Pokemon Company on pressure of keeping younger generations interested
The Pokemon Company chief operations officer Takato Utsunomiya has weighed in on the pressure of keeping the younger generation interested in the franchise.
Part of the reason why Pokemon has been so successful is that kids that originally grew up with the games, anime, trading cards and more are now adults and remain fans today. Getting new fans on board helps maintain that popularity.
During a recent interview, Utsunomiya explained that kids “don’t play things that they’re not interested in” and “will immediately dismiss” an old/boring brand. He further added that making Pokemon fans “exciting for the younger audience” is “very important for us.”
Utsunomiya’s full words:
“… our goal is to keep passing on Pokemon to the next generation, over the span of hundreds of hundreds of years, for example. And in order to do that, to do that, of course, we need to make sure that we are still keeping the younger generations, the kids interested. One thing I can say, kids are very, very honest, they, they don’t play things that they’re not interested in. So if you, if your brand feels like it’s something that’s old or boring, they will immediately dismiss it. So that’s a big challenge. Making Pokemon continue to feel like something new and exciting for the younger audience, the kids, it’s very important for us. It’s easy to focus on adults, they have a lot of disposable income, you can see their reactions in real time on social media, for example, but on the other hand, kids, they have, maybe just a little bit of money they can spend so they really focus on the things that they are only interested in and they’re very honest in that regard. So a big challenge is to just make sure that we aren’t losing track of keeping them interested.”
Utsunomiya also previously spoke about quality of Pokemon games with a frequent release schedule, which you can read about here.
