[Interesting Trope] Attempts at fanservice/virality that failed not because they were hated, but because nobody noticed them or cared at all.

[u/mp3help]

1) Hoopy the Hoop, Portal (2007) When you defeat GLaDOS and her room is destroyed at the end of the game, debris rains down in the final cutscene, including a big metal hoop that bounces around a bit. Developer Erik Wolpaw said the team dubbed it "Hoopy the Hoop" and expected it to become the big meme of Portal. Of course, none of the fans paid much attention to the hoop since "The Cake is a Lie" became the biggest meme of the game, and overall one of the biggest video game memes of all time.

2) Burgh, Pokemon Black and White (2010) When designing Burgh, developer Yusuke Ohmura said Gamefreak had many of their female employees give input on his design to create their ideal handsome man. However, as someone who's been in the Pokemon fandom for almost 3 decades, in the 15+ years since Pokemon Black and White released, I have personally never seen any fans swoon over Burgh, or even mention him in general. If anything, characters like N and Colress are far more well-known within the fandom as the most handsome and beloved male characters of Pokemon Gen 5.

[u/gamarun]

Its just so bald man

[u/First-Shallot947 → u/gamarun]

Barber done fucked his shit up

[u/JBR_4025 → u/First-Shallot947]

They had to give him a mega to make him have some aura and they still managed to fuck that up by forcing you to play online to unlock it

[u/chalkdusted → u/gamarun]

Huh. Something about a lot of gen 9 designs never quite clicked with me, and I could never explain why, but I think you cracked the case: they’re all just… so fucking bald. Not always as literally as Baxcalibur, but a good chunk of the dex feels like they’re supposed to have another design element that got photoshopped out at the last minute, like that post of peeled pokemon. I went into SV mostly blind, and I kept being surprised that so many of the new mons didn’t have another evolution stage because they just felt unfinished to me.

Oh my god, I had another revelation while typing this— I bet it’s for the fucking crown they get when they terastallize. They’re bald so they can show off their cool hats better. Man, that was my theory for why so many of them are monotype, too… no wonder it’s my least favorite gimmick.

[u/ShatnersChestHair → u/chalkdusted]

All the hair went to Quaxly and his evolution line. More seriously, I feel like a lot of the mons in this generation either have no features on their head (other than ears) or specifically hair (a tuft, a coif, etc.) whereas previous gens had more horns, spikes, antennae, leaves, stuff like that.

[u/Water_Attunement → u/gamarun]

It makes me SO SAD. I love ice types but never gravitate to any dragon types in any of the games ever. I just don’t care for their dragon psuedo push.

This guy SHOULD have been the one to turn that around for me, but once I saw how fucked up he looked, especially in 3D where the artistry of spritework isn’t present, I realized he wasn’t the one.