Ambition of Pokemon MOBA
Pokémon UNITE Teardown
Introduction
MOBA is well-known for its great network effect, strong bond of community and fast organic growth. However, the difficulty of promotion and user acquisition at initial launch, slow accumulation of user base and high operation cost has led to many failures in the market. In recent days, it seems like “Honor of Kings” and “Mobile Legends:Bang Bang” are the winners which have acquired remarkable popularity and revenue while the other MOBA games seem to be less lucky. No matter “Onmyoji Arena” (made by NetEase) or “Arena of Valor” (made by Tencent) do not make much noise in the market even though both games bear publishers’ high expectations and investments. Their average performance made them not that memorable in the market.
Top 6 MOBA games in non-China market in the last 12 month
In June 2020, Tencent and The Pokemon Company announced the co-development of the light MOBA games for mobile devices, Pokémon UNITE, trying to gain recognition in the overseas market. The game landed on Switch in July 2021 and landed on mobile platform in September the same year.
It’s surprising that this title is not a reskin of Dota-like core battle gameplay made by Tencent Timi Studio. It is made to cope with the beginner or non hard-core gamers’ taste. It has taken inspiration from MOBA and MOBA-like games, say “Heroes of the Storm” and “Splatoon 2”. The focus is shifted from enemies killing and destroying towers to collecting energy and gaining points at goal. It creates a new direction for MOBA games by introducing less intense entertainment.
Tencent would like to rely on the global influence of Pokemon to attract the fans/pan gamers. Through expanding the influence circle, it could develop a larger player base for MOBA games in Europe and the US. So, by adopting a new gameplay, unique art-style, targeting different player groups, does Pokémon UNITE help Tencent to win another battle?
Daily income of games (by platforms)
According to the estimates, the first three month of Pokémon UNITE in the global markets demonstrated a great opening and fair sustainability. After the blockbuster initial launch week, the game exposed its weaknesses in user acquisition, fast losing of existing users, low long-term revenue, etc. What caused these issues? Gamcamole is going to analyze Pokémon UNITE in the sections below.
Design
Gameplay loop: Always single battle
As shown in above diagram, MOBA game loop is simple. Based on PvP rounds, different mechanisms were built when players battle, become stronger and battle again. In Pokémon UNITE, players could accumulate the number of winning and get coin to purchase Hero/Pokemon Pass.
Since the target audience of Pokémon UNITE are the Pokemon fans and non hard-core mobile gamers, the game design is less complicated. It has simplified the classic MOBA gameplay in order to attract the MOBA beginner but it has sacrificed the depth and thus lower the stickiness of the game. We will explain further in the following sections.
Core game: 6 ways to make it more leisure
The core game of Pokémon UNITE is more leisure than traditional MOBA. The main adjustments include:
Monetization outside the battle: The game has the feature that allows users to get items outside the battle to obtain advantages in the PvP. And those items could be purchased by IAP which means a player could pay to win instead of practicing and polishing his skills. Then the game leans to be more leisure.
Cancel the mid path: There are only 2 paths in the game Comparing with the traditional MOBA, it has eliminated the possibility of duel between 2 players and thus leads to a decrease in competitiveness. Meanwhile, since there’s no hard requirement on players’ choice of path, there are not much differences for the role of characters. It also makes the character selection less complicated.
Decrease the difficulty level of characters: In the game, every Pokemon has 3 active skills, nearly 50% of the traditional MOBA. It has greatly decreased the learning cost and skill requirement. Gamers can freely choose the characters to start the game.
Weaken the battle stress: In each game, KDA data of both teams is not shown. It could help to weaken the battle stress.
Different Win definition: Gathering energy and comparing the end score are the elements of winning. It has weakened the strong stress in PvP in traditional MOBA and decreases the single battle time, leading to a more relaxing game play.
Canceling the coin and shop system in battle: If players want to increase their advantage in the battle, he has to level up, evolve and acquire new skills. In Pokémon UNITE, it’s very easy to get all of these. It nearly does not require any strategy. When we compare it with traditional MOBA, traditional MOBA has a broader direction and more diversity. The traditional MOBA has the “Kill enemy-Get coin-Shop-Increase power” loop to enable players to build their strategy and get the sense of achievement. This is missing in Pokémon UNITE.
To sum up, Pokémon UNITE has made a huge adjustment for the framework of MOBA in order to make the game play fit for Pokemon IP. It has built a unique balance between competitiveness and leisure for users. It could not be defined as an evolution of the MOBA genre but it is definitely a leisure MOBA built for a specific audience. Players who were not into the highly competitive game play and high requirement of skills, now have a chance to taste the fun.
However, the decrease of difficulty level brought a lot of drawbacks. A good example is the ceiling of skills is very low. There are nearly no strategic elements of the game. Frustrations build up when the player is losing and there’s nothing much he can do with the game. It hugely and badly affects the game experience.
