Pokémon, a financial success for 25 years – News, Sports, Gossip, Columns

Pokémon turns 25 and has become one of the most important entertainment franchises on the planet.

What started as a portable video game is now a brand that still sells collectible cards, fills movie theaters, and even teaches children to brush their teeth using smartphones.

The secret of these characters has been the ability to evolve to keep the public that grew up with the Pokémon something to entertain themselves as adults, such as offering content for boys and girls alike.

FROM JAPAN TO THE WORLD

The word Pokémon comes from Poketto MonsutāThe poketmonsters (pocket Monsters). His first video game was released on February 27, 1996, almost on a par with the tamagotchi, an egg-shaped miniconsole that was only used for that video game.

The first game was actually two, that’s why two versions went on sale, Pokémon Red Version Y Pokémon Blue Version.

The dynamic was simple, the player handled a character from a place called Pallet Town who left his home to travel the world with a pokémon. Throughout the journey he trained his poketmonsters and collected others to also train them to have confrontations with other players.

The novelty of the game was that thanks to the GameBoy (which had the exclusive of the game) two players could interact.

In addition, that there were two editions was not a coincidence, but it was a strategy to enhance the experience since the 150 original Pokémon were divided into the red and blue versions, which allowed that the confrontations were not necessarily between the same character.

In Japan, the video game was a success, which allowed it to be exported to the West in a couple of years (it must be remembered that at that time the internet was in its infancy, so these types of products took time to cross the Pacific).

As pocket monsters seek their place among western audiences, the anime Pokémon airs in Japan in April 1997.

In the television program the rules of the game are retaken to create a series focused on children, which allows two things: to increase the taste of those who already played it and to bring closer those who did not have GameBoy.

EVOLUTION

One of the most precious qualities of any Pokémon Master is to achieve the evolution of his pocket monster.

This is precisely what has kept the franchise alive for a quarter of a century.

As already mentioned, it emerged alongside tamagotchi, but already in the XXI century the differences are enormous.

Taking advantage of the fact that Pokémon is one of its exclusive brands, Nintendo has kept the Red and Green editions current on its consoles, while adding the Yellow and Blue editions. This he achieved by editing them for consoles like the N64, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and now on Switch. In total, they have sold around 47.5 million copies, placing it in the top 10 of the best-selling video games in history.

Another evolution of the franchise is that they managed to replicate their gameplay in other arenas, mainly in card games.

Despite being a segment perhaps more closed than video games themselves, their strategy playing cards broadened not only the captive audience, but also word of mouth made the audience that did not know them grow.

That is one of the great successes of pocket monsters, having crossed the barrier of consoles to other media in order to win the hearts of millions throughout the planet.

Not everyone likes video games, but perhaps they do like cartoons or card games, and even, if you look closely, their designs are far from being monstrous as the name implies; actually most of them are adorable.

The clearest example is Pikachu. The protagonist of the television series with the young AshKetchum, the yellow rat with the power to launch electric shocks is so attractive for women, children and more than one adult man to buy merchandise, from a simple shirt to soft toys to give to girlfriends.

That is the best evolution that Pokémon has had in those years, going from a few pixels on a console, to products that anyone can buy.

YES SELL

Pokemón is not the only franchise, but it is the one that sells the most. According to an analysis by the American financial company Title Max, up to 2020 it had sold 92 thousand 121 million dollars.

To have a reference, Star Wars, the saga that in many ways has broken it, has only sold 65 billion dollars to place itself in the fifth place in history.

“Pokémon was created in 1996, which means it has made an average of nearly $ 4 billion a year,” wrote CarlyHallman, Marketing Director of Title Max in the article “The 25 Top-Earning Media Franchises of All time”.

Most of these sales ($ 61 billion) are for merchandise such as hats, T-shirts, dolls, notebooks, etc., but also for other inputs such as video games.

Returning to its origin, in 2016 PokémonGo was launched, the mobile game where the user could enjoy augmented reality this by hunting pokémon in real life with their smartphone.

The result was that more than 130 million people downloaded the app, one that until before the pandemic maintained its popularity by registering income to The Pokémon Company for three billion dollars in 2019.

Although the pandemic affected these entries (people could no longer go out hunting pokémon without the risk of contracting Covid-19), they managed to continue selling apps. One of the most popular was one that these pocket monsters teach children to brush their teeth.

To complement this, audiovisual media continues to be an important source of income. Besides the TV series, there are 23 movies, the most famous Detective Pikachu.

Starring Ryan Reynolds (voiced by Pikachu), Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton, the Warner Bros.-distributed production earned $ 431 million at the box office, making it the second highest grossing video game-inspired film before the pandemic. I know they had plans for the sequel.

That is a small sample of how Pokémon, about to turn 25, has been and will continue to be a success not only with its fans, but also economically.

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