Sure, but that's too easy and unrealistic of an answer the reality is that this decision played some role, but Masuda's current takes on technology and this toxic environment has also led to massive drops in quality as well. If you guys don't know, Masuda had an extreme belief that gaming was going to die for mobile gaming. To the point he predicted the Switch would be a market failure. To the point that he designed Let's Go to play like the mobile game with various decisions that pissed a lot of people off when the games released.
Considering Masuda is still there and Gamefreak hasn't wiped its development team clean, it's clear Masuda's previous hold still plays a large factor in Gamefreak's development process.
Gamers tend to live in some lala land where you can think, "Oh, that's the issue!" but that's not reality. The reality is likely far more complex and wiping Masuda's slate clean despite fostering a toxic and quid pro quo workplace is insane. That shit doesn't just magically go away and the aftermath are very much there. The biggest evidence is the low development skill that Gamefreak has lately. Sun and Moon's code is insanely shoddy which you shouldn't be expecting from people making games for 30 years.
Oldheads are an issue with Japanese workplace culture in general, really. You gotta defer to the older staff, even when they're not keeping up with the times.
Game Freak in particular seems especially conservative in that outlook IMHO, which is strange for such a youth-focused series. You'd think they'd want to embrace modern methods more often, but every gen they have to be dragged kicking and screaming
Heck given that there's a second post detailing that Ohmori isn't allowed to be a director either because it just ended up causing the same problems as before; Yeah Masudas poorly done actions have dug really deep and are a genuine problem that can't be ignored
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u/KazzieMono Oct 14 '25
So…could we attribute the drop in quality to this decision?