Player: Mutual fans of Pokemon and MOBA
We can see that when competitive MOBA game play tries to fit-in with cute IP, there are sacrifices. Although we are suspecting that there may not be much overlapping of audiences, we wonder if people really “buy” this idea? We are going to analyze through game play and the love of IP:
From the gameplay perspective, the game targets casual gamers. It’s more friendly for newbies. On the other hand, hardcore gamer’s need for intense competitiveness cannot be satisfied for sure.
MOBA newbie: This type of gamers have not played MOBA game before and are unfamiliar with the action game techniques on phone or Switch. Under the pressure of production constraints and high skill level requirements of MOBA games, Pokémon UNITE has tried its best to improve their experience but they still need a longer time to adapt and get the fun of the game.
MOBA leisure gamer: This is the target audience of Pokémon UNITE. The game experience is relatively better and the skill requirements fulfill the expectation. If they like the IP as well, they will probably become diehard fans.
MOBA hardcore gamer: This type of gamers could enjoy the excitement of having skill advantages but they may not feel fitin with the leisure atmosphere of Pokémon UNITE. Thus a lot of them complain about the game. This type of player is obsessed with LoL-like games so they are not satisfied with Pokémon UNITE which is limited by depth and production. However, if these gamers are strongly social-driven or LOVE Pokemon IP, it’s very likely that they will retain in game.
From love of IP perspective, diehard Pokemon fans or those who like the art style will have a better impression of the game. If they happen to be gamers that are into leisure competitive game play, they will become the core gamers.
General population: They are not the target audience. They may be obtained through user acquisition or promotion. Their in-game experience varies.
Pokemon fans： They are less sticky to the game. Their in-game behavior rely highly on their acceptance of MOBA.
Pokemon hardcore fans：Many fans love the game and think it is “The Best Pokemon Game”. Although many of them get attracted, they still face the pain of P2W.
To sum up, Pokémon UNITE takes a difficult route to merge MOBA gameplay with Pokemon IP. At the beginning, it might be positioned to attract the audiences from both sides but it cannot retain them. This may be a sad story for the production team.
Battle: Depth vs Coverage dilemma
Humans are indeed social animals. When we play games, we start interactions with others. Pokémon UNITE battle attempts to balance the depth and board coverage of UX through teamwork but it does not go well.
The gameplay actually does not require much teamwork. Therefore, you don’t need to think too much, just pick a Pokemon and start. And maybe this is the reason that popular pokemon (say Pikachu) always gets locked within a second. It is simple to pick your character, and there’s no ban/pick mechanism. It has negatively affected the player experience a lot, especially for those who are used to traditional MOBA games.
Of course, the try-and-error learning cost of using different pokemon is very low. However, because of one’s habit, players always like to pick the character they used before. Therefore, the players’ understandings towards particular characters and the game may not become better. Division of role among characters is missing and it leads to the absence of a collaborative mindset. It makes the game become superficial and boredom kicks in early. The long term retainment of paid users becomes a challenge.
We try to work it out. Here’s some possible solution:
Character arrangement design in Brawl Star
Make good use of the collection concept in the IP to encourage players to collect Pokemon and the related achievements. They can also be rewarded with grindable skin that won’t negatively affect the game balancing.
Introduce skill level for Pokemons so players can unlock achievements and rewards by their skill level progress.
Collaboration with other famous brands, for example, McDonald’s or KFC, to increase item variety in the game.
Community: Not that social-focus leisure game
Pokémon UNITE weakens the teamwork elements in the battle and this design leads to a decrease of sense of achievement and team belonging. It is bad for the social interactions among players. However, social features are crucial for leisure games as they can improve stickiness and to grow the player base.
Sadly, Pokémon UNITE doesn’t pay much attention to the social features outside battle. The design of UI/UX does not make sense. It has hidden the social features under many layers. More importantly, the game lacks call-to-action to stimulate the interactions among players. Players are not even incentified to interact with each other.
To encourage meaningful social interactions, we have below ideas：
Make good use of “Gym” in the IP and improve the feature of squad:
Currently, there are some time-limited quests in the loop. It cannot improve the bonding among members in the same squad. We suggest using “Gym” to create a platform to help the members to build trust and connect. And thus, it could help to improve long-term retention. Here are some proposals:Co-op quests to encourage members to play together；
Buff and special reward for members who team-up for a battle；
“Gym“ challenge, Duel and ranking system;
Personalization of “Gym” which allow members to build and decroate their community together；
Add mutual beneficial meta-gameplay and improve the “show-off” scenarios in the game.
