Originally, I wanted to write a thread specifically discussing this issue in regards to the Pokémon franchise, but as things stand now, I feel like this might be enough of an unspoken issue to where this could be happening in virtually any multimedia franchise. That being said, I mentioned in the title of this thread that I have something I need to get off my chest. There's been a stingy feeling lately that I just can't seem to get rid of that I need to talk about this somewhere. In an effort to best describe what's bothering me, let's talk business statistics for a second.
Let's say you and any number of co-workers are currently working relatively high-end positions within your company. Like any company, your goal is to make a financial profit to satisfy your customers, shareholders, et cetera. But here's the catch- your company is historically extremely successful, so much so that your brand awareness is recognized by individuals around the entire world. With such a financially relevant company that needs a constant flow of revenue coming in from your product sales, it's not hard for you as a high-end worker to see why lower sales figures than what you're used could have serious repercussions down the road. What is the best way to increase your sales? Making quality products that consumers are actually going to want to purchase, of course. There's obviously a lot more to this, of course- advertising, the role of your consumer base, and so much more- but by and large, the idea that people paying for the most efficient, effective, and affordable services in your field will increase your sales figures seems perfectly reasonable, right? ...right? Because here's the thing- it's not.
Going over to Pokémon as an example, I'm sure we've all heard our fair share of hatred toward the newer main series installments. Over the past year and a half, responses to Pokémon Scarlet & Violet have been all over the place, being cited by many reputable sources as the worst games in the main series- certainly something you want to avoid consumers and shareholders hearing about if you're Game Freak or The Pokémon Company, among others. So, I asked myself, why is it that a game that was seemingly loathed by the masses able to sell over 23 million copies so far at this point in time? Doesn't that number seem a little bit... high to you? Dare I say... suspiciously high?
I don't want to try and undermine some of the major, often historical success that many video games have had over the past... let's say 10 to 15 years. Games like Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto 5, four different Mario Kart games selling a combined 117 million, Call of Duty's massive success during the 2010s, I can understand why games like this would have the numbers they do, especially when you consider that these are across multiple consoles and handhelds. But let's take a look at some of those I.Ps. for a second. Vanilla Minecraft has been playable on... I believe eleven different platforms in total and came out over a decade ago, so of course a game with as much creative liberty and influence on the industry is going to be the best-selling game ever made. The Mario Kart series has consistently been Nintendo's single best-selling games on every Nintendo platform going as far back as the Wii installment (no, Wii Sports doesn't count, we're talking standalone purchases, not console bundles) and has an extremely well-known multimedia franchise in its own right to pull from. to the point where Mario Kart had become the quintessential series in its genre. The amount of success Activision has had with Call of Duty during the 2010s was simply ridiculous, never going more than one year at a time without the best-selling multi-platform release of the year from 2009 all the way to 2019 on top of the microtransaction revenue from the Battle Royales and the mobile game.
Compared to financial juggernauts like these, I hesitate to believe that, even with the millions of Pokémon fans who can and will buy anything with a Pikachu slapped onto it, games like Sword & Shield and especially Scarlet & Violet are actually as successful as the sales numbers would have you believe. Die-hard sports fans may recall the use of the word "dynasty" popping up in discussions every now and then, and I wouldn't be so critical if Pokémon didn't also previously have a quote-on-quote "sales dynasty" of its own, spanning from 1996 to 2004. More specifically, the original Gen 1, Gen 2, and Gen 3 games were all the best-selling games on their respective Game Boy series generations when all versions are considered, to say nothing of the dominance that the anime and the merchandise had at the time. The natural counter-argument to this is that there's a lot more people that know about Pokémon nowadays than when it was still much more new. The new generations of fans having access to the Internet for easier communication and better advertisement may also explain why newer games could match the audience size of Pokémon in its heyday.
For the purpose of not making this post quite literally too long to send, I'll wrap things up here and we can continue with discussions if you so please. Long story short, I think it's very possible that major companies may be secretly inflating their sales and revenue figures for the purposes of making their I.Ps look better. I've been using video games as my examples and references here, but that's simply because it's the market I feel like I know the most about compared to, say, TV and movies, books, et cetera. Does this all just sound like some blown out-of proportion conspiracy theory? Absolutely. But consider, just for a moment, just how much one million is. You (the people publishing the numbers) honestly expect me to believe that arguably the least popular Pokémon game for a rapidly aging fanbase sold over 23 million copies in a time full of older fans being upset with the developers, economic recessions all around the world, and when the people who played Pokémon games in the late '90s and early 2000s supported the franchise more than people do nowadays to begin with? And you consider the fact that Pokémon's constant release schedule and the rising cost of video games in general makes it so people probably have much less money to spend on video games period? Yeah, uh... no. But like I said at the very beginning of this, all I wanted to do was get something off of my chest. Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry that this isn't my usual kind of material.
