Topic: Do you think at some point the Pokemon franchise will ever fizzle out and eventually end?

Now I'm not saying that pokemon is a fad that will fizzle out like how some people predicted that the internet, video games, and television would cease to be popular in their early days.

However, one day I was thinking about shows that have gone on for so long, the Simpsons, Family guy, One piece (yes I know that Oda as written the ending, meaning it'll end soon), e.t.c. At some point these shows must end....

Then I thought about pokemon.

Its been 30 years since its debut and while its still going strong, just like those shows, it'll have to end at some point. (right?)

Game Freak can't keep working on the franchise forever, even with new blood. Them and the pokemon company will eventually design every kind of (acceptable) pokemon that can be designed. At some point the games will need to change evolve into something that is unrecognizable from what the franchise started out as- maybe they'll need to take some notes from palworld in order to stay relevant and interesting. The trading card game has become the scalping card game as grown adults take out all the fun in collecting the physical cards (could lead to the franchise's downfall if scalping isn't properly prevented).

In my eyes, either the franchise will fizzle out and stop due to a lack of innovation/ quality in the games from fear of alienating long time fans. Or the franchise will fizzle out due to changing too much that it alienates long time fans-despite the series desperately needing it. Either situation seems likely...

Great question. Here's my most definitely biased take.

I absolutely love Pokémon. It's been my favorite media franchise ever since I was eight years old. It now has a competitor, but that's beside the point. So I most definitely want new amazing Pokémon stuff to come out consistently for the rest of my tenure on this planet. And honestly... I think that it's possible. Every single new generation, they always manage to surprise me with some of the new Pokémon designs. There are always at least a few that I like, or even love. So they're most certainly not running out of ideas there. And aside from occasional references to previous games here and there, you can basically jump into the series from anywhere, or even take a break from it for a while and come back in the future after skipping several Gens if you desire. Just the nature of the franchise in general makes it a honestly pretty much the greatest candidate ever for lasting a long time with constant new content. It helps that it really is a popular and fan-loved franchise.

Also, if I recall correctly, the Producer of the franchise recently said in an interview or something that he believes the franchise can easily keep going for over a hundred years. Which... if Pokémon Gens really are going to be 5 years apart now... sad whimper noises... that's a lot more easier than it would have been if they continued 3-year Gens.

The only two responses I have are the contradictory "we'll all die one day" and "Pokemon will survive with the cockroaches"

I feel like no. Pokemon while imo is bloated, is strategic. They separate out new monsters with generations allowing whatever batch of 10 year olds on deck the ability to jump in without being overwhelmed. They still give access to older gens via living dexs and remakes so older gens don’t drop off. They sidecar media, merchandise and events to trigger early and then long term engagement. The general premise is basic enough that you can retell the “origin story” of kid protag (or satoshi/ash until his retirement) without it feeling like a retread or requiring esoteric knowledge that today’s batch of kids might not have been alive for.

I haven’t seen the anime (barring some modern shorts) since the 90’s and can’t name a pokemon past gen 2 (I’m a gen 1 and thus basically only know my team from gold) yet I still feel connected to pokemon and see enough pokemon i do recognize to feel relevant. That timelessness means that TPC succeeded in making the IP cultural rather than just a franchise.

Many franchises are bad at this and splinter into camps. TMNT imo is a fine culprit of this. They restart every few years and change enough that fans can be independent of each other. They still get attention but the question becomes “which TMNT is this” rather than “oh look Pokémon”. One requires more focused marketing, the other benefits from it but doesn’t need it to sell.

I think the gameplay and themes of pokemon would have to become unpopular before the franchise tanks. It doesn’t really need the games anymore at this point to stay relevant.

The devs need therapy though. The pokedex has been subtly traumatizing kids for decades now.

On the one hand, will there even be video games in 100 years. On the other hand, Pokemon is definitely not going away anytime soon.

One could just as easily ask if Mario is going away... and the likely answer is not until Nintendo goes bankrupt and even then someone else might buy the IP and make crappy mario mobile games for decades after.

I hope not because honestly palworld is very antithetical to pokemon stuff to me. The gun and survival stuff is just like... no Pokopia honestly, the many spin offs show that they do want to continue innovating (and ngl, Pokemon Legend games also show it as well) (I will say that I honestly DO LIKE one palworld mon, but the rest is just... not as good). Anyways, I hope Pokemon will keep making spin offs.

