the difficulty, its real appeal lies in the way it chooses to tell new stories.
“This transmedia storytelling is essential in pokemon maintain this popularity,” he says. “As long as they continue to tell stories through various media channels and bring new experiences, we may be able to see pokemon last 20 or even 30 years.”
You can get involved with the Nuzlocke community here.
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