@kallisti @Mr_NutterButter it definitely is predatory, but i never saw it as a huge deal because the whole point of there being two games was to promote playing and trading with other people.

the other thing you might be able to point to as predatory is that there are pokemon in a lot of gens that you had to actually go to an event for, and even though you get the pokemon for free, you're often going to be paying for the event, buying some merch, etcetera. and now, you can't get those pokemon in those games ever again because it's not like you can take your copy of emerald to a pokemon event and get jirachi/celebi/deoxys from it. nah, you're either hacking those bitches in or scouring the planet for someone that still has their original save file that would actually be willing to trade you that pokemon IRL.

so basically, the pokemon are in the game, but you have to pay for this event where you might be paying for other stuff in order to even get them.