[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/ElementalNinjas96]

Zeraora is more popular than Marshadow though? In the official popularity poll, Marshadow was the 18th most popular Alolan Pokémon while Zeraora came in as the 5th most popular

[u/ElementalNinjas96 → u/[deleted]]

Held in the lead up to Pokémon Day in collaboration with Google

[u/ElementalNinjas96 → u/[deleted]]

And what does that have to do with the poll? If the average player isn't participating, who cares? The poll's for fans anyway.

[u/Cleansing4ThineEyes → u/ElementalNinjas96]

We're talking about popularity, popularity isn't something exclusive to fans and if anything what fans think is irrelevant because they're outnumbered a ton by casuals.

[u/ElementalNinjas96 → u/Cleansing4ThineEyes]

I never said Zeraora was popular among casuals. No one did! Zeraora is/was popular among fans, which is what industry plants are supposed to cater to, and my claim is supported by the poll.

Whether or not Zeraora is popular among casuals is a different, irrelevant question given fans are the only people who care about Mythicals due to their event nature.

[u/Cleansing4ThineEyes → u/ElementalNinjas96]

That's not how it works when converting popularity to sales. Pokemon is the largest multimedia franchise on the planet, if a Pokemon is popular that directly converts to money through merchandise. A Pokemon being mythical affects the games, not their marketability, especially so if they get shoved into the show/movies.

[u/ElementalNinjas96 → u/Cleansing4ThineEyes]

The whole point of industry plants is that they're supposed to be popular by catering to the fans. First, you guys argued that casuals' opinions have a say in what makes something an industry plant, now y'all are arguing that sales are apparently more relevant to popularity than the literal popularity poll.

This whole post is about failed attempts at fanservice/popularity, said examples in the post being about the fans not caring about the attempts at industry plants. Key word being fans.

Sales numbers and casual players are not the metrics being used here, you're introducing them for the sake of arguing against Zeraora not being a failed industry plant.

You wanna discuss Zeraora's lack of merch sales or Zeraora's popularity (or lack thereof) with casuals? That's fine. They're just different topics.

[u/ElementalNinjas96 → u/[deleted]]

Again, the literal point of the poll is to find out what the fans think. They are the core demographic, this whole post (as in what we're commenting under, not this thread) says fans multiple times. WHAT PART OF THAT INVOLVES NON-FANS??? Why are you even playing the game if you're not a fan or how would you even know Zeraora exists?

[u/ElementalNinjas96 → u/[deleted]]

I am sorry. Got too heated. Your point about my wording is fair. I'm gonna shut up now.

[u/Cleansing4ThineEyes → u/[deleted]]

You're wasting your time here