So, some weeks ago when Pokemon X/Y was released there was a lot of talk about whether they're going to sell DLC for the game, with some of the makers of the game saying it would ruin the series' worldview.
But that got me thinking, could there be a way to sell us DLC without doing that? Here's how I imagine Pokemon DLC, done right.
The problem that the game makers saw was from a standpoint where it sounds like they figured they'd be forced to sell Pokemon, as in individual critters or packs of them, and that was it. And in doing so, there seems to be a fear that they'd robbing us of the Pokemon idea of "Gotta Catch'em All!" and replacing it with the capitalist ideal of "Gotta Buy'em All!"
But thats also where their DLC woes are easily solved: you simply don't do packs of critters and call it a day.
That's, quite honestly, the lazy approach that I'd expect from the likes of the EAs and Activisions of the world, not Nintendo. If they'd go that far, they mine as well have a season pass. There is much more you can do that people would jump on in an instant, and the roots of it starts with something they've already done.
When I came back to the series it was with the launch of Black/White. One of the biggest reasons for my return one was watching the news feeds and seeing that, for a while, folks have been able to go to a retailer (Usually Gamestop, sometimes Toys R' Us, in the US) and get a free, extra special, Pokemon. But something was a little different with Black/White, and it came in the form of the packed in, limited time, Pokemon named Victini.
You see, in order to get Victini you had to buy the game within a set period of time after launch day and connect the game to a wi-fi connection to receive the Liberty Pass. With the Liberty Pass, once you got to a certain town, you could board a ship that brings you to a previously closed off (as in not in the game unless you have the pass) area, called Liberty Garden (which is basically akin to Liberty Island in off of Manhattan), where you have to stop Team Plasma from trying to crack open the structure on the island, get into it's hollow base where the little bugger lives, and capture him. Doing so allows you to capture Victini and add him to your team.
It's a fun, if extremely short, little story, that doesn't take away from the game at all, but allows the player to see a place they would have never seen before and find a little more out about that region.
So here's my proposal: Do something like this with paid DLC Gamefreak/Nintendo.
Now, I know what some would say: Well that's no better then just straight selling people Pokemon. How is it any different?
Well, you take the general idea of Liberty Pass and Liberty Garden, you blow it up so that its it's own sub-region, and you take Victini out as a prize.
Sure, Pokemon will inhabit the new area, but it doesn't have to be new or special Pokemon. The new area can have items hidden in it, but they don't have to be particularly special items. What these areas would provide is new stomping grounds to allow for more catching and, more importantly, new, short, story opportunities. You let the prize be the new stories, NPCs and battles your about to face.
And while that seems to be a no brainer for the rest of the industry, that's what people want most from their Pokemon games for a long time; when there's no more trainers to fight, and all they're doing is building contraptions to search for shinys. They want more reasons to care that Team Rocket, Plasma or whoever is causing trouble.. Or just want them to cause some lasting trouble.. They want to experience new quests to help the world around them. Things that allow them to bond more with their Pokemon that goes beyond using them for toned down animal cruelty. And overall, experience new things that haven't been told in Pokemon's still rather vanilla landscape.
Hell, how great would it be to actually play out a story that coincides with the latest Pokemon movie release, where actions you take may somehow influence things in Ash's journey in the movie? DLC is a great place to do that (and it'd be perfect for promoting the DLC and the movie).
It's also a great place to get the feeling for what could happen with the next game, or beyond. You can test the waters for all kinds of content that could one day become normal in the series, like the mentioned new side quests, or different types of puzzles, or, because the game has finally made it into the 3D landscape, different types of technical things, like physics. Really, the sky is the limit, and people won't have to be forced to sit through an entire game, and worry too much that they hate their $40 full game purchase, if they don't want to.
Then all Nintendo/Gamefreak would need to do is keep a sharp eye on the feedback, and open up to having help with coaxing the series in a new directions, without having to give up anything in the core fundamentals of the games people love to keep coming back to.
But technically, how do you do that? I mean, do you limit the areas to a certain time in the story, or do you limit the Pokemon to a certain level?
My answer to that is: no. To both.
One of the joys of the Victini/Liberty Pass situation was that, yeah, sure, you can go there as soon as you can and catch your Victini, specially if your super excited about doing that new special thing. But you could also wait till you beat everyone else, be the best trainer in the land, and make up your own little story (which really shouldn't have to be done) about how you get the pass and go about "rescuing" Victini, and he(/she, can't remember its sex and don't want to plumb through Blubapedia to look) will love you till the end of time for it.
And that sentiment should carry over to whenever you buy your DLC: Want to go there now? Sure! Want to wait till The Elite 4 are defeated? Okay!
But if you go later on, and these areas have fixed level battles, there's always the chance that the Pokemon you've trained up will plow through all of the areas native Pokemon and trainers, shortening the base experience, cheapening your purchase. So to combat that, these DLCs should scale to the median of your current Pokemon team -scaling not only the difficulty of the Pokemon, but also the XP gained by fighting them- adjusting should you leave and come back with a different Pokemon. This which would be much easier for the game to do in the confines of a new, unconnected, map, rather then floating it through the current playable areas that are usually statically set. This will also allow the rival Pokemon to have a little bit of bite and allow them to retain some dignity, while not allowing it to get too difficult for players who wish to play the DLC early in the game.
As an alternative, there's another idea that could be kicked around that could also work, but there could be some issues that but up against the rest of the game and may ask the focus of the DLC to be played in the post game, rather then whenever you want: Making the DLC story take place in the already existing world.
Doing it like this would have it's upsides, even if it'd be a bit dull having to go back to places you probably spent hours in.
It would mean you wouldn't really have to mess with figuring out which Pokemon to put in the new area.. Or even building new areas at all.. Unless the event of the DLC changes the landscape somehow to reflect somethings happened, like, I don't know, a bunch of ghost Pokemon have invaded, causing the landscape to wither, and you need to solve the mystery why this happened. The overall upside would be the need for less development beyond piecing together the story, possible NPCs and event triggers.
And, no matter which route is taken with this, X/Y seem to be a great place to start this, especially with the inclusion of support characters that actually follow you around though the game, that your supposed to care about.
Not having first hand experience with X/Y yet (Christmas is coming...), I've read a lot of talk about how these characters don't really do much for the game other then act as your rivals, and since they don't really choose to talk about Pokemon, but other things that you usually don't think about in a Pokemon game, that they felt hollow, almost unnecessary, inclusions. Having those characters grow, or get captured, or.. Something.. That fuels the need to go to a new place, would really make a case for those characters being a palatable evil, even if it comes at the hands of a devil we've become all too close with, like DLC.
But, all of this goes with saying that they weren't okay with selling Pokemon as character packs, but they're totally okay with selling you Pokedex apps and a yearly fee for what amounts to Pokemom cloud storage. They're also okay with making people buy a game with the promise that they can get a Pokemon for only a limited time after, forcing people into a decision to spend money now or later -which is basically akin to day 1 DLC. They also have the Skylanders-like Pokemon Rumble U game that's chock full of expensively blind packed, flimsy toy, goodness. And thats not even including the basest fact of all: that they're basically selling us Pokemon by full price cartridge load, almost every year now.
So the idea of further monetizing probably the most easy to monetize (because its already happening) property you have, doesn't really seem like something you need to think about, let alone if it's going to hurt it's world view.
Critical of me to say, sure, but I don't really see how hard it is to arrive at the idea that more story could trump character packs any day of the week. At this point its practically science.
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