>>57360429>Pokemon only got popular overseas thanks to its marketing and extreme focus on the anime, TCG and toys. The games were a purely secondary affair that only the would-be "nerds" of the school ecology would get into for a prolonged period.This. Exactly fucking this right here.
If you were to ask an American kid in school right now if they liked Pokémon, and they said yes, 65% of the time they're either talking about the TGC, or the Anime. Very few children in the west actually play the games. The twerps who do play the games are either Japanese (sometimes European) or REALLY into the franchise.
I knew kids that "liked" Pokémon, but never once touched any of the mainline entries. The only dude I knew that played the games was an anti social loner.
There's a reason why Pokémon is the biggest MEDIA franchise in the world, but not actually the biggest game serise. Outside of Japan, Pokémon is carried by short lived fads, and external content.
One other thing I want to point out; many western fans talk about the 2000s era of the serise being financially unsuccessful all around, even though that really only matterd in the west. The Japanese market never had issues with Pokémon falling out of fashion (at least, not in the same way/as dramatically).
