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Comment by Fraterkes | Hacker News Reader

I've seen a lot of people saying that Nintendo were kinda dumb for taking so long to capitalize on the incredible brand recognition of mario and pokemon, and looking at the money pokemon go is making, I don't disagree. But I think that the reason a lot of non-nerds cared so much about pokemon go is that pokemon still meant the same thing to them as it did 10 years ago. So the reason that those brands are still such a big deal to people may be because Nintendo has used them relatively conservatively.

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Franchise fatigue is very real IMO, and it's all the more evident with the recent trend of annual franchises in video games.

I wonder if Star Wars will suffer the same fate at the box office eventually.

I think the Marvel franchise is quite fatigued atm...

I disagree. The problem with marvel is we know what to expect, it's really hard to outdo any previous movie they release and it feels they are going down hill, but I often wonder if you swapped the releases of some movies would the same still hold true that the sequel isn't as good as the first or would the sequel be better than the first.

> it's really hard to outdo any previous movie they release

This is exactly it. Each epic battle scene is so over the top it's almost impossible to come up with something even more epic and over the top. Too bad they don't realize a good story doesn't need that. I thought the older James Bond movies had it figured out.

You're being unfair there, Marvel Studios movies have pretty decent stories and a lot of comedic value even disregarding all the action. There is a reason they never get panned like a lot of the DC ones.

They occasionally deliver. The second Captain America movie was a fairly good spy thriller, IMO.

But each movie in the MCU doesn't necessarily have an epic fight that tries to outdo the previous movie's epic fight.

Comic book movies in general are fast reaching the breaking point, at least with reviewers. But I'm sure the studios are well aware of this and will maximise for as long as their moment lasts

> at least with reviewers

Because that's how big budget blockbuster films successes are judged. Reviewers.

Just in case you're not simply being facetious: whether movies are well-reviewed or not definitely influences their success.

> Just in case you're not simply being facetious

Of course. I generally don't bother to indicate when I am. I just don't like explained jokes.

Of course I do try not to be subtle about it. :)

I tend to think franchise fatigue is less of a concern with movies because movies are short-enough in length that you don't feel like you just finished (or haven't finished) the predecessor when the sequel comes out.

I'd worry more about the Marvel TV products than the movies, or if the movies fail as stand-alones (like Ultron).

> or if the movies fail as stand-alones (like Ultron).

Ultron was the seventh highest grossing film in history ($1.4b gross; budget of $316 million) and the second highest grossing Marvel movie (after The Avengers).

I'd love a failure like that.

I'm not saying it failed as a movie, but that it failed as a stand-alone movie. Imho, that's the kind of thing that would cause fatigue - too many interconnected pictures coming out that are too tangled together so viewers have no idea what they're watching unless they've perfectly kept up.

Ah, that makes more sense. I don't think that's an issue unless there are no "jumping on points", and if there's one thing Marvel is good at, it's creating artificial new starting points...

And there's lots of jumping on points coming up, with Dr Strange, Spider-Man Homecoming, Black Panther and Captain Marvel having mostly characters new to MCU and seemingly being relatively disconnected. Thor: Ragnarok might qualify as well depending on how they do it. Ant-Man and The Wasp might too - there's not much of the back story you need to catch up on.

Marvel has a large enough stable of characters to keep on churning out new standalone movies for a very long time. Though they'll need to start dipping into less well known characters, their ensemble movies and TV series will presumably let them test characters.. Then give the top performers sequels...

If they manage to get back control over e.g. X-Men and Fantastic Four too, they'll have characters to draw on for the next couple of decades at current rates...

At which point they can start all over.

I hope they never get the X-Men into the MCU, having the Mutants and the Avengers in the same universe benefits neither.

To be honest, I still love going to superhero movies every 4-6 months. I an always count on good action and good characters, even if it may not be as good as previous movies.

I don't necessarily think that's too little time between releases, as an avid movie goer.

What about franchise dilution?

I'm not sure what a Call of Duty game means any more, other than it's going to be a FPS.

They have had different teams work on the games, there aren't any common characters, time periods vary etc etc.

