Translation of Masuda benching>Ruby/Sapphire to XY era>The era when Masuda was the Board Director + Head of Development + Director.>・Era in which Masuda had complete and total control>・Watanabe was not yet the Board Director, only a Division 1 Manager.>・Since there was a Division 1 Manager, a Division 2 Manager position was created.>・Masuda alone handled development, planning, HR and personnel decisions, PR, game design.>・Up until BW, no one could oppose him.>・However, this led to centralization of authority, leading to the organization going off the rails.>・In HR and personnel management, "favorites" and "unneeded" people were created.>・The games were being made more for PR reasons rather than actual fun. >・He couldn't actually do any game design.>Various such problems accumulated, and during the development of XY, finally someone opposed him, Sugimori had a big argument with Masuda.>After this, it was decided that he would never serve as the game director again.
HIS FRANCHISE.
>let's repost it again for the 4th time but still not post a sourceebin
>>58408447sounds like they lost all direction after this, which was readily apparent.
>>58408447So why is he director for LGPE and BDSP?
>>58408478Because those are just side projects remakes. Nothing important
>>58408483I’d say the first Switch Pokémon game was pretty important
>>58408471files.catbox.moe/fbnop6.pdfSource has been posted so many times already.>>58408478This probably wasn't referring to the remakes.
>>58408493>it has been posted many times>literally zero results in the archiveok retard
>>58408493Cope, mopse sourcem,,
>>58408447Masuda seems really passionate and involved with BW. Unlike later games, it doesn't feel like it was made by committee. There's something more to the story. I wonder if BW's low sales were used as pretext for a power grab>https://youtu.be/9l8V_eQ6wGQ?si=vkDZCMU1APnET8g5&t=87
>>58408489>I’d say the first Switch Pokémon game was pretty importantDo you not remember Ishihara's comment on the Switch? Game Freak clearly did not see them as important. Especially since Masuda had to damage control and say "real Pokemon games were coming later"
>Tyrant is overthrown only for things to get even worse without themCinema
>>58408532If he was actually a tyrant they would've gotten rid of him, and yes I know in Japan it's hard to fire someone, but if you're actually breaking HR rules then they can bin you. He was probably just too controlling and decided to step down along with Sugimori
>>58408564It's easy to assume Sugimori was just fed up with the slop machine as a whole, especially by XY. Dude only wanted to work on his friend's dream game to get it made and then 10 years later he's STILL drawing for that shit for a completely different nigga who didn't understand games like him while his actual friend fucked off to play Xevious all day. Meanwhile Masuda and Nintendo gave his game absolutely no fucking love
>>58408447if you actually read the document it's clear that Masuda and Sugimori were regarded as a duo within Game Freak. To the point that they mostly worked on Pulseman together while RBY were being made, and occasionally on Pokemon. So them falling out during XY was probably a big turning point for Game Freak, allowing newbies to come into management positions and them moving on. Hence why there's a new director, new people working on music (Masuda's wheelhouse) and new people working on art like Take (Sugimori's wheelhouse). They sometimes pop in to supervise (recent credits for Masuda on directing and music, plus credits for Sugimori for art prove this) but they're mostly in different roles now.People are sensationalising this.
>>58408587give up brono one believes your fake leak
>>58408600Honestly I don't really care since Masuda's been gone for a long while and while Game Freak improve in marginal ways without him, the biggest issue is they're making games they were never trained to do just to catch up with AAA standards (not that even AAA games can keep up with said standards)I like to theorycraft about Sugimori a lot because he's easily the most outright bitter Game Freak employee due to his legacy and status. You see things from his side of the story and Pokemon becomes more of a tragedy
>>58408447Other things from the same PDF.>Red/Green to Gold Silver era>A time of utter chaos.>No matter who I ask or what I ask about, I still can't figure out who created what.>But to summarize what little I can piece together:>Ultimately, it was the president making the games.>Morimoto, Oota(Karate King), Nishino and Watanabe were the main contributors.>Masuda and Sugimori were mainly working on side projects(Pulseman).>Masuda only started working as a director with Crystal.And more.Niji is the codename for Sun/Moon, Orion is Sword/Shield.>At the time of niji, Unno was the director(he became a director with BW2).>Also, Ohmori became the Division 2 Director during the latter half of niji project.>・At the time, there was no clear division of roles between the director and the Division 2 Manager, everything was uncertain and improvised.>・As a result, Unno wasn't actually able to create the game, and Ohmori ended up handling the job of both Division 2 Manager and the director positions.>・The system itself didn't change much from the Masuda domination era, and Masuda still made many completely unilateral decisions. The division of roles remained vague.>・There were no particular requests from the General Manager, and conversely, he didn't check on anything either.>・In other words, no clear task allocation and everything just continued as Masuda had left it.If you also thought SM were good, well, internally, they were like this. Though it says Unno didn't get to make the game, it also says Ohmori only became the Division 2 Director in the latter half of development, so maybe Unno, the GOAT BW2 director, actually did contribute to SM being good.
