Writer, Agilist, Elder Geek
Well you knew I'd chime in on the Sony Playstation Network outage and the SOE hack. I knew I'd do it.
I expected the writeup to be done after the fact, since I write at times a week ahead. I figured it'd be a measured analysis (and with an extra rant, perhaps). I had all these expectations of what I'd do when PSN was up.
I didn't expect I'd write it when PSN was still down and this was still a developing story.
(Remember when I said someone on Twitter had said a Superman game couldn't be done? And I wrote about it? The person who got me, thinking, Julian of http://www.gamepad-dojo.com/, volunteered to contribute his insights on the idea of a came, and the fundamental flaws such a game would have)
So, where's the rival to Pokemon as a game?
I found myself asking this one day for reasons I can't quite remember (though I suspect it was about competing ecosystems of technology). It's a fascinating question to ask because let's face it – there isn't one. Pokemon has no rivals in its conceptual space, at least no worthy ones.
Sure, there are imitators of Pokemon, or games that may use some similar mechanics. Dragon Quest Monsters perhaps comes closest in quality, but it's not the same runaway hit as Pokemon (though I'd say it's definitely it's own thing in the DQ game line as opposed to a derivation). So where's the rival?