Pokemon UNITE!

[Vinnie]

So this is what we've got from the 9:00 EST Premier on 6/24/2020. Pokemon Unite, in other words a Pokemon MOBA(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena). 

 

I might edit a write up in here later about how the gameplay actually functions, but for now the big details are that Tencent the company that owns Riot Games the creator of the MOBA League of Legends is involved. The gaming studio provided by Tencent for the production of Pokemon Unity isn't Riot however, but one called TiMi Studios. The game is to be released on the switch as well as on mobile with cross functioning between both.

 

Here's some other information that I've dug up that wasn't mentioned in the videos below.

 

 

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Last year(2019) it was announced in July that TPC and Tencent were collaborating on a game together(with Tencent's TiMi Studios being the ones behind development). TiMi Studios was likely chosen for this project due to their experience with creating mobile games(and going back into 2016 mobile x switch games such as Arena of Valor). 

 

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The primary reasoning that this was made a completely separate announcement from the announcements made last week is likely due to the fact that some of the games that were a part of last weeks announcements are banned in China. Seeing as how TiMi Studios is Chinese(not to mention Tencent, the company of which they are a subsidiary of is also Chinese) and the fact that this is a MOBA game, which tend to be extremely popular, it makes sense that this announcement would be separated from the rest in order for it to be allowed in China.

 

Apparently a big benefit from having Tencent as an ally of sorts is achieving a degree of control within China itself. There are a lot of Chinese "bootleg" Pokemon games, as well as anything that's infringing on Pokemon's intellectual property that's utilizing servers hosted in China. [Take this with a grain of salt, this is a personal experience and I may not remember things correctly. For example, many, many years ago I played a Pokemon "MMO" called Pokemon World Online. It had been taken offline due intellectual property reasons, but it began using servers within China to stay online, and this protected it.]

 

Reference: https://old.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/hf6p56/many_people_seem_to_think_pokemon_unite_was/

 

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A bit about Tencent and why we shouldn't support Tencent or organizations involved with Tencent(Provided by @Zro567)-

TLDR for this image; Tencent is a large conglomerate with considerable influence over numerous companies and organizations(owning large shares with them). Tencent is responsible for large amounts of censorship within China, and is pro-CCP. 

 

 

 

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Thoughts on the first Pokemon MOBA? [Legit can't think with the commotion in the discord, figured a topic would make it cleaner.]

 

The Premier

 

 

The Advertisement Video

 

 

 

I'll drop my own personal thoughts down here in a spoiler just so others can have their own thoughts in peace without any influences.

Spoiler

 

It's got the Pokemon label on it. It's going to do well to a certain degree. TPC is obviously out there to make money, Tencent is obviously out there to make money. You can't blame them for that. 

 

What you can blame them for is whether or not this will be fun(I enjoyed League until S5 and I'm not going to deny this a chance due to bias), I don't think this is a fit for the Pokemon community. MOBAs are toxic. Toxic beyond anything of what you might encounter on Pokemon Showdown. This is going to sound hypocritical considering I'm posting this on forums dedicated to a Pokemon fan game that deals with topics that are a bit too mature for the main line games, but I don't think this is a good mix. Between the already toxic AND more experienced MOBA players from other communities potentially jumping into this game and simply the amount of toxicity that MOBAs tend to promote, I don't think this is going to be healthy at all for most casual Pokemon fans. TPC sold its community out for this.

 

I don't know if they even thought about the implications of this. Maybe they're just looking for the next "Pokemon GO" and they're throwing everything they can come up with at a wall until something sticks. You can blame them for this, wholeheartedly. In some ways, I get the feeling TPC is forgetting what attracts us to various Pokemon games, and what makes them do well. It isn't just the characters. It's the content of the games itself of which the characters are only a tiny portion of. 

 

TPC could also be wanting to break into the MOBA industry hard with this. Maybe they want to get into esports. If this is the case, then it makes me ask the question, are the events we hold for the training card game, VGC, and Pokken not enough for them?

 

This is what I can say without bias. Obviously adding bias in I'm just extremely upset at the moment because this just wasn't what I was expecting. I wasn't really part of the crowd hoping for Let's Go Johto or Sinnoh Remakes. I saw the premier length, I knew this had to be big, and it had to be something else. I just wasn't ready for this reveal. 

 

Edit:

After learning a bit more about Tencent, I'm not sure if this is something I want to support. I also glanced back at the previous lengths of premiers for remakes or Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee and I can see why people had thoughts that yes, maybe this was something along those lines, even if it didn't feel like the right time for that kind of announcement.

 

 

[Commander]

My thoughts in a nutshell:

 

 

Really was a stupid idea to make an 11 minute video out of just that. 

[Gastronely]

Pokemon Unite? Oh! You must be talking about the new DLC of League of Legends!

 

Here, an accurate representation of my reaction to the direct:

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by Gastronely

[Gentleman Jaggi]

 

I don't even know where to start trying to understand TPC's plan here.

Most likely noone would've batted an eye at this thing if they'd just dropped it in the other stream last week; it just would've gotten drowned out by DLC, New Snap and jokes about Smile.

Instead however they made a big announcement about another new porject and made people wait a week just to slap this out. MOBAs tend to be hate-it-or-love-it for online communities so they really set themselves up for a mess.

[CURIE]

Pokemon Go was the worst thing to happen to the franchise.  The actual main games are getting lazier and lazier while Nintendo instead puts all its efforts into pumping out mobile spinoff after mobile spinoff in a doomed effort to recapture the viral success of Go (whose success ironically was short-lived because of terrible mismanagement.  Good job.).  Even the Mystery Dungeon remake was low effort.

 

At least Snap 2 might be good.  Maybe.  We'll see.

[Zro567]

>>>>>>tencent

It's trash.

[Vinnie]

Threw in a bit more information in the OP. 

[Des Teto]

I don't know. A pokemon game that's not turn-based seems a good deal to me. But I hope it will get better graphics-wise because it looks like a mobile game to me. I don't know whether they showed the Switch version or not. There will be a Switch version, right?

 

I've grown tired of the main games when I feel like playing the same easy game over and over since Gen 1. I dropped Sw/Sh before the end because it got so boring. So seeing Pokemons in new types of games could be worth it. Wait and see then.

[MhicKy]

Inb4 "SYKA BLYAT!!"

What are you guys thoughts on this.. Thing.. Developed by Tencent, I ain't touching anything that company does unless I have 7 VPNs activated but it sounds and looks.. Weird.. Pokemon isn't a game I can see becoming a MOBA.. I felt awkward all the way while watching the trailer and couldn't stop thinking "Oh god, what is GameFreak doing?", it's just a generic-ass MOBA with Pokemon skins but other than the pokemons themselves and maybe the names of the moves it feels like some mod for League of Legends, for real..

I wonder what's next.. Maybe a Battle Royale? I mean we had Pokemon Street Fighter II Super Deluxe Edition featuring Dante from Devil May Cry, anything is possible at this point and the possibilities scares me..

TL/DR:

Spoiler

 

Edited June 26, 2020 by MhicKy