On this part, I present you:

They have attempted REALLY hard to really combat scalpers by printing more, and it's still... just not enough. Like, pokemon TCG first release at 1996. It's 30 years by now, and yet they printed 11% cards just last year. That's MASSIVE increase.

Tbh, that's why as above, they developed and make legends games and spin off games and doing merchs and events and everything. But at its core I think Pokemon also keep working for the main game though, with constantly new regions, new characters and stuff

Pretty much this. Will Pokemon one day end? Sure, probably, in the sense that literally everything eventually ends. . . but based on current evidence, I see no reason to expect Pokemon to end anytime in the foreseeable future for anything other than extreme outside context issues. Its sufficiently popular that any ordinary decline in popularity would have an absurd amount of inertia to fight against, and would grant decades of danger forewarning. Just the fact that it is already ridiculously profitable, gives it a massive ability to maintain its profitability- them that has, gets.

I reject the idea that Pokemon is running out of ideas, especially with the Legends subseries making massive changes to series conventions.

While all things do come to an end eventually, I think Pokemon has a pretty solid chance of lasting for perhaps even as long as the hobby does (which unfortunately may not last very long if cheaper "entry-level" console options aren't available to induct a new generation of gamers), since the core concept of Pokemon of just going on an adventure with magical pets has something of a timeless appeal.

I wouldn't be surprised if Pokemon outlives us all, but it's an interesting question: whether long-running game franchises will ever end. I think video games have more of an expectation of endless sequels than any other narrative media. If you look at films for example, Toy Story is one of the most popular and consistently acclaimed franchises out there, but it's only had 5 films in 31 years and some people think that's too many. Whereas with games, even a relatively niche franchise like Metroid has a double-digit number of instalments even if you exclude remakes and spin-offs.

That's despite games being arguably the most time-consuming medium to experience as well as the most replayable. If there was never a new Pokemon game again, a lot of us (myself included) would be pretty sad, but there's already SO many Pokemon games and so many things to do in them! There's something to be said for things just ending and the creators moving onto a new idea while their existing releases are still looked back on and enjoyed, which is what normally happens in almost all other media (outside of, like, Marvel). But as others here have said, Pokemon has a timeless premise with a huge range of possibilities for gameplay ideas and creature designs, so as long as the devs still have ideas and the fans still want new games, there's no real reason to stop. And also money.

No. The 4th film was called Pokemon 4Ever for a reason! 😁

I feel like your Toy Story example is more comparable to a series like Octopath — there will be a trickle of games and eventually people will say enough is enough, maybe with an eventual reboot but not for forever. Although maybe I am wrong and Toy Story will drag on forever.

Regardless of media type, the very biggest entertainment franchises are just hard to imagine going away anytime soon.

Besides Pokemon, let's think of some other almost as large media franchises - batman, disney princess movies, Barbie. Those have so far lasted 87 years, 89 years, 67 years respectively and although none of them are currently at their peak popularity, there is no sense that any of those franchises are going away anytime soon. The fact that Pokemon is 'only' 30 years old makes it feel not quite as immortal as those older huge media/entertainment franchises, but I suspect it will get there.

I think what is needed to truly get to the 'will this franchise ever die' state is massive consistent popularity over a long enough period of time to have nostalgia from basically every living generation of humans combined with a lot of different types of media so that the franchise is flexible enough to react to different trends and technology (video games, movies, comics, toys, plushies, physical games/cards, tv shows, collectibles, mobile apps, etc). Pokemon has done very well in the diversity category but just needs to remain super popular for a few more decades to reach a larger percentage of age groups.... gotta get that granny nostalgia.

@FishyS My point was more that with video games it's common and expected for an ongoing series of games to keep getting sequels indefinitely, more so than most other media. There are multimedia franchises that have been releasing various types of media for a long time, but even within those it's relatively rare for a single series of books or films to churn out new instalments at the same rate as many game series do - or if they do then it's often seen as cheap kids' stuff, like straight-to-DVD Barbie movies or those children's book series with 80 different books. Whereas there are plenty of game series that have been getting consistent big-budget releases for decades, so I just think it's interesting how the standards are different. Admittedly Pokemon isn't the best example of this as it's been a multimedia franchise from the start and also churns out movies and anime at quite a rate (and some might uncharitably say the games fall into the 'cheap kids stuff' category!)

I guess not.

Movie series, even the longest ones, die eventually.
Doesn't seem to happen with most of the more successful game series.