The Pokemon Company made a unique announcement yesterday, they announced Pokemon Unite, a team-based game for iOS, Android, and the Nintendo Switch. While this is a great opportunity for a new competitive game in the mobile esports world, there has been a lot of backlash going on. In fact, as it stands now, the announcement video has 79k likes and 136k dislikes. So where did they go wrong?

There are several reasons why there is a lot of hate against the Pokemon Unite announcement and we took our time to read some comments to understand the bigger picture. The reasons that angered the fans are the following: Expectations, Tencent, and Pokemon Unite. Let’s touch on the first point.

Last week, there was a Pokemon Presents Event that unveiled Pokemon Snap and other announcements. The event ended with the CEO of The Pokemon Company promising the announcement of a major project in the next event. During this period, fans had high expectations as to what the major project would be. The Pokemon fans expected a remastered version of an older generation game; others looked forward to a more traditional Pokemon game. Clearly, giving an 11 minute presentation to a game that was outside of the fans’ expectations was a great disappointment to them. Had they provided more time for the new Pokemon Snap instead of a non-traditional Pokemon game would have been more palatable.

The second point was including Tencent in the making of Pokemon Unite. In the comment section, a large amount of gamers had a negative view of Tencent with some comments alleging that the company shares user data with the Chinese Government. Another reason is because players are afraid that Tencent might turn the gaming experience into a micro-transactions nightmare.

Finally, the last point is the game itself. While Pokemon Unite seems like a great game to play for casual and competitive gamers, Pokemon fans are disappointed with it for several reasons. One main reason is that it is a free-to-start game that is likely to have micro-transactions that will make it less of a Pokemon game and more like a Pokemon rip-off. Another reason is the fact that the Pokemon type has no advantage or disadvantage on the battlefield which further proves that the game is less of a Pokemon experience and more of a MOBA title with a Pokemon theme to it. We hope that this article covered the main reasons behind this anger and did justice to represent the voice of the players. Stay tuned with our website for the latest news on Pokemon Unite.