Pokémon is a great success because it is cooperative

When Pokémon launched 25 years ago, it did it twice simultaneously.

Pokémon Red and Green (done later Blue for their western release) are almost identical, but each has some unique monsters. The Growlithe fire puppy is only available in Red, for example, while those looking for a Venus trap, like Bellsprout, will need to catch Green. Players can also trade with a friend who has the opposite version. What started as a reasonably cheap trick to encourage invested fans to buy the game twice or to pressure their friends to buy it, has since become the cornerstone of everything Pokémon franchise: intended to be shared.

Along with the exchange, players can also fight battles between the Pokémon they captured and trained in their games. These two features transformed single-player RPGs in ways that would be constantly iterated as core games received sequence after sequence. But even before the launch of the second set, Pokémon Gold and Silver, spinoffs were increasingly focused on multiplayer aspects. For example, Pokémon Stadium, launched just two years later Red and Green, brought the battles to the foreground. This allowed players to “rent” pokémon from a game library, allowing friends to fight against friends without having to first capture and train them alone.

Stadium also added a handful of competitive mini-games. Where fighting and trading required some understanding of the core mechanics of the franchise, they applied cute and easily recognizable pokémon as a decorative skin for familiar concepts. Players may have to race with Rattata through obstacle courses or play quoit with Ekans, for example. Released the same year as Mario Party, Nintendo was beginning to marry its existing properties with something affordable and family-oriented, opening them up to a much wider audience.

Along with this expansion into the casual game came other forms of media and, in a short time, the franchise was gaining space in an entire generation. The children reenacted the anime on the playground, reinforcing their themes of friendship and teamwork (and rivalry). Collectible card games were necessarily communal, albeit in a way that banned them from several schools. Spinoff games continued to cross genres, bringing different types of fans, from match-3 Pokémon Puzzle League launched in 2000 until the next MOBA Pokémon Unite. A positive feedback loop had started. Pokémon it was meant to be shared – and increasingly, everyone was someone you could share it with.

Photo by Dani Deahl / The Verge

No matter how much it has become a global phenomenon, the sale of double copies of the core games has remained a habit that Nintendo has refused to give up. But while this may have started out as a relatively transparent cash capture, as technology improved, it became less important to buy both games or recruit a friend to get the opposite version. (That said, all the friendship groups I participated in when a new set was announced had careful discussions about who would receive it; it is ingrained behavior.) On the 10th anniversary of the franchise, purely online trading was possible. Diamond and Pearl introduced the Global Trade Station, which allowed players to browse, search and offer exchanges with strangers from around the world. They can also participate in battles, mini-games and voice chat.

And although initially motivated by the desire for profit, Red and Green had foreseen (or perhaps expected) this kind of easy and free exchange. In the universe, it was always possible to upload your pokémon to a PC and, from there, send them all over the world. Non-playable characters encourage commerce as a cooperative and collaborative act. And as technology has improved, Nintendo has followed suit, making it increasingly easy to complete pokédex or at least get the companions you like best. (Although your online efforts have not always gone smoothly, and since 2018, a paid Nintendo Switch Online subscription is also required.)

Even after easy online commerce was established, Nintendo continued to play with the formula. Pokémon X and Y brought in Wonder Trade, allowing players to upload a random Pokémon and receive another one in return. Of course, many businesses are bargains from Pidgey and Bidoof, but there are always stories of exceptional generosity, with legendary pokémon, battle monsters with perfect stats and specially colored sparkles, all going to an unsuspecting recipient. Community-coordinated events also saw seasoned players launching waves of pokémon holding expensive items on Christmas Day to surprise children who were playing for the first time. The most recent entries, Sword and Shield, introduced the Max Raid Pokémon, giant monsters that required cooperation with others to take down and camp sites that friends could visit for fun.

And where the resources of Wonder Trade and Max Raid have leaned towards collaboration encouraged since the early days of the franchise, Pokémon Go sold it as a central concept. Its original ad trailer showed families playing together, solo players meeting to exchange and huge group battles. Many of these features weren’t even in the game’s initial release or were so basic that they didn’t exist – but it didn’t matter. The reviews consistently agreed: the game was not objectively especially good, but everyone was having a great time. Mechanics turned out to be unnecessary for creating an amazing social experience. Before the pandemic, face-to-face festivals saw tens or even hundreds of thousands of players flocking to fish and trade.

Over time, it became clear that it was not simply because Pokémon it was a phenomenon among an entire generation. THE Harry Potter games Unite Wizards, launched three years later by the same developers, had the same, if not more, cultural weight. But it never took off. According to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, in 2019, it raised just $ 23 million, compared to Pokémon Goalmost $ 900 million in the same year. In fact, this was an increase over Pokémon Golaunch in 2016, indicating its longevity.

The main thing that Pokémon have it Harry Potter it’s not two and a half decades of community building. Harry Potter certainly has a fandom, a group of the most dedicated enthusiasts, but the book and film formats are solo activities. To get involved with Pokémon is to share. Negotiation imposed by Red and Green for family mini-games from Stadium for exchanging with strangers via Wonder Trade, it has consistently encouraged cooperation and unity.

Twenty-five years later, it is still what makes it a phenomenon.