In original IP, friends can exchange Pokemon：
Allow friends to gift Pokemon/outfits to each other and get the friendship medal. And there could be an annual friendship memory album ( For example, “xxx” assisted you in the battle for “xxxx” times).Provide more opportunities for players to show off：
Social activities not only include the interactions among people but also allow people to show their personalities. Pokémon UNITE does not provide enough scenes for players to demonstrate their personalities. We suggest improving the in-game chatroom by allowing the players to send battle records, automated ranking achievement announcements and congratulation messages sent by the squad).
UX/UI: a simple look with complex designs
Pokémon UNITE is as “cute” as the other Pokemon series with bright colors and simple UI interfaces. Unfortunately, the effort seems to be ostensible without details to enhance the player experience.
The combat is disappointing considering it’s a MOBA game (not showing battle records, hard to find the surrender button, etc.), the UX design of the game makes me feel worse. Traditional MOBA games normally have a session-by-session design. Players finish one battle then click to enter a new one. All battles are tightly and smoothly connected. On the contrary, Pokémon UNITE requires players to exit the combat, returning to the homepage from time to time in order to take new tasks, participate in new events, and get rewards. The messy combination of MOBA elements in the game is neither intriguing nor easy for players. To name a few obvious issues：
Reward systems: The reward systems are decentralized with overlapping tasks. Admittedly, this may provide a greater sense of accomplishment. However, the tedious reward collection with limited gains leaves players frustrating. In addition, the reward collecting pages (such as Fair-play Points) lack CTAs (Call-to-Action). Players will easily miss the rewards or get annoyed by the never-disappearing red dot notification on the menu bar. These designs are leading to poor user experience.
Social systems: The social features in the game are neither user-friendly nor encouraging. If a player wants to add a friend by searching one’s ID for the first time, he or she might end up spending a long time finding the entrance. The guild system seems to be almost invisible. The "Squad" (Guild) entrance is hidden in the middle of many buttons in the secondary menu. Players need to click the profile picture on the upper left corner of the homepage to call out the guild feature. Also, the English name of the guild is misleading - Players will assume "squad" means a temporary 5-people team, and thus not be aware that the guild feature even exists.
Event systems: Special themed UI is created for every big event to bring up the festive atmosphere. However, the menu structure of each event is not consistent eith each other, which, undoubtedly, requires more learning time and effort from players.
When looking at Pokémon UNITE this way, does it make sense for a casual game with a simple UI to have such complex UX design?
Art: Innovation in cartoon or invariable style?
Relying on the robust R&D and technical strengths of Tencent, the Pokémon UNITE has the highest quality in terms of art resources amongst all Pokémon series. We can also find some breakthroughs in its visual and creative design.
1. Visual design: an aesthetic style when cartoon meets realistic
Pokémon UNITE inherits most traditional art designs of the current mainline Pokémon series, following the same rendering style from Pokémon: Sword and Shield. The simulated 2D characters are made using special computer graphics rendering from 3D models.
This type of rendering is called cell shading, or toon shading. The process reduces the shading colors to simplify shadows and highlights on the 3D model and outlines the edge of the object. This will give the render a flat look like a traditional 2D cartoon.
Nintendo, undoubtedly, is a master in animation rendering. Nintendo has adopted this unique and popular cel-shared rendering style starting from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and uses it for most of its games since then. The legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind and Pokémon: Sword and Shield could be the best examples in the current generation of Nintendo’s games.
We can obviously feel the same art style inherited in Pokémon UNITE - Outlines on the edge of game characters, highlights without shade gradient, etc. On top of that, more physics renderings were added to the body and outfits. In different lighting in the game, those 3D objects are showing more delicate highlights and textures. The unique and detailed graphics in the game is bringing the players a sense of playing with Pokémon toys or quality GKs.
Check the fine rendering Blastoise, especially its back - Texture and reflection changes along with lights
Slowbro: easy to distinguish the softness of the body and the thickness of the tail shell
Why is Pokémon UNITE adopting such an art style?
On one hand, the simple and flat cartoon rendering is commonly seen in games for young players. Some realistic elements added to the art design will break the target audience stereotype, helping the game to attract more players with a wide age range. From the marketing point of view, this art style broader the market for Pokémon UNITE. On the other hand, League of Legends already established a unique and well-known animation rendering example. Pokémon UNITE needs something different in art design to stand out in the MOBA genre. Not to mention the mobile or console devices today are robust enough to support such complex graphics.
On behalf of game players, I found such semi-realistic visual design of the game encouraging: the characters are just like toys or GKs being showcased. The desire for collection and sense of accessibility built by the art enhance players’ enjoyment - all monsters seem to exist in real life instead of printed on a piece of paper.
