>>43319763I'm really not sure why this is going so far over your head and why I need to explain it again, but here's another try:
Pokémon is a roleplaying/monster collecting game that has lived most of its life on handheld devices that are rarely connected to a network. It is not a multiplayer game at its core, and there are many people who can play through the whole thing without touching multiplayer even once. Singleplayer is a very important part of these games.
The multiplayer component of Pokémon was, at least in the beginning, all about *socializing* with your friends and other people physically in the same location with you as you battled and traded with them through awkward networking systems like the link cable, IrDA or whatever else. That kind of shared experience was what made Pokémon so fucking neat in the '90s and what made GO so fucking neat in 2016. It was never about pandering to competitive players who just want to beat a tougher opponent, and the games themselves were never built around this. Pokémon's multiplayer enhances the singleplayer experience, it does not replace or diminish it.
