Temtem Is Going To Eat Nintendo’s Lunch By Beating Them To Making A Pokemon MMO
Nintendo’s refusal to make a Pokémon MMO meant it was only a matter of time before a game like Temtem came along.
You Are Reading :Temtem Is Going To Eat Nintendo’s Lunch By Beating Them To Making A Pokemon MMO
Category : Pokemon
Temtem released on Steam Early Access yesterday. For those unaware, the game is–and I say this without a hint of hyperbole–a Pokémon clone. You go around capturing Temtem instead of Pokémon, using your TemCard instead of Poké Balls, cataloging their capabilities with a TemPedia instead of a Pokédex and then enter competitive battles using their magic abilities in turn-based combat.
However, there are a few major differences that set Temtem apart. First, you get to create your very own character instead of having to use a preset male/female model provided for you as in every Pokémon game. Second, and most importantly, Temtem is an MMO. For the first time, you immerse yourself in a fantastical world where adorable little monsters do your bidding. The only difference is that it’s not called Pokémon.
Why No Pokémon MMO?
People have been asking for a game like this for as long as Pokémon has been around, but Nintendo (and Gamefreak) have always declined. Why? Well, it’s never been stated for sure, but a big argument is that a Pokémon MMO would hurt sales of the main franchise. Pokémon has a very regular release schedule (much like Activision’s Call of Duty), and an MMO might disrupt that. But more than that, an MMO just doesn’t fit with Nintendo’s marketing strategy.
MMOs aren’t like regular games–you don’t just throw out an MMO and then replace it a year later. They require constant updates with new content, security patches, and server maintenance. They’re ongoing games, and because of that, the game needs to be monetized in such a way as to constantly fund itself. For most MMOs, that means microtransactions, but a subscription or battle pass works too.
Since Pokémon is aimed at kids, they need their parents’ permission to make game purchases. It’s easier to convince your parents to buy one new game every year than it is to buy a new virtual hat every few days or to add a new bill to their monthly upkeep costs.
That means no Pokémon MMO, but it also means there’s an unserved audience. People have been asking for a Pokémon MMO for years; kids that grew up with Pokémon and have kept their obsession even as adults. They have money now, and they want to combine the immersive and social qualities of an MMO with Pokémon.
It’s a market niche that Nintendo was too scared to cater to, for fear of killing their main money-maker. But now, Temtem is going to swoop in and gobble up that niche right out from under Nintendo’s nose.
Temtem To The Rescue
Despite being just on early access, the hype surrounding Temtem is real. Yesterday when the game released, Temtem had so many new users that the game’s servers were overloaded. Login queues over 16,000 players long meant you had to wait hours just to play the game, and when you did manage to get in and make your new character, the game was so slow as to be unplayable.
Temtem’s developers managed to sort out the server issues and patched the game later in the evening to prevent the worst of the in-game problems, but the message here is clear: people really want a Pokémon-style MMO, and they don’t necessarily care if it’s actually based in the world of Pokémon.
According to SteamDB, almost 30,000 people logged in to play Temtem yesterday. At roughly $35 each, that means the game has already generated over a million dollars. Humble Bundle plans to release Temtem on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 later in 2021. When they do, they’ll gain access to a massive audience that likely has the same desire as their PC brethren: to play a Pokémon MMO.
Mark my words: by this time next year, Nintendo is going to be kicking themselves for not making their own Pokémon MMO first.
See more : PokemonWe