Pokémon UNITE has certainly abandoned the mainline Pokémon cartoon style, but its aesthetic expression is constrained by the MOBA nature. Although Pokémon: Sword and Shield is not using more advanced graphics technologies, it was proven successful in building up a detailed world with vivid characters. The evolution of a monster and the dazzling moves in battles impress players the most. It's a pity that all these fantastic details and action effects were no longer available. As a MOBA game, Pokémon UNITE has to emphasize the combat instead of the storytelling. The compromise makes the game less impactful in visual expression. And it's hard to say whether it will also impact the game's appeal to the fans of the original animation.
Dazzling effects in Pokémon Sword and Shield
A vivid world built in Pokémon Sword and Shield
Simple combat effects in Pokémon UNITE
2. Creative designs: outfits and skins with over attention and environment being overlooked
Being one of the most important IPs owned by Nintendo, Pokemon UNITE faces the design dilemma of ensuring the image and style uniformity with creativity. How MOBA works and players’ habit of getting constant new updates eliminate the possibility of launching a large number of monsters in one go.
So Pokémon UNITE takes a different approach by providing cool outfits and bizarre skins for players to collect and show off. Most of those customized outfits and skins are cute and delicate, but not gorgeous, probably to keep the focus on the Pokémon itself. Moreover, the outfit and skin design are not closely related to the original IP. Many roles and characters in Pokémon’s mainline world are not echoing with those designs in the game world. Players may feel discouraged to purchase those creative assets.
A variety of Holowear outfits in the game
Most of the trainer outfits in the game are cute but have little connection with the original IP or story setting
The most obvious innovation in creative design took place in where maybe easily overlooked – the environment design. From the game lobby to the battle arena, it's easy to distinguish the scene design of Pokémon UNITE from other games in the Pokémon series. The environment has a stronger emphasis on streamlining and futuristic style.
Arena with streamlined design, with a texture echoing with Mewtwo's dreamy style
The stadium in Pokémon UNITE obviously gets many inspirations from architectural geometry. The shapes and curves of the buildings will easily remind you of the parametricism-style works from Zaha Hadid (see pictures).
You can easily find such a curvy and fluid style in the stadiums in Pokémon UNITE. Parametricism is a design style that relies greatly on programs, algorithms, and computers to manipulate equations that cannot be drawn or curved manually for design purposes.
In general, the arena’s design is highly expressive, with great aesthetic and creative elements. However, players can only get a glimpse of the full picture in the small full-map window. It's difficult to feel such an impressive architectural design in the battle session. The futuristic design for the arena, especially the outlines, will be worn away by the bored and moderate interior design. My guess is, if the game puts too much emphasis on the parametricism style in the main interaction environment, the whole scene will be too avant-garde and too different from the Pokémon IP setting. Moreover, the curvy design fits for flaming an oval stadium.
Comparatively, the grandest arena in Pokémon: Sword and Shield looks less futuristic
In summary, we notice Pokémon UNITE makes many innovations in its visual art, providing more collectible elements and introducing breakthrough environmental and architectural designs. If players are looking for a real MOBA game or are deeply fond of Pokémon's original animation, Pokémon UNITE might not be the most attractive game due to its inevitable constraints by the game genre and original IP setting. For those who like to try new game types and collect adorable monsters, Pokémon UNITE could be an enjoyable game for you to dip your toes in the MOBA water with its high-quality visual arts.
Product
Revenue: users and monetization
Since there are many popular MOBA games in the market, in order to compare more objectively, we have got metrics from different third party platforms. We have obtained the popular games metrics of the US Android version of Sep 2021.
We have found out that download number of Pokémon UNITE has outperformed other MOBA games. According to the pre-register bonus shown by Pokemon Company, the pre-register number of players of Pokémon UNITE has passed 25 millions. The IP of Pokemon is very influential and it has attracted much more players in the first couple months of global launch than that of the other three MOBA games.
Comparison of selected MOBA games download number since global launch
However, the attractiveness of popular IP seems like it could not save the poor operation strategy.
The consumer spend of Pokémon UNITE is quite not very good. It’s not in a very high ranking among the selected games （see below table) in the first three months since initial launch. According to the metrics estimation of US MOBA games (Android) in Oct 2021, the estimated ARPU is the lowest among 4 selected games. According to App Annie Blog, it takes 370 days for LoL to reach 150 million USD global consumer spend while it takes Arena of Valor 249 days to reach this record. Let's take a look at Pokémon UNITE, its monetization performance in the first three months since global launch is not as outstanding as others.
Consumer Spend comparison of selected MOBA games
Players do not have much incentive to pay. This could be reflected by the company revenue and user comments of Pokémon UNITE. In the first 3 months since launch, the revenue per download is around 0.24 USD. We roughly make a comparison of other old games (see the table below). Besides that, players have a lot of complaints. There are 138 negative comments on Metacritics and mostly are about the destructive P2W game design and players are not happy with the greed of the game.
