"Pokémon" earned its popularity in the late '90s because of the game's multimedia content tactic, which focuses on the collection and paper-rock-scissors game mechanics. More specifically, The Pokémon Company and Nintendo understand how important for every child to feel that they can fully understand a complicated system, which they can talk about and even argue with their friends.
When "Pokémon" was launched in 1996, it earned nearly $45 billion in profit from the sales of merchandise, feature-length movies and the games. Here are four reasons why the pocket monsters remain relevant to a great number of people 20 years after:
1. "Pokémon" was among the biggest launches, especially in the United States at the time of their debut. The Pokémon Company's entrance to the market with its huge multimedia strategy became a reminder of the popular sci-fi movie "Star-Wars." Like the block buster movie, it made fandom into a large business.
2. Although the strategy made the game popular, the TV show, the cards and the game remain to have a very large audience until now. This is due to the fact that the game series appears to know something about humans.
While it offers some initial appeal, it gets the last attraction by providing an obscure set of rules that is also simple at the same time. Through the years, children understood the game scheme, while the parents find too puzzling.
3. In "Pokémon" games, the collecting and combatting are the things that define the series. This aspect, in fact, has been made unchanged by Nintendo for the last two decades. The player will learn immediately in every game that the fire defeats grass, grass defeats water and water defeats fire.
4. The concept has made it very easy for people to recognize. Thus, making the players feel confident of going from stages of simple knowledge to the mastery of skills of the more difficult systems. The "Pokémon" game series is here to stay because Nintendo has created a formula that is appealing to all generations, Give it Thought reported. The game is doing a lot of smart things, which make the people behind the series understand the reason why it has a large number followers.
"Pokémon" will be keeping its direction towards the future, given its history and powerful foundation, Venture Beat reported.
Watch why "Pokémon" is here to stay: