>>54316600It’s a few factors.
>Pokemon fans are mostly normies/casuals>Normies/casuals have limited attention spans due to the nature of social media so the simpler, “prettier-looking” games are favored by this majority
>Kanto nostalgia is another huge selling point for the normie/casual majority (see: Pokemon Go)>Pokemon is a lot more popular now than during the pre-gen 6 days so there are more kids growing up with a bias in favor of these shallow experiences>Games targeted at hardcore fans like BW or PLA seem to turn off the normie/casual majority because they’re too complex and different, reducing sales>This in turn gives the message to Game Freak that what Pokémon is truly all about are these shallow experiences>As a business with the goal of making profits, putting in the bare minimum is smart as long as it sells well (which it does)>Game Freak at its core is terrible handling 3D and really haven’t improved much at all since XY>They have this really tight 3-year-development cycle that they refuse to let go of (and it’s unknown who truly is responsible for these decisions), making the previous point worse>As mentioned in the OP, Pokemon has achieved near cult status, where even most of the fans unhappy with the product they’re putting out will buy them anyway (see: SwSh sales)When you combine all these factors, you end up with a franchise that literally gets rewarded for decreasing quality and gets punished for increasing it.
But I guess at least they’re not
Disney. 