What makes it worse? Pokémon UNITE seems to be hard to retain the players (See the graph below). The D30 retention could be caused by 2 areas. One is the adjustment of user acquisition strategy after the commercial launch. Another one is the target audience is non-traditional MOBA gamers so they are easier to lose interest. Frankly speaking, by looking at D1 and D7 retention, the initial gameplay is as good as that of the others. Players are not uncomfortable with the simplified MOBA game. However, the shortcomings of simplified gameplay include repetitive quests and single core game. It will build up boredom for the players in the long run.
Estimated metrics of MOBA game (Android, US, Oct 2021)
We can also compare the age breakdown of Pokémon UNITE and that of the MOBA players in US (See below graphs). We discover that nearly 60% of players of Pokémon UNITE are over 25-year-old which is not common in MOBA Games. Senior population usually does not have much time playing games, not easy to be incentified to grind in games, or cares a lot on the value of item/skin. These may be reasons that the monetization performance of Pokémon UNITE is just fair.
However, we are very much looking forward to its upcoming performance. The current underperformance could be temporary. We know that the game targets to convert more players from pan-gamers by adding more leisure elements and simplification of gameplay. The pan-gamers usually have better purchasing power. If there are some tuning on the monetization strategy and fairness on competition, it’s very possible to improve its current monetization performance.
Age Breakdown of Pokémon UNITE (US)
Estimation of MOBA gamer age breakdown
Economy:
In-game resources pricing matches with the expectation of mobile games. Below is a summary of resources (Note: OT= One-time rewards, and event includes Battle Pass)
The initial stage of the game is more generous. Although without the OT feature, players can get a lot of immediate reward through events and other regular rewarding systems. And the pace of getting Pokemon (what players care the most) is appropriate.
Pokémon UNITE has soft currency and hard currency.Dual currency system is classic in mobile games. The economic loop is simple and players will not be easily confused by multiple soft currencies. The main problem here is the weak correlation between soft currency and the core game play. It cannot effectively stimulate players to retain and spend in game. We would like to make a suggestion, adding some game modes to encourage players to experience different features to obtain different soft currencies. It is more fun and more encouraging for the players to try new features.
Monetization: Skin is not attractive and the balancing is off
There are couple IAP items in Pokémon UNITE:
Cosmetics
Skin for trainer: There are various categories, from cap to shoes. It helps players to personalize their own character. However, there are only a few ways to display cosmetics. Players can only see their own images while in a queue with friends or in the profile UI. It greatly depreciates the players’ desire for the items.
Pokemon and Pokemon skins: These are the main source of revenue. New items are updated at a good pace, the design is good and the exposure rate is high. However, they are not as fancy as the hero skin in LoL Wild Rift, in which some of the skins will have a brand new 3D model and in-game special effect.
Held items
Held items: Paid players can save time by getting these items. According to the statistics, it takes 2587 empowering components to upgrade held items from level 1 to level 30. It costs around 40USD. Players can definitely gain advantages via payments. The metrics difference between level 1 and level 30 is very close to 200%. The matching system does not take this element into consideration. It’s common to see that low-level held item players vs high-level held items. Non paid players can hardly compensate for the metrics disadvantages by skill.
Battle Pass: Battle Pass is a high returning way to get empowering components, different trainer cosmetics and limited version of Pokemon skin. It should be very popular among players. Premium version of Battle Pass costs 490 diamonds (roughly equals to 7.99 USD) and players can get 3900 Aeos Tickets, 315 empowering components and various trainer cosmetics and limited version of Pokemon skins. The return of Aeos Tickets and empowering components roughly equals to 705 diamonds. Battle Pass seems like a good deal. Interestingly, Battle Pass seems to have an increase in value according to players’ sharings. In Season 2, it contains 3900Aeos Tickets and 315 empowering components. In Season 4, it contains 4500Aeos Tickets and 375 empowering components. It seems to be a stimulation for pay rate conversion.
Other payment: There is an energy rewarding system of Pokémon UNITE, which is Gacha. After my experiments (Pokemon Skin: 2.3%, Trainer cosmetics: 56.7%, Other resources：41%), the overall value is not very high. Although there are 3 Pokemon skins to increase attractiveness, the main returns are trainer cosmetics and other resources. As I mentioned above, there is not much room for the players to display trainer cosmetics so players’ interest is limited.
Regarding to above issues, we have a few suggestions：
Create opportunities for the players to show off their cosmetics：Take Diagon Alley in Harry Potter: Magic Awakened as an example, there could be a town in the game. Players can shop and interact in the town.
Customization of Pokemon skins ： When trainers' cosmetics could be customized, maybe we can allow this on Pokemon skin. Take MapleStory 2 and Animal Crossing as examples, it could allow players to upload their customized skins. It could also be great to learn from other Pokemon console games, a beauty contest could be held regularly. Players can vote for the cosmetics that look the best. The winner could put their design in the shop. It could increase users’ retention and possibility of payment.
Adjustment of Gacha return：It’s good to introduce a rarity level for Pokemon Skins. The special one could have some in-game special effects. And these could be the reward in the Gacha system to increase the stickiness of the players.
Ensure fairness in core game： To fix the fairness issue caused by held items, the matching system could take the level of held items into consideration. Actually, it would be the best to shift the pay wall from metrics to cosmetics as it could retain players and stimulate players to pay for love intead of frustration.
Product: Clear direction with insufficient execution
Product Vision
Make good use of the global influence of Pokemon IP and create a bigger MOBA market in Europe and US.
Product Strategy
Market position: Not directly compete with the hardcore MOBA. In a contrast, to create a worldview that fits for the Pokemon IP which is a sport-like competition among trainers. The target is not to K.O your enemies but to collaborate with your teammate to collect Aeos Tickets.
Target audience: IP fans/pan players, Europe and US + Japan region.
30-year-old and above casual MOBA game players (IP fans who do not have time for hardcore MOBA, focus on leisure experience);
15-year-old and below new players (prefer the cartoon characters and the in-game atmosphere）
Competitive advantages: Low learning cost, art style that is age/gender neutral, casual and lively in-game atmosphere.
We have summarized the product strategy of Pokémon UNITE. It is easy to know that Tencent has a clear product vision. However, the market performance is not as good as expected, which is probably caused by the misaligned design directions and operation strategy.
Core gameplay: For the low late retention rate, our suggestion is to increase more combat modes. On one hand, after players get familiar with the default map, they would like to have more challenges. On the other hand, Pokemons would have different advantages in different scenarios. It could stimulate players’ interest to collect them all. More combat modes could also help the game by introducing limited-time events, gathering user data and further optimizing the features.
Game loop: If the game wants to attract more pan players, it should learn from games such as NetEase’s Harry Potter: Magic Awakened, which made a big blast in late 2021. There should be more PvE single player modes, which helps the players to get familiar with each Pokemon and help to reduce the stress of PvP for the new players. Furthermore, appropriate PvE experience could also be beneficial to the early retention rate.
Commercialization: Reduce or even remove the pay-to-win elements from Held Items. PvE could help to compensate for the progression sink. Some level of monetization could be introduced on the customization: more skins, more visual effects, emoji or even VO. With the update above, the game should also improve the community and create opportunities for the players to display their personalized appearance, which further drives “Pay for Love”.
Publishing
Pokémon UNITE was developed by Tencent TiMi but published by the Pokemon Company on Switch and on mobile, presumably due to their higher familiarity with the international market. The game was first released on Nintendo Switch in July (early access as a benefit for IP fans on console) and then mobile in September, attracting massive downloads thanks to the IP itself and strong paid media presence and topping the charts on Switch and mobile app stores. Exclusive pre-registration reward (Pikachu skin) also drove strong pre-registration numbers. Early downloads mostly came from Brazil, Japan, and the US. Other than TV ads in Japan, the game’s go-to-market strategy in Brazil and the US mostly rely on paid media and influencing marketing (large number of positive reviews from KOL who might have disliked the game when it was announced). However, the high downloads driven by marketing campaigns did not seem to have retained well or successfully converted to paid due to the lack of continuous push after launch.
When first announced as a MOBA game on mobile with the Pokemon IP, the game received mostly negative reviews, but that has improved since launch. This has led to polarizing player feedback - Pokemon fans who are familiar with MOBA (including a lot of streamers) quite enjoyed it, while casual fans who got in because of the Pokemon IP felt pretty negative about the monetization system, which reiterated our analysis in the previous section.
The publishing and go-to-market challenges that Pokémon UNITE faces are similar to what Harry Potter: Magic Awakened (HPMA) did: 1) attract the fan group of an existing IP (Pokemon) to play a game different from the original IP (MOBA), 2)) Attract core mobile players familiar with the genre (MOBA) but not familiar with the IP beyond general awareness. However, the execution of Pokémon UNITE was not as good as that of HPMA, primarily due to 3 reasons:
Pokémon UNITE did not put enough effort into socialization. The only gameplay is MOBA, vs. HPMA added game modes that are more friendly to IP fans who are not core mobile players (e.g. single player campaign, rhythm games). The game also did not include any social or community tie-ins (only 145k followers on Reddit and 303k on Twitter). Additionally, MOBA has a higher learning curve than card battling, leading to early churns for non-core-mobile Pokemon fans (likely majority of the spike at launch)
The combination of MOBA and the Pokemon IP was not ideal: perhaps to ease the learning curve mentioned above, Pokémon UNITE was designed to be a light MOBA, too simple for real core MOBA players and not social enough to bring in non-MOBA mobile players. As a result, majority of the early players were only Pokemon IP fans, but the game failed to give them a story or collection elements that are easier for Pokemon fans to pick up.
