>>49581162Incorrect. Stadium was made because of the novelty of seeing your little GameBoy pixels turn into modeled polygons on the TV in an effort to capture the thrill of the anime's battles while retaining the gameplay. There was no competitive scene to speak of unless you seriously think "that one faggot who GameSharked six Mewtwos and made battling unfun" was the demographic GameFreak wanted for Stadium.
Competitive Pokemon as we know it didn't find its start until NetBattle, which gave people their first way to accessibly battle others across the internet, and in turn enlightened many to hidden mechanics such as EVs and IVs. Then when Gen 4 came around on the DS, which could manage wireless both locally and online, things really started to kick off among friend circles, and all of those house rules could eventually come together to form a metagame, finally skyrocketing competitive play's popularity to a point where the brand saw a reason to capitalize it, culminating in the birth of the VGC Meta in 2009.
