I would like to tell about the Pokemon phenomenon. One can think of
the target audience between ages of 10 and 14 playing funny looking handheld
games and trading card games. Is it real the picture and archetype of the
target customer group? To be honest - no. When I was younger, like 9 years old
(1998) Pokemon first appeared on Western and Polish television as well as
gameboy games and trading card games. They were great and at that moment I
found them very addictive. Many people aged between 9 and 16 at that time
became addicted to funny looking monsters and simple idea of collecting them
and trading them with other players ( this was the main intention of their
creators because of different versions with ‘exclusive’ obtainable creatures).
Nowadays they are in their late 20s or 30s and still they try to “Catch ‘em
all!” ( the motto of animated Pokemon series). I have to admit that the first
version was available only on the gameboy but over time developed 'Emulators'
for the systems by which started to play well on consoles, computers, and not
just on gameboys. How did it start?
In 1996 a Japanese company named Nintendo created an odd-looking game with
a simple idea: to collect monsters, train them, trade them via the transfer
cable with other players and to become best trainer. First two Pokémon games
were released in Japan : Pokémon Green and Pokémon Red. What is in one game
cannot be present in the other. This idea encouraged players to interact with
other people to trade monsters. At that time it was revolutionary, because
player battles, trades and society ( things outside the game ) became the most
important parts of a game.
Original covers of first games (Pocket Monsters Trainer)
Evolution-revolution
This series became very popular inside and outside Japan. Soon after
original release Nintendo created manga, anime and a trading card game.
‘Western’ release brought another three games : Blue, Red, Yellow (last one was
based loosely on animated series). These games are known as the first
generation. Nintendo made a few mechanism of unique pokemon not obtainable in
any way than attending events licensed by the Japanese company. After wireless
network became more popular Nintendo implemented battling and trading via
Wi-Fi.
Outside electronic game
Hasbro
(owner of Pokemon and many other TCG*) still organizes tournaments of Pokemon
Trading Card Game online and offline ( with real cards ). I used to attend them
in Warsaw at one of Warsaw stores which sold board games and various trading
card games and I saw many times people playing pokemon. They looked as though
they had been between 25 and 40 years old. I was a Pokemaniac. Still, I
sold my old Gameboy color many years ago along with a few games ( Pokemon games
as well). Now I pity my old handheld console which gave me so many positive
memories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOo6SAVI80
* Were you into Pokémon? Did you collect cards or other collectibles?
* Do you feel nostalgic about things you loved to do as a child?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOo6SAVI80
* Were you into Pokémon? Did you collect cards or other collectibles?
* Do you feel nostalgic about things you loved to do as a child?
Oh my god, OF COURSE I was into pokemon. With these wonderful things called tazos, everyone at school went absolutely crazy. The fun thing is, we never played with tazos - they were supposed to be used in battles, but we just collected them and made a giant exchange market on every school break. Guy who had this special tazo case to store them was our master, there were even some attempts to steal his greatest treasure - that shows the importance!
ReplyDeleteTV Show was great, too, but when it comes to games, no-one from my class had GameBoy back then. It was the must-be top-of-the-list on every Christmas wishlist, but the price scared our parents off.
Something that I remember from that times are groups of children playing caps collected from chips on every single break in primary school. Surprisingly I've never had any pokemon game on gameboy, even in case of tv show I saw less then half episodes.
ReplyDeleteAround one year ago I reminded myself about the game and downloaded it for emulator on PC. It was great way to survive boring subjects on university.
To all people interested - there are GameBoy (and GameBoy Advance, sNES etc.) emulators available on modern tablet devices for free. I've downloaded them on my Surface recently and it works well, but I think Android devices works as good when it comes to emulating (maybe a little bit slower). Not even mentioning emulators on portable consoles like PSP or Nintendo DS. Just in case you want to play old good Pokemon games on your modern gadgets : )
ReplyDeleteI wasn't into pokemon world. I don't bought as a child this strange creatures.
ReplyDeleteI think it was too much mainstream when i was young. Everybody watch tv serials and bought some cards with them. For me it wasn't interesting enough.
Nostalgic to things I do when I was young - ofcourse. Being a child we explore the world.
I think I do not have to say more in this topic :)
Pokémon on the cards, Pokémon for GameBoy, Pokémon on pieces of paper, Pokémon on caps, in addition shirts, hats, pants, cups, pajamas, bedclothes. Pokemons were everywhere.
ReplyDeleteIt was a real hit and every person in the school had their favorite creatures. What the community created around this movie. People were playing, exchanged, competed. Old, cool, good times :D.
In retrospect, I thinking why it was so fashionable? It was a movie about fighting monsters :P
I wasn't into pokemon, but my little brother was, and someone had to play with him and go to see the movies... and it was me, unfortunately... I really don't like them, and I don't understand why it's cool..... :/
ReplyDeleteI LOVE pokemon! now i have 23 and still playing! But i playd now on GBA fire red version, and i lost T_T i catch mewtwo and get to big four and didn't know what to do now... and i stuck there. didn't remember what to do next...
ReplyDeleteOne of my favourite game of it are crystal. There are of course charmander as starting pokemon, with evolution - chalizard are my favourite pokemon ever ;D
And not long ago i watch all 15 or something tv serial. That was something, there so much of them. But the newest series are in some ways worst than first one. Animaction are flaten, and new pokeman are sooo weird. EG. there are pokemon look likes garbage..;x and new legendary pokemon look's like mech. When first one are naturally, and have defenetly different climate. And of course, there are almost no story... Ash always are so weak at beggining. (his great and powerfull pikachu, one of strongest of his pokemon was defeted by some 6 year kid and his starting pokemon...). But i decide i must watch all of them, and i did it :D
I didn't really enjoy collect card, but i collect tazos. I have a lot of them. I think i still have they something in my house...
I remember in childhood, there was something like pokemon cards. I think I collect them, but I wasn't really into pokemons. I just did that, because it was very popular in that time. Generally collecting something was very popular, when I was 7-10 years old.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite was stickers! I remember, the one with the plush on it, was worth 4 normal stickers. It was a lot of fun, because kids have so many different kinds of it. Pokemon cards have some limits (I played only with the first series). And I never understand the card game. There were some magic and power. The only thing I was proud, when I obtained shining pokemon. I think, that card was better than normal ones.
I also saw a little bit of a pokemon world on a gameboy, but it doesn't really captivate me. I prefer to watched Dragon Ball or Sailor Moon :)
Hahahah I used to collect them when I was a child. But not for the game but the cards themselves. I thought that they were really nice and I liked to look at them and to arrange them in the notebook. Sometimes I used to exchange with some of my friends because they were into the Pokemon too. I also watched Pokemons on TV. I always wanted to know what will happen next. But when I've watched this show recently I thought it was so extremely stupid:P
ReplyDeleteAll in all I really enjoy talking about stuff I used to do/care about when I was little. Last week I went through my old notebooks. It was so rewarding. I will never through them away:D
Oh God… no, I was not into Pokemon and never had any game nor caps with it. I remember I have never understood why my peers were so crazy about them. I have not watched a full episode on TV neither. I watched some other Asian cartoons on Polonia 1 though, and frankly speaking I can’t determine what was wrong with Pokemon that I didn't like them. As I remember the cartoons I did watch was equally bizarre xD Regarding Pokemon phenomena, I think that those creatures must have appealed to children somehow… Maybe children like to collect things and compare them with theirs peers? And collecting caps from crisps was relatively easy...
ReplyDelete