In comparison, Pokemon Go’s focus on casual collection gameplay was a great fit to the Pokemon IP, winning over significantly more female and parents (who loved Pokemon in their childhood) than Pokémon UNITE, while Pokémon UNITE only attracted the niche crossover of Pokemon fans and MOBA fans
The monetization system relies on Pay to Win and lacks depth: Pokemon fans are mostly traditional console players loyal to the original Pokemon series and more likely to be vocal about their disapproval on the Pay to Win mechanics. The fact that this game was published by the Pokemon Company likely created the illusion that the game would not be Pay to Win, resulting in the controversies around its monetization design. Moreover, due to the lack of depth in monetization beyond purchasing Pokemons and skins, users churn out very quickly when they start to hit a ceiling
The game’s Metacritics score on the Switch is only 3.7 for user score largely due to complaints around monetization
Looking at early tenure onboarding, Pokémon UNITE could have lowered the barrier of entry through some low hanging fruits. For example, users can only see the tutorial after a long loading screen, vs. League of Legends Wild Rift included cinematics and a simple tutorial before the loading screen. Pokémon UNITE also did not introduce the economic system earlier in the onboarding process and only touched on it later in the session.
Global Performance of Pokémon UNITE: Early spike but short lived
Pokémon UNITE Global App Store&Google Play Performance
(Source from reliable platform 2021/12/28)
Active Users on iOS by country - mostly T1 countries with steady trend across churn and new
Android Active User by Country - Mostly T3 Countries
Overall engagement declined a lot a week after launch and then stayed steady with no uptick, likely as users are first attracted by the IP but then become bored of the game due to the lack of gameplay depth
Thanks to the strong Pokemon brand and massive fanbase, Pokémon UNITE started strong at launch, but has went through several different phases since announcement: first controversies around Pokemon x MOBA, then positive reviews from streamers at launch, followed by complaints around monetization, and finally to its steady but flat performance today. Here is a summary of the launch timeline and product performance:
June 2020: Pokémon UNITE announced as a MOBA game with the Pokemon IP which drove controversies
July 2021: Released on Switch
Sept 2021: 9M downloads within 2 months on Switch
Sept 2021: Released on mobile in 73 countries and regions, topping the free gaming chart in 65+ countries within 2 hours
Oct 2021: 25M+ downloads on Switch and mobile combined
Polarizing User Feedback and How Tencent Turned the Tide at Launch
As an evergreen IP, the game received a lot of controversies when announced in 2020, as users assumed the MOBA gameplay would be similar to Tencent’s Honor of King which has strong Pay to Win mechanics. The partnership with Tencent was also viewed negatively due to Tencent’s historical record of focusing more on monetization than gameplay. However, when the official trailer came out in 2021, the reaction was mostly neutral to positive. How did Tencent do it?
The first announcement video became the most disliked video in Pokemon history, forcing them to take down the video
2020 Official Reveal:
2021 Official Trailer:
Pokemon Unite: Official Trailer - YouTube
2020 vs 2021 Trailer Like/Dislike comparison
How did this happen? Based on user reviews, the negative comments in 2020 mostly come from users assuming this will be a game similar to LOL or DOTA with no Pokemon characteristics or originality, due to the MOBA gameplay and map design. This has angered the Pokemon fans.
However, the producers from the Pokemon Company later made bigger changes to the game, turning the tide on user reviews and making the game performance more Pokemon.
Map changed from Fantasy Canyon to Future Gym
Art changed from DOTA/LOL style to Futuristic/Tech style aligned with Pokemon tech
Scoring by hitting points changed to scoring by shooting hoops to make it feel more like competitive sports
Based on these changes, the company started their pre-launch campaigns in August (1 month before release) and started pre-registration on Google Play and App Store
Pre-registration level 1 target: 2.5M - Pikachu Unite Pass
Pre-registration level 2 target: 5M - Holowear: Pikachu skin
Pokémon UNITE did not establish their Twitter presence until June 17 2021, but has been frequently posting since then, from character intro, gameplay videos, map overview, to character skill, to set up for the pre-registration and public release. These new contents have all significantly improved since the announcement, receiving positive reviews and shares by KOL and media. On June 21, it became a hotly discussed topic on social media with its newly released global ad spot.
Meltwater’s Twitter Discussion on Pokémon UNITE
Limited popularity on social media which is a surprise for a high DAU MOBA game, perhaps due to the market distribution of users
The social following and engagement are just ok on the major social media platforms in North America and Europe, likely due to the low retention and scattering global markets.