>>58408634>SM could have been on the same level as BW2.Alolabros..
>>58408649>I'm still trying to shill my fake leakUnovasisters....
>>58408634Lastly, Legends and Arceus and Scarlet/Violet. Hayabusa is the codename for Legends Arceus, apparently, and Titan is the SV codename.One thing, since all the corporate titles are in Japanese, I wasn't sure how to translate each of the roles properly. I mentioned a General Manager here, but that might've been the Head of Development Headquarters instead. I will be referring to that as such in this last translation.>hayabusa~titan>Watanabe became the Head of Development Headquarters, and Masuda is no longer affiliated with development at all.>Watanabe became the Board Director, effectively reversing the positions of Masuda and Watanabe in the hierarchy.>Requests and checks from the Head of Development Headquarters> I think this is a normal and healthy structure.>However, Ohmori still continues to be both the Division 2 Manager and game director.>This concentration of authority risks the same organizational chaos as before, making it difficult to inherit responsibilities in future.>・Moving forward, it will be necessary to separate the roles of Head of Development, Division 2 Manager and Director, and to execute tasks while responding to their respective requests and responsibilities.
>>58408734These documents are actually really interesting, surprised no ones actually talking about how insightful these are. They tell us literally how GF operatesNot to mention it highlights how they can still freely create, they don't feel pressured by TPC at all
>>58408781>These documents are actually really interesting,probably because they’re completely fake
>>58408781Game Freak have always had final say in terms of cadence and timeframes. Nintendo needs Pokemon, and they will bend over backwards for their high profile software. The Switch 2 was delayed in part to allow major software (unclear if it was MKW or Bananza) more time to cook. The issue isn't pressure from partners, it's TPC self-imposing certain markers, in order to coincide the games with TCG, plushies, the anime. BDSP only exist because Game Freak wanted more time to work on PLA, but had already inked deals for holiday promotions and merch.
>>58408781It also explains just how much of an organizational mess GameFreak has been for a long time. For what it's worth, while Masuda was dominating, at least things were under control. They were not happy with the direction and mistakes were made, but everything was orderly. And when Masuda let others handle games, such as with third versions and remakes, it resulted in good games. Ever since they got rid of him, everything seems to be a mess. They don't yet know how run a company. Pure and utter chaos.This document is from 2021, in July. Written by Ohmori himself and meant to be a summary of their history. They explain a lot and go over how they plan to fix their mess in future, so maybe future games will be better. Maybe.Ohmori joined GameFreak in 2001, and even he doesn't know what happened in Red/Green to Gold/Silver era. That was a complete mess.A lot of accusations of these being fakes, but I believe they're real because of how consistent they are. Every detail mentioned here can be verified separately. Like Watanabe's increase in authority, getting to be the Head of Development and "Board Director." Board Director here is 取締役, I googled to confirm what this is typically translated as and there's no real consistency here, it's a position that doesn't have a perfect 1 to 1 equivalent in English corporate structures, but Board Director is closest. Yet this PDF got that right and got the timing of when he became the Board Director right too. If it's a fake, it's done by someone who really put in a lot of effort.
>>58408873>A lot of accusations of these being fakes, but I believe they're real because they conveniently precisely match the circlejerk narrative I’ve been spamming for years to screech about 3D gamesWho do you think you’re fooling?
>>58408873The poor documentation of Gen 1 and 2 is mentioned by Masuda in this Game Informer segment. >>58408508There was no formal process for archiving this material until Gen 5, a lot was discarded because it seemed worthless to keep old notes. A lot of this stuff was faxed, input, and then trashed. Their workstations routinely crashed, meaning the work of one person could have been redone by someone else, blurring the lines between who did what. And of course, the fallibility of memories.
These leaks give off the same vibe as someone on /v/ talking about sakurai being FRUSTERATED and LOOSING HIS MIND while working on smash also geno is in.
>>58408781>surprised no ones actually talking about how insightful these areYou're surprised why the average Pokemon fan doesn't find these docs interesting?
