My theory is that Pokemon's decline is due to the aging of the generation of people that started out with the first pokemon games when they were little.
As you could see in the link above, it was already declining in the 2nd generation, and people who played the 1st generation when they were young, were not that old yet (generation 1 came out in 1997, while generation 2 came out in 1999, only two years later).
The reason behind that is, in my opinion, in part related to how mobile consoles market works, in part related to the game itself. To be honest, even the players aging played its role, but certainly not in the beginning, as two years are not something that makes a real difference.
If the players who played the first (and eventually second) generation stopped playing the game, it means that the company did not provide a product that was interesting enough. I am not going to discuss this here because this is not the place to talk about that, but 2 years are definitely not enough to say that the fault lies in the aging of old players.
And saying we shouldn't use it as an example just because it is too original isn't fair.
I never said that. Original games are good and should be used as examples, however, this is not a good example. This is a game that sold many copies SOLELY because the game-play was original.
The combination of repetitive game-play and non-existent/bad story, is precisely what brought a lot of different sagas to their demise. Every sequel has a game-play that is consistent with the previous ones, but if there is a story behind it, people play it a lot.
Just take a look at the numbers behind
Mass Effect trilogy sales (Andromeda is not considered here, and it is not part of the trilogy either so you cannot really consider it a sequel). They all have similar game-play (with improvements made in each new version, as they did in pokemon), but they have different stories, and that was the hook that kept people playing the saga.
I am solely talking about numbers here, I am by no means talking about personal preferences. However, looking at those numbers, it looks obvious as the story plays an important role when it comes to sequels, even if the gameplay is more or less the same.
An original idea becomes obsolete the very moment something including it is deployed, which means that you cannot rely on its originality for much long. You have to provide other contents at some point, contents that keep your sequels "fresh".
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@bgillisp well, I usually read all the posts in a thread before casting my vote. If somebody provides solid arguments I might change my mind by simply reading them, the idea I start with might be wong, and somebody might know more than me on a certain matter and provide evidence about it. I cannot ignore evidence and solid arguments, that would mean being very narrow--minded, would it not?
However, I see your point, a lot of people just cast their vote and did not care about the discussion at all, which is not exactly helpful, but it is certainly real. Anyway, I hope that somebody who reads the whole thread and then casts its vote might exist. To be honest, there should be no need to read the clarification at all, since both the title and the first post are quite clear on this matter in my opinion.
I actually can't really think of an RPG that I would consider near average in one of those places, especially TBRPGs. The ones I like for gameplay and not story usually end up with little or effectively no story. The only rpgs I can think of that hav "average" gameplay would also have average story (Dragon Quest 1, Quest 64). Plus, the rpgs with weaker stories usually have charm to make up for it (Pokemon, FFMQ).