Facebook Operations (20+) Pokemon Unite | Facebook only has 37k likes, much lower than player count
Twitter has 300K followers (2) Pokemon Unite (@PokemonUnite) / Twitter
Instagram has 39k followers PokemonUnite World (@pokemon.unite.official) · Instagram
Reddit has 145K followers (9) Pokemon Unite (reddit.com)
Pokémon UNITE primarily featured three selling points:
Nostalgia for Pokemon IP fans - all Pokemons were reset to level 1
Lowering the barrier of entry with sports gameplay - shoot the hoops to score, playground, match commentaries, and an emphasis on teamwork and social
Alignment with Pokemon’s brand strategy - winning a match depends on the team score instead of hitting the crystal, focusing more on teamwork vs. individual performances
Based on the strong influence of the Pokemon IP, the game was recommended by both Apple and Google Play at launch. As an official game published by the Pokemon Company, it was able to maximize its reach to the core Pokemon fans. The game has also leveraged reviews and scores from gaming media, receiving a nomination for the Best Mobile Game from TGA and multiple mobile game awards from Google Play.
Award Nomination for Pokémon UNITE
In addition, the game has also invited streamers to try out the game, a primary way for game marketing today. Within a week, Pokémon UNITE was one of the most streamed games on Twitch alongside multiple eSports games that’s been around for years. Millions of streamers were streaming this game on Twitch, pushing it to #2 on the frontpage.
Pokémon UNITE on the front page of Twitch
The marketing campaigns above are not too massive or sophisticated, probably due to the flat performance of the game in different markets
The marketing tactics in T1 and T3 countries differ significantly. Is it the best strategy to publish globally?
Outside of mainland China and South Korea, MOBA is not a major genre in other T1 countries. In T3 countries like Southeast Asia and LaTam, can this game shake the strong incumbent Mobile Legends? The situations Pokémon UNITE faces are very different across regions and that brings great challenges.
T1 countries - extremely high cost for user education
For Japan, the country with the highest brand recognition and affinity of the Pokemon IP, there isn’t really a player base for MOBA yet. Therefore, packaging MOBA as a popular sports and lowering the barrier of entry might be a viable strategy. This focus on casual players is what Nintendo likes to use as well. The Pokémon UNITE TV ad spot in Japan leveraged commentaries, whistle, and hoop shooting to portray the game as a cross-platform casual sports game with a global community. However, the game still had a big gap even compared to the other Pokemon mobile game, Pokemon Go (4.4M vs. 500k for Pokemon Unite)
Pokémon UNITE Japan TV ad spot
Pokémon UNITE faced a lot of controversies in the US, with most user complaints focusing on how Pay to Win impacts gameplay balance. Please see the gameplay section earlier for a detailed analysis.
T3 countries - easy to pick up but faces strong competition from Mobile Legends
The feedback from a lot of streamers was that it’s common to have lags and frame drops for Asia players and the game demands a very stable internet. With the added complexity of different languages, internet carriers, and mobile devices in Southeast Asia and LaTam, it requires strong server support for a smooth experience. The negative reviews in the app stores are mostly focused on:
Game infrastructure issues: internet, mobile compatibility, etc
User operation issues: opponents or teammates lose connections leading to a bad gaming experience
Unfair matchmaking mechanics that matches a new player to a higher level player
Since the game shares a global server and attracts a lot of players with no prior MOBA experience, it sets a high bar for a balanced and smooth gameplay. Can you imagine what kind of experience would a Japanese player with no MOBA experience get matched to a seasoned Mobile Legends veteran? This resulted in churn for the high value Japanese players due to uneven matches, as well as the MOBA veteran who is bored of constantly winning.
On the other hand, Mobile Legends spent a lot of effort exploring new markets and did a great job in truly localizing in Southeast Asia. Similarly with a global shared service, the game has heroes from various cultural backgrounds, lowering the barrier for users to understand and relate. It has also introduced local heroes like Lapu-Lapu, a Filipino national hero, to maximize its attraction of local players. It has also set up 2500+ servers around the world, simplified the graphics, and optimized for low-end phones, ensuring a good experience with good graphics.
Pokémon UNITE still has a long way to go to catch up with Mobile Legends
Ending Remarks
After a full deconstruction of Pokémon UNITE across design and product, we have a strong feeling that this game is somewhat in an awkward spot - it suffered from all the restrictions from working with a big IP but did not manage to truly innovate and wow its users. The marketing/PR and the game design itself seemed to have been siloed due to the constant bargain between the development studio and the IP licenser, resulting in a product that feels forced. MOBA is also a genre that needs the product to be well-rounded, where one pitfall might ruin the whole game. We admire Pokémon UNITE’s attempt to break out of the existing MOBA formula, but the inconsistent execution lays obstacles in its path forward.
We still look forward to how this game fares in the future, but at the same time, feel that the globalization of MOBA as a genre still has a long way to go.
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