>>58408592Btw. Ohmori was with masuda since dppt.So I think this was more of a >masuda san it‘s time to give the torch to the younger ones
>>58408914Ohmori was the map designer in RS
>>58408478As a humiliation
>>58408447>Masuda was the good guy all along>Once he was out the rest of gamefreak grew more comfortable with makimg lazy slopIt's time to apologize
>>58408994>As a humiliationHow is directing LGPE a humiliation? It's literally the last great Pokemon game.
This is just corporate shit talkingWhy was this in the documents
>>58409027It wasn’tOP won’t ever address >>58408506because he’s a seething retard who ruined his entire fake leak by forgetting LGPE exists
>>58409056>Masuda was a chiptune composer and ideaguy that taught himself programming specifically to move Pokemon forward when it was stalled during the early daysVGHHH THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING MASUDA-SAN, LODESTAR OF POCKET MONSTERS
>>58409056Basically yes.
>Games start declining as soon as Masuda is pushed out of powerTragedy
>>58409056I wouldn't quite put it that way. That's being a bit unfair. In a fair manner, I'd say:>Tajiri era: development chaos in the sense that everyone did everything, responsibilities weren't properly divided, but Tajiri held the reigns and created a lot himselfThis "chaos" is not necessarily just a bad thing. Take Watanabe for example, he was supposed to be just a programmer, but he was involved in graphics, sound design, game planning, everything. This led to good things, like every employee could just add their own stuff. Originally, there were just going to be 4 graphical effects for all moves, just reused. Watanabe just decided to give each move its own effect and added it all on his own. Or take Morimoto. A programmer, who just decided to create and add in Mew all on his own, just 2 weeks before the games were finished. This is chaos but it's not necessarily bad, because the employees are not dissatisfied yet.>Masuda era: complete control by Masuda in everything, he called all the shots, but sucked at game developmentAs a result, we often got games whose first versions were bad(Diamond/Pearl, XY), or they were just simplifying things and being too meta(BW), the employees were unhappy and things were in a consistent state of decline. This showed in sales too, and while it did give us some good games, that was when Masuda was away and letting others handle things. Everything was top-down.>Sun/Moon to Sword/Shield era: still in Masuda's shadows, continues with the same structure due to inertia despite Masuda himself being gone>Legends Arceus/Scarlet Violet: finally getting things back on track, but authority is still centralized and they haven't found their bearings yet, only have plans to divide responsibilities betterThere's not chaos in this era as much as things aren't properly sorted out to be different from Masuda era.
>>58408781>>58409096
>>58408910yeah i didn't realise just how much ppl here like to shitpost. The document says a lot about how Game Freak work and explains why these games are the way they are now and going forward>>58409247based
>>58408836In late 2003, Nintendo was trying to acquire Bandai instead of a complete buyout of Game Freak and the Pokemon IP. Reminder that Bandai owns the rights to properties like Digimon and Gundam.
Working for GameFreak sounds like a living nightmare. No wonder their games have been trash for the past decade plus
>>58409826This seems like just top level politics. I'm sure the actual devs were fine. Nothing about them was mentioned to be bad.
>>58408447Junichi Masuda did nothing wrong besides BW.
>>58409144this
>>58409056yupJunichi was one of their most competent human assets despite just being the music guyThat's the power of Capricorn
>>58409004Only trannies hated Masuda.
>>58410583>besides BW.*yawn*
>>58408873>It also explains just how much of an organizational mess GameFreak has been for a long time. For what it's worth, while Masuda was dominating, at least things were under control. They were not happy with the direction and mistakes were made, but everything was orderly. And when Masuda let others handle games, such as with third versions and remakes, it resulted in good games. Ever since they got rid of him, everything seems to be a mess. They don't yet know how run a company. Pure and utter chaos.This document is from 2021, in July. Written by Ohmori himself and meant to be a summary of their history.They explain a lot and go over how they plan to fix their mess in future, so maybe future games will be better. Maybe.Ohmori joined GameFreak in 2001, and even he doesn't know what happened in Red/Green to Gold/Silver era. That was a complete mess.Yet another example of why every organization *needs* an adult in the room, and Masuda was that.
>>58408447Masuda being barred leading to the absolute unhinged power creep of the gen 6 box legends is a little funny
>>58408961then that would be the crowning achievement of his entire career, and the reason why junichi mistakenly trusted him to direct
>>58410649I really do hope Tajiri comes out of obscurity to help the new blood get a grip on Pokemon, he seems to be the only one who everyone would unquestioningly listen to and follow the advice of to heart.Maybe once they finally start getting direction and organization from that, we can stop seeing such a wild fluctuation of mediocrity and dogshit, and the roadmap won't feel so dread-inducing.
