Pokémon, Individuality, and Sociality

I’ve been thinking about what makes the Pokemon games so successful. Pretty much everyone agrees that the capture/battle loop is addictive. The designs of the creatures themselves are diverse and appealing. One additional factor I’d like to discuss is how the Pokemon games handle the theme of individuality and communality.

The Pokemon games are excellent vehicles for individuality. Every run you have through a game is unique. No two people have the exact same team of Pokemon. The team you build reveals something about your priorities. Do you use a lot of status moves? Do you go for hard-hitting moves? Do you keep Pokemon around from the start of your journey, or do you add new members to the team as the game progresses? Would you keep a Pokemon you love on the team even if it’s not the strongest? Every team you build has a story surrounding it.

You may argue all games are like this, and to a certain extent it’s true. Pokemon takes it to another level by giving you more options than other games. Instead of selecting from 6 to 20 team members, you have hundreds of possible team members to build. Each team member can learn dozens of different moves. Each one you capture has its own nature and stats. And as you train them, the EV spread they develop reflects the history of the battles they’ve played. The degree of individualization that Pokemon lets you have in team-building is beyond what most RPGs offer, but it doesn’t overwhelm the player, either.

Curiously, the games discourage treating Pokemon as tools to mini-max. Karen from the Johto Elite Four famously said, “Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites.” Silver, the rival of gen 2, scolds his Pokemon for being weak. Early in the game, at Sprout Tower, he scoffs, “I only care about strong Pokémon that can win. I really couldn't care less about weak Pokémon.” The games disagree with his framing, with pretty much every NPC that encounters him telling him his approach to training Pokemon as wrong. Now obviously, the Pokemon games don’t want you to NOT win. But I do think they want to discourage people from using only the most powerful Pokemon with the most tested moves. Instead, the message the games gives, over and over again, is that you should try a variety of Pokemon, even ones that don’t look strong. They want to encourage individuality among trainers, instead of having players converge on the same team and strategies over time. I would argue they’ve succeeded, at least in the core series. Outside of competitive gaming and speedrunning, you can see a thousand flowers of strategy blooming when you ask players how they beat the game.

The games don’t want you to be an individual with no connection to anyone. The games are very social. You are highly encouraged to trade, battle, and explore with friends. The famous prohibition on changing a traded Pokemon’s name may be annoying, but it’s a way to respect the original trainer’s choice about that Pokemon. The Pokemon games very much want you to play in community. The very design of needing two versions of the same game is meant to encourage you to find someone who has the opposite one and come to an agreement to get the Pokemon you’re missing! Sure, you can buy both copies yourself, but the intention is for you to go out into the world and find another human being. This social connection is preserved by the game itself. When looking through my old Pokemon boxes, back when I could find other people who played the games around me, I sometimes see old trainer ids. Remnants of individuals who crossed my path at some point and shared something with me. And if they haven’t erased their games, then they must also carry something from me in their games, too.

Think about Pokemon Go. When the game came out, not only did individuals hit the streets, but friend groups coordinated to come together in real life and find Pokemon together. I recall going to university campus with a friend group who told me that a local fountain had a good spawn rate for rare Pokemon. I looked around and saw other groups on their phones, and I realized they, too, had come here to hunt the same Pokemon we were looking for. Things like the teams and the gyms and raids also encourage you to see yourself as part of some greater project, even if you yourself cannot see the other people who are part of the team. Pokemon Go, in my opinion, is at its most fun when you can do it as part of a group. This may sound obvious - “game designed to encourage multiplayer play more fun when played with people!” - but I view it as distinct from the sort of play that games like Overwatch encourage. It’s not necessarily about getting together to train and fight strangers. You’re able to play the game by yourself if your friends aren’t there, and you can play together when they are, and mutual discovery is as much part of the fun as knocking an opposing team’s Pokemon out of the gym.

The Pokemon games say, “you are an individual, but not an alienated one. You are part of a group, but you are not consumed by it. Your uniqueness belongs in the group as it is.” This ability to find community, at different levels of knowledge and skill, and to be able to show off what you’ve built, is at the heart of Pokemon. Pokemania in school yards involved finding the other kids who were into Pokemon and seeing what cards they had you didn’t have, proudly showing off what you had, and building social links. To contrast, I loved the Sonic games, but I don’t think they were very social. You can come together and talk to friends about it - I sure do! - but the games aren’t build to encourage this sort of show-and-tell experience with the games. If you look at someone else’s Sonic Heroes file, you can’t learn much about them except what levels they have completed. The Pokemon games are opportunities for storytelling. Whether it’s the naturalist’s joy in grinding for a rare Pokemon, or the athlete’s glory in bringing their team to victory, you have narrative frameworks built in.

As the games move through time, we also get the opportunity to hear and share stories across generations. It is incredible that you can share these stories from an age range across 30 years. The fans who grew up with Pokemania are now in their 30s and older. But they can still talk to a new fan who is 7 years old with the same questions that would have been asked prior: who’s your favorite, and what adventures did you go on with them?

In short, the Pokemon games manage to resolve a recurring tension humans face: being an individual, and being part of a group. Pokemon allows you to express yourself, your priorities and your values, while also allowing you to see yourself as part of a community and an evolving story. This dual nature lets Pokemon go beyond being just a diversion to being a cultural phenomenon.