Why a Pokemon Unite revival or a "Unite 2" is impossible... get ready for the bad news

DoubleCure
DoubleCure Member Posts: 3,372
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in General Pokémon UNITE Discussion #1

I've seen a lot of trainers hoping that TPC might reverse the EoS decision or partner with another studio to make a new Pokemon MOBA... so I decided to do a deeper investigation and gather feedback from multiple trusted sources. Realistically here is why that won't happen:

- The 5 year contract is up, Unite is a joint venture between TPC and Tencent's TiMi Studio (signed around 2020/2021). With the game closing in March 2027 the 5 year contract will officially expire and neither side found it financially viable to renew it due to dropping revenue outside Japan.

- TiMi is very hard to replace for MOBAs as TiMi is a top leader in mobile/console MOBAs development (they are also the creators of Honor of Kings). Other top MOBA developers like Riot (Wild Rift) or Valve (Dota) are direct competitors who would never make a Pokemon game... TPC alone doesn't have the technical network infrastructure or experience to run a global MOBA without specialized third party developers like Tencent.

- Starting over from scratch it's impossible... TPC can't just take Unite's code, 3D models or player data and hand them to another studio... most of that architecture belongs to TiMi. A new MOBA would mean starting from scratch and players would lose all their unlocked licenses, skins and progress anyway.

- Now rumors... recent leaks (Teraleaks) reveal that TPC is moving away from outsourcing games to massive external publishers... instead their future online budget is being funneled into in house open world MMO projects (like Project Seed) for the next gen Switch. So seems like they're clearing the table to focus on this next era.

- The inclusion of the offline "Library" feature in November is TPC's way of giving us a permanent archive of our achievements and possibly avoiding legal issues, because this door is officially closing for good.

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Comments

  • Eremas
    Eremas Member Posts: 3,193
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    #2

    Thank you for doing the research. And making it easy to understand.

  • Dragonfly102024
    Dragonfly102024 Member Posts: 4,927
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    #3

    Ooooooooooohhh

    I had no clue there was a five year contract.

    Why didn't anyone state anything sooner?!?

    .... Sigh....

    Thank you for doing the research, @DoubleCure. It is very much appreciated and will help us all come to terms with the situation.

    Next question....

    Will MMOs be available for mobiles too or are they locking people into the "must-purchase a Switch2" type of thing (of course because they say mobiles can't handle the data or whatever required for that type of game) and require us to pay for monthly subscriptions on top of in-game purchases?

    Thanks.

  • Lonestar85
    Lonestar85 Member Posts: 4,261
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    #4
    https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/comment/205826#Comment_205826

    I think you know the answer given that Pokopia is Switch 2 and all future main series titles will be tied to the Switch 2 and consequently require Nintendo Online unless you have friends nearby to do local trades or other in-house multiplayer fun.

    Also every MMO that I know(granted that's rich coming from me because I basically know two lol) are generally PC based because they have demanding specs(like Eve Online is insanely taxing on the CPU). There are mobile MMO's so I can't rule out the possibility of them making one but if they were to make anything, it's probably be with the Switch in mind.

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