In blog post yesterday on the Pokémon Masters website, the game’s producer, Yu Sasaki, addressed the game’s lack of content and the feedback his team has received from players. Sasaki made no attempt at excuses for the game’s lukewarm reaction, despite the game netting around $26 million in revenue in its first week. Sasaki accepts the criticism and vows to make Pokémon Masters the best it can be. To kick things off, a new producer, Tetsuya Iguchi, has been added to the team. “He will provide the Pokémon Masters team with the benefits of his years of experience managing and operating mobile games,” says Sasaki.
Sasaki outlines three main issues the game has faced since launch: bugs, lack of content, and “battle difficulty and design are not satisfactory.” The team originally focused on fixing the bugs and issues with the game, all while growing their team. Now that they have a larger crew, Sasaki feels confident that they are now able to address the content concerns. “Our original plan was to have players progressing through the main story while at the same time tackling co-op battles and EX Challenges throughout September and October. That said, we understand players have quickly progressed through all available content and feel dissatisfied with the current offerings,” says Sasaki.
The development team says it will take time to fully address the issues, from content to game difficulty and design/usability. In the meantime, the developers will be adding in new story elements and will introduce a revised rewards system to placate the player base as a short-term fix. Sasaki says more news is coming, as well as a detailed road map on all upcoming changes and additions to the game. Sasaki signs off with a final apology to the players. “We’re disappointed we did not meet the expectations of our community, and for this, we sincerely apologize. It’s our intention that this does not happen again.”