Eventually? We were all thoroughly sick of it after the original trilogy was released umpteen times, let alone now after after the 62 home video and box set releases to date: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_home_video_releases

I think that was something different than franchise fatigue, as those were cases of a very slight variation of the same thing being released over and over. I think franchise fatigue is more about new stuff being released in the same setting and people being tired of the setting. People were still very excited about Episode 1 when it came out (not so much after), so I think that points to it being less of a franchise fatigue problem than an overexposure of a few movies (at that time, at least).

"I wonder if Star Wars will suffer the same fate at the box office eventually."

Star Wars has transcended "franchise" and become a tax. There is a star wars tax that we all have to pay and that tax rate graduates as you have children.

Death and star wars. They're inescapable.

I recognized this and escaped a long time ago.

...in a galaxy far, far away. :D

Being slow and conservative has probably contributed to the fact that they have been in business for over 120 years.

Eh, that's sort of disingenuous to say, though. They made playing cards for more than half of that. Ditching your business model of 70 years to going into an emerging technology market (video games in the 80's) isn't really conservative.

They're still making playing cards.

And it took them 18 years (1956-1974) of experiments with new ventures (including a cab company, and love hotels, and assorted toy ranges) before they started selling video games. Another 5 or so before they got successful. Donkey Kong came out in 1981 and finally made them lots of money from it.

So ~25 years from they realised the playing card business didn't have room for further expansion until they had settled on a new direction that made them enough money for it to become the main driver of the company.

Yet 35 years after Donkey Kong, they're still selling playing cards...

Seems pretty conservative to me.

Are people buying the cards, though? How much of the business is dedicated to the cards? I'd reckon it could fall into an ocean and much of the world wouldn't notice. I don't call that success.

It's probably a rounding error by now, though big enough that they host tournaments etc..

But the point was to illustrate that Nintendo is in fact a quite conservative company - they've held on to what they started doing well over a century ago, despite having switched focus to video games 35 years ago, after spending 25 years researching and developing new businesses to find the right new direction.

I'd argue that assuming their play card sales are now a tiny proportion of revenue, that just underscores this point - I can't imagine they need it, but it's part of their legacy.

> the point was to illustrate that Nintendo is in fact a quite conservative company - they've held on to what they started doing well over a century ago, despite having switched focus to video games 35 years ago,

If they dropped the playing card business tomorrow I don't think it would change my opinion whatsoever on whether they are still a conservative company or not.

> But the point was to illustrate that Nintendo is in fact a quite conservative company - they've held on to what they started doing well over a century ago, despite having switched focus to video games 35 years ago, after spending 25 years researching and developing new businesses to find the right new direction.

I agree with this, but I can't say it's clear that's a good way of doing business.

Given how few companies worldwide survive this long, it would seem they are doing something right. Whether this is part of that or not, I don't know.

Considering that pokemon is also a card game... :)

Even when the cards themselves were popular it was as a collectible supporting the video game and TV show, not as a primary interest. That their popularity derives entirely from recent innovations implies their conservatism is not what makes them successful.

I don't know if I follow your point. They probably had some equipment that was ideal for printing and shipping cards. They were able to leverage that equipment to make money.

Specifically stated, there is money they would not have been able to make, had they not also printed some playing cards. Do you think it would have made sense to just abandon that money?

> Specifically stated, there is money they would not have been able to make, had they not also printed some playing cards.

Sure, there's also money I'm not making by not busking. It doesn't mean busking is a good way to invest my time and money.

You are ignoring that it is an efficient utilization of equipment and expertise they have. It would have been foolish of them not to try a collectible card game on top of one of their franchises.

"But I think that the reason a lot of non-nerds cared so much about pokemon go is that pokemon still meant the same thing to them as it did 10 years ago. "

My kids were aware of Pokemon before the GO from the cartoon series but were not terribly enthusiastic about them. They went like nuts for the Pokemon GO game. Anecdotally, it's not just the brand, but the game itself which people feel enticing.

The game is a real flagship for "compelling idea badly implemented". It doesn't run on quite a lot of Android phones, it's really resource hungry and prone to crashing, the Pokemon location system has never really worked, and the only interaction between players is indirectly at the gyms.

And yet it's still compelling enough to play. And I mean play, rather than sink microtransaction money into like the big money mobile games.

My son went the other way - lost interest in the game within half an hour, but found clips on Youtube and got hooked on the series and now want the older games.

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