Pokemon's Innovation Paradox: How Stagnation Sparked Creativity
As one Reddit user put it, the Pokemon Company’s July Presents event was “a video that should have been an email.” Yet this disappointment is a perfect example of a paradox: Pokemon’s creative stagnation has become the catalyst for some of gaming’s most innovative fan communities.
I’m a big Pokemon fan. I got into the original games in the 90s and never grew out of them. I’ve watched the main Pokemon games (Scarlet/Violet, Sword/Shield) settle into a formula. The player character receives a Pokemon (fire, grass or water) and must fight 8 gyms, defeat the champion, and navigate an evil group’s plot to use a legendary Pokemon for bad reasons.
Game Freak, the company that makes the main Pokemon games, doesn’t need to innovate in its mainline games—they’ll print money regardless. Sword and Shield, the first full 3D release on the Switch, were widely criticised for being buggy on release with graphics that felt outdated; they sold over 26 million copies. Players still enjoyed the games despite the flaws.
Each generation has its gimmick to keep things fresh. X/Y introduced Mega Evolution, Sun/Moon had held crystals that gave Pokemon a super powered move, Sword/Shield the Pokemon got big, and Scarlet/Violet they got funny hats. But the core game was the same. If you’ve played one, you could guess the story of others.
Here’s the thing though—innovation isn’t missing from Pokemon; it’s just not from Game Freak.
The ecosystem around the main Pokemon games is wild.
Pokemon battles involve complex strategy with type matchups, stats, movesets, and predictions—perfect for competitive play. But Game Freak does a terrible job at fostering it, so the community stepped in. Smogon and Pokemon Showdown emerged, entirely run by the community. Smogon sets its own rules, formats and tiers for competitive Pokemon battling.
Now, there’s an official VGC (Video Game Championship) format. However, it took until Sword/Shield (the 8th generation) for Pokemon to introduce features for building competitive teams easily. While the official VGC has gained momentum, Smogon’s format is still popular.
PokeTubers (Pokemon YouTube channels) organise competitive Pokemon draft leagues that get more views than official ones.
That’s just the start. A player invented Nuzlocke, or Pokemon Hard Mode, to make the game harder. You can only catch the first Pokemon you find in each route, and if it faints, it’s dead (you need to release it). PokeTubers livestream Nuzlocke runs, leading to dramatic moments when fan favourites ‘die’.
Fans have been inspired to create their own Pokemon games—romhacks (fan-made modifications)—due to the shortcomings of the official games. These aren’t dinky or substandard, but often highly polished.
Radical Red takes Pokemon Fire Red—the official remake of the original Pokemon Red game—and adds all the new Pokemon, quality of life, competitive battle features, and makes the game really hard.
The best known romhack, Pokemon Unbound, has an original story, score, and tileset (its built on Fire Red). I’ve played through Unbound and it is fresh, innovative and brings in quality of life features absent from the official games. It’s better than many official games and made by volunteers and distributed for free.
Other games have thriving modding communities (Minecraft, Skyrim, Warcraft III) that either officially support or make modding accessible. Pokemon actively discourages it—Nintendo issues takedowns, romhacking requires workarounds, and competitive play happens outside the games.
I think the Pokemon innovation paradox is unique to it. Why does Pokemon's stagnation fuel such creativity? I don't really know. I think people just love Pokemon and now that the community is established, it's become a flywheel.
It’s amazing that a company’s stagnation has inspired so much innovation. Many people love Pokemon, and even though Pokemon Presents was a bit lame this year I’m keen to see where the community takes it next.