Let's say you and any number of co-workers are currently working relatively high-end positions within your company. Like any company, your goal is to make a financial profit to satisfy your customers, shareholders, et cetera. But here's the catch- your company is historically extremely successful, so much so that your brand awareness is recognized by individuals around the entire world. With such a financially relevant company that needs a constant flow of revenue coming in from your product sales, it's not hard for you as a high-end worker to see why lower sales figures than what you're used could have serious repercussions down the road. What is the best way to increase your sales? Making quality products that consumers are actually going to want to purchase, of course. There's obviously a lot more to this, of course- advertising, the role of your consumer base, and so much more- but by and large, the idea that people paying for the most efficient, effective, and affordable services in your field will increase your sales figures seems perfectly reasonable, right? ...right? Because here's the thing- it's not.
Going over to Pokémon as an example, I'm sure we've all heard our fair share of hatred toward the newer main series installments. Over the past year and a half, responses to Pokémon Scarlet & Violet have been all over the place, being cited by many reputable sources as the worst games in the main series- certainly something you want to avoid consumers and shareholders hearing about if you're Game Freak or The Pokémon Company, among others. So, I asked myself, why is it that a game that was seemingly loathed by the masses able to sell over 23 million copies so far at this point in time? Doesn't that number seem a little bit... high to you? Dare I say... suspiciously high?
I don't want to try and undermine some of the major, often historical success that many video games have had over the past... let's say 10 to 15 years. Games like Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto 5, four different Mario Kart games selling a combined 117 million, Call of Duty's massive success during the 2010s, I can understand why games like this would have the numbers they do, especially when you consider that these are across multiple consoles and handhelds. But let's take a look at some of those I.Ps. for a second. Vanilla Minecraft has been playable on... I believe eleven different platforms in total and came out over a decade ago, so of course a game with as much creative liberty and influence on the industry is going to be the best-selling game ever made. The Mario Kart series has consistently been Nintendo's single best-selling games on every Nintendo platform going as far back as the Wii installment (no, Wii Sports doesn't count, we're talking standalone purchases, not console bundles) and has an extremely well-known multimedia franchise in its own right to pull from. to the point where Mario Kart had become the quintessential series in its genre. The amount of success Activision has had with Call of Duty during the 2010s was simply ridiculous, never going more than one year at a time without the best-selling multi-platform release of the year from 2009 all the way to 2019 on top of the microtransaction revenue from the Battle Royales and the mobile game.
Compared to financial juggernauts like these, I hesitate to believe that, even with the millions of Pokémon fans who can and will buy anything with a Pikachu slapped onto it, games like Sword & Shield and especially Scarlet & Violet are actually as successful as the sales numbers would have you believe. Die-hard sports fans may recall the use of the word "dynasty" popping up in discussions every now and then, and I wouldn't be so critical if Pokémon didn't also previously have a quote-on-quote "sales dynasty" of its own, spanning from 1996 to 2004. More specifically, the original Gen 1, Gen 2, and Gen 3 games were all the best-selling games on their respective Game Boy series generations when all versions are considered, to say nothing of the dominance that the anime and the merchandise had at the time. The natural counter-argument to this is that there's a lot more people that know about Pokémon nowadays than when it was still much more new. The new generations of fans having access to the Internet for easier communication and better advertisement may also explain why newer games could match the audience size of Pokémon in its heyday.
For the purpose of not making this post quite literally too long to send, I'll wrap things up here and we can continue with discussions if you so please. Long story short, I think it's very possible that major companies may be secretly inflating their sales and revenue figures for the purposes of making their I.Ps look better. I've been using video games as my examples and references here, but that's simply because it's the market I feel like I know the most about compared to, say, TV and movies, books, et cetera. Does this all just sound like some blown out-of proportion conspiracy theory? Absolutely. But consider, just for a moment, just how much one million is. You (the people publishing the numbers) honestly expect me to believe that arguably the least popular Pokémon game for a rapidly aging fanbase sold over 23 million copies in a time full of older fans being upset with the developers, economic recessions all around the world, and when the people who played Pokémon games in the late '90s and early 2000s supported the franchise more than people do nowadays to begin with? And you consider the fact that Pokémon's constant release schedule and the rising cost of video games in general makes it so people probably have much less money to spend on video games period? Yeah, uh... no. But like I said at the very beginning of this, all I wanted to do was get something off of my chest. Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry that this isn't my usual kind of material.
(I don’t truly hate anyone like this, let me make that clear)
