>>43754009It's not even the fanbase, entirely, it's legitimately TPCI forcing a tight schedule on them. They need to keep the franchise constantly relevant with new games, as well as introducing new Pokemon (and maintaining popularity for already popular Pokemon) so they can keep consistent sales with new merchandise and to give the anime something to work with, which in turn acts for advertising to sell more merch and bring popularity for future releases, to keep the cycle going.
In recent times, the only thing GF has done of their own accord was cancel Pokemon Z and go straight to Gen 7 (which is why so many unanswered plot-threads were dropped from XY). The anime staff were furious because the XYZ season was already being produced.
Supposedly GF even skipped Z because TPCI had their hands all over Gen 6, because Gen 5 wasn't as popular as anticipated, and they were so frustrated they just wanted to abandon the region and this somehow got TPCI to back off a little and let them experiment in Alola, for better or worse. (Though, people do still think TPCI asked for specific things/elements, especially in the designs of Pokemon, but there's no concrete evidence of that)
That's not to say GF isn't incompetent, unwilling to learn new techniques or hire more staff, and higher-level staff like Masuda being legitimately disinterested in the actual games, as opposed to the other aspects of Pokemon. I think Game Freak still legitimately cares about Pokemon, they're just not able to make the games they want both from technical skill and interference from TPCI, and stuff like Pokemon GO outselling their projects, and being forced to work with such short deadlines - A lot of staff just have lost faith on the games, so they put the bare minimum effort in it to keep the Franchise's wheels going, allowing them to enjoy Pokemon's other aspects.