>>58408587>who didn't understand games like himyou're right, he understood them better
>>58410688Tajiri can't direct, and hasn't done so in almost 30 years. Even Gold/Silver was in no small part Masuda's doing.
>>58410710I didn't say to direct the games, I said to help whip the company in shape. With actual structure, those with promising talents as directors can be appointed, and having THE old guard himself checking in from time to time means it won't spiral into insanity like with the infighting between the other oldheads and leave an aftermath of total anarchy.
>>58410725>I said to help whip the company in shapewhich I already coveredthe chaos of Gen I & Gen II development came directly from him being a wishy washy ideas guy who's a poor leaderhe *can't* give actual structure, and he knew thathe didn't walk away because he le finished his vision, he walked away because he knew he sucked at his job
>>58410765So we're fucked, then. No one at GameFreak is fit to whip the company into shape, and Nippon Pride means they can't admit they're struggling and seek outside help, not even being able to request assistance from Nintendo.Thus, the games will continue to be rushjob dogshit because they're in utter godless chaos, having to stick to their deadlines in order to remain consistently profitable, and literally cannot afford to stop this process to focus on bettering themselves because it would cause them to not only bleed money, but damage the multimedia brand as a whole because now there's a lack of new characters, monsters and settings to use for TCG, spinoffs, animation and merchandise. And nothing will change, because the games will still sell gangbusters, and the rest of the franchise will continue to produce gangbusters too.
>>58408447FORGIVE ME FOR EVERYTHING MASUDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
>>58408447>・Masuda alone handled development, planning, HR and personnel decisions, PR, game design.>・Up until BW, no one could oppose him.>・However, this led to centralization of authority, leading to the organization going off the rails.This is frighteningly identical to how Akihiro Hino does things with LEVEL5 and their constant delays
>>58408507Arrest, ad hommineum monsieur.
>>58410807all they had to do was keep Junichi and not rush out first drafts anymore like they did during gen v
>>58409826Considering Game Freak devs from the 1990s are still employed at the company, I would say that Game Freak is a very boomer friendly company
>>58408447Why doesn't Game Freak just hire the Pokemon Special writer Hidenori Kusaka to make their Pokemon video games?
>>58411120PokeSpe is good for shonen plots (i.e. stories that appeal to young boys), but Pokemon is a general audiences game, therefore it needs to be appealing to all demographics.
>>58408906Are you reference that fired NoA translator who was part of that bitter circlejerk against OpRainfall?
>>58410807actually, because of what you're saying, it seems like a single game bombing would tank GF's entire credibility. however, not a single game has bombed, and the only time a game underperformed (BW) they panicked over it and course-corrected to the extreme.
>>58412985>course-corrected to the extremenot reallyaside from an excess of kanto pandering, xy was something of a return to baseline quality
>>58412985And how did they "course correct to the extreme", aside from further casualization (something they were already intent on doing after Gen 4) and Kanto pandering (something they were already doing as early as Gen 2)?
>>58412985>>58409209BW didn't underperform, it was released at the end of the lifespan for the DS and still sold over 15 million copies. DS online was gone in April 2014, just barely over 3 years after BW were released in North America (which was the same month the 3DS was released no less) and less than 2 years after B2W2 were released. The 3DS itself struggled at launch, in no small part thanks to its high price tag and BW being released the exact same month, cannibalizing each other's sales. Were you going to drop $300 to play a game on a device despite already being able to play it on a device you already own (and with a better screen if it was a DSi or DSi XL)? Or were you going to pay $40+tax for the game and hold off on a 3DS or buy a 3DS and hold off on Pokémon? At least when BW were released in September 2010 in Japan, the 3DS was over 5 months away and everyone wasn't saying "buy a smartphone" and leaving their DS behind quite yet.https://www.vgchartz.com/article/82143/pokemon-blackwhite-has-the-biggest-opening-ever-in-japan/Obviously there was a drop after Gen I, and that went as low as Crystal. But we can see from>Ruby and Sapphire (2002/2003, Nintendo-published games dead in 2006)>Diamond and Pearl (2006/2007, DS dead in 2014)>Black and White (2010/2011, Nintendo-published games dead in 2012, online dead in 2014)>X and Y (2013, Nintendo-published games dead in 2019, online dead in 2024)that the games were affected by the sales of their platforms as well as when they were released on that platform, and the series had been overall regaining momentum until 2016 and the huge Pokémon GO craze.There was no "decline" in fan reception that made Game Freak kick out Masuda, they were simply being micromanaged and they were tired of having little creative say. Masuda had structure and formula and put out consistently good games, and without him they got the creativity but lost the ability to manage themselves.
