To say that Digimon Story: Time Stranger has been well-received is an understatement. With a peak concurrent player count on Steam of above 80,000, a feat that puts the latest Digimon title past titles like Final Fantasy and Persona, and alongside titles like Metaphor Refantazio. Alongside a positive metacritic score and an outstanding user critic score of 92/100, the Time Strangers has absolutely stuck the landing.
Alongside the debut of a brand new anime series in Digimon Beatbreak, and the impending release of the trading card game app Digimon Alysion, the traditionally second-place monster catching series is experiencing a fair amount of momentum. Can the series transfer this momentum into a lasting increase in market share? Could Digimon finally give Pokémon some real competition?
Frankly, the Pokémon series is too big to fail. A decade of Digimon games and products as successful as Time Stranger would still not close the gap between the Digimon series and Pokémon, the most profitable media franchise of all time. However, I do think Digimon is uniquely poised to strike, and perhaps consolidate enough gains to make the competition a little more interesting. They might be able to grab enough of the market share to make Pokémon a bit uncomfortable, at the very least.
Pokémon doesn’t have the spotless image it once did. There is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction brewing amongst a sizable portion of fans, developing since Pokémon Sword & Shield, and festering throughout the entire generation of Pokémon games for the Nintendo Switch. From underbaked graphics and performance issues, to half-baked remakes and slashed Pokémon counts, it seems as each successive game finds a new way to disappoint a sizeable number of former fans.
The flames of discontent were then fanned with the Palworld fiasco, and all the ensuing chaos. Many found Palworld to be offering things they had wanted from the Pokémon series for years, and the result was Palworld also having something of a smash hit launch. While people were hoping Nintendo’s response would be to improve the quality of their own titles in response, Nintendo instead took the litigious route, suing Palworld for patent infringement, as well as introducing brand new patents, seemingly for the sake of making future legal cases stronger. Instead of improving their own series, it seems as though they are simply making it more difficult for their competitors to fairly compete.
All of this has left many Pokémon fans feeling jaded, upset, and left behind. This is precisely where Digimon can gain some ground.
Again, to be clear, Pokémon is doing fine. As much as the discourse around Pokémon is often negative these days, the series is doing better than ever. The card game is fruitful, the anime is still well-regarded, and as many complaints as people will have for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, there is no doubt it will sell like hotcakes. Pokémon is too big to fail.
However those slighted gamers do exist, and they are ripe for the taking by a well-managed Digimon outreach campaign. These beleaguered Pokémon fans may be looking for alternatives to their beloved monster-catching franchise, and if Digimon can maintain a frequency and quality similar to what we’ve recently experienced they are ripe for discovery. They could very well grow the franchise, and while they’ll never catch up to their competitor, Pokémon’s loss can be Digimon’s gain. Every fan that feels burned by Pokémon Legends: Z-A is one that can be won over by Digimon Time Strangers. The Digimon franchise simply needs to maintain the current quality, and be ready to strike when the time is right.
Digimon has always been a niche franchise, but it may have the opportunity to change that.
Featured Image: Bandai Namco Entertainment
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