Cultural Influence
Pokémon, being a globally popular franchise, has left a significant mark on today's pop culture. The Pokémon characters themselves have become pop culture icons; examples include two different Pikachu balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Pokémon Jets operated by All Nippon Airways, thousands of merchandise items, and a traveling theme park that was in Nagoya, Japan in 2005 and in Taipei in 2006. Pokémon also appeared on the cover of the U.S. magazine Time in 1999. The Comedy Central show Drawn Together has a character named Ling-Ling who is a direct parody of Pikachu. Several other shows such as ReBoot, The Simpsons, South Park, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Robot Chicken, All Grown Up!, and Johnny Test have made references and spoofs of Pokémon, among other series. Pokémon was also featured on VH1's I Love the '90s: Part Deux. A live action show called Pokémon Live! toured the United States in late 2000. It was based on the popular Pokémon anime, but had some continuity errors relating to it. Jim Butcher cites Pokémon as one of the inspirations for the Codex Alera series of novels.
In November 2001, Nintendo opened a store called the Pokémon Center in New York, in New York's Rockefeller Center, modeled after the two other Pokémon Center stores in Tokyo and Osaka and named after a staple of the videogame series; Pokémon Centers are fictional buildings where Trainers take their injured Pokémon to be healed after combat. The store sold Pokémon merchandise on a total of two floors, with items ranging from collectible shirts to stuffed Pokémon plushies.
The store also featured a Pokémon Distributing Machine in which players would place their game to receive an egg of a Pokémon that was being given out at that time. The store also had tables that were open for players of the Pokémon Trading Card Game to duel each other or an employee. The store was closed and replaced by the Nintendo World Store on May 14, 2005. Three Pokémon Center kiosks were put in malls in Washington, with one in Tacoma and one in Seattle currently remaining. The Pokémon Center online store was relaunched on August 6, 2014.
Joseph Jay Tobin theorizes that the success of the franchise was mainly due to the long list of names that could be learned by children and repeated in their peer groups. The rich fictional universe provided a lot of opportunities for discussion and demonstration of knowledge in front of their peers. In the French version Nintendo took care to translate the name of the creatures so that they reflected the French culture and language. In all cases the names of the creatures were linked to its characteristics, which converged with the children's belief that names have symbolic power. Children could pick their favourite Pokémon and affirm their individuality while at the same time affirming their conformance to the values of the group, and they could distinguish themselves from other kids by asserting what they liked and what they didn't like from every chapter. Pokémon gained popularity because it provided a sense of identity to a wide variety of children, and lost it quickly when many of those children found that the identity groups were too big and searched for identities that would distinguish them into smaller groups.
Pokémon's history has been marked at times by rivalry with the Digimon media franchise that debuted at a similar time. Described as "the other 'mon'" by IGN's Juan Castro, Digimon has not enjoyed Pokémon's level of international popularity or success, but has maintained a dedicated fanbase. IGN's Lucas M. Thomas stated that Pokémon is Digimon's "constant competition and comparison", attributing the former's relative success to the simplicity of its evolution mechanic as opposed to Digivolution. The two have been noted for conceptual and stylistic similarities by sources such as GameZone. A debate among fans exists over which of the two franchises came first. In actuality, the first Pokémon media, Pokémon Red and Green, were released initially on February 27, 1996; whereas the Digimon virtual pet was released on June 26, 1997.
Fan community
While Pokémon's target demographic is young boys, early purchasers of the latest games, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, were in their 20's.[107] Many fans are adults who originally played the games as children and later returned to the series.
A significant community around the Pokémon video games' metagame has existed for a long time, analyzing the best ways to use each Pokémon to their full potential in competitive battles. The most prolific competitive community is Smogon University, which has created a widely accepted tier-based battle system.
In early 2014, an anonymous video streamer on Twitch launched Twitch Plays Pokémon, an experiment trying to crowdsource playing subsequent Pokémon games starting with Pokémon Red.
A challenge called the Nuzlocke Challenge was created in order for older players of the series to enjoy Pokémon again, but with a twist. When a Pokémon faints it is considered "dead" and must be released or stored in the PC permanently. If the player blacks out/whites out the game is considered over and the player must restart. The original idea only consisted of 2 to 3 rules that the community has since built upon. There are many fan made Pokémon games made that contains a game mode similar to the Nuzlocke Challenge, such as Pokémon Uranium.
An online Pokémon game was created called Pokémon Showdown, in which players create a team and battle against other players around the world.
