Quoted By:
This is just absurd on GameFreak's part.
First of all, I've worked in retail for 3 years. My department manager hated dealing with Strategy Guides because they never fucking sell and just took up space. If people get stuck in a game, their first instinct is to google their problem, not consult a strategy guide. If they want to sell them better, they need to market them to collectors specifically. A hardcover is just the bare minimum.
Second, even if GF didn't "make as much money as they could have", they still. STILL. Made a shit-ton of MONEY!!
This is like when Disney or Netflix try and act like sharing passwords/accounts is them "losing money". No, you're not "Losing Money", you're just not making as *MUCH* money as you could be making. These companies calculate the hypothetical scenario in which each person who isn't leeching off someone else's paid subscription is instead paying for their own subscription. To tie it back to Game Freak, they see the amount of people choosing to wait a year or boycott the game outright as money they "could be making", but aren't.
Game Freak's M.O. has always been using this "Let's release two incomplete versions of a game followed by the complete version that has improvements/quality of life fixes/more shit to do" business model since the 90's/early 2000's.
It's not just a dated Business Model. It's deliberately predatory. And people have been saying this for years.
