As incredible it may seem, some people like catching, breeding, exploring, having a (now customizable) character to relate with, and playing a videogame in general.
Not everyone who likes Pokémon is into competitive battling. Specially not a soulless interface like it is Showdown.
Besides, Pokémon is about catching, collecting, and battling, the fact that some of us are huge nerds willing to spend a couple hours grinding for pixels is our own goddamn fault, not the game's.
Showdown is barely related to pokémon, it uses the same characters and battle mechanics, but the whole tier system and all that shit has nothing to do with the actual game. Tiers have their own meta that exists on Showdown and only there, meaning it is an experience on its own, not related to pokémon in any way other than using the same characters.
