Something I’ve pondered lately is if WoTC had never lost the license to make the TCG, how would it have turned out? Would it still be printed? Would they have dropped it when it hit its lowest point? (Roughly ex-DP era? i think) what would their products look like? Would it more so look like Magic The Gathering does today?
An interesting thought experiment.
What are y’all’s thoughts?
Thousand dollar base set first edition proxy packs
This.
if WOTC still make Pokemon, i think there will be more base set reprints 
would love to hear other’s opinion on this one
Jamboree 20th anniversary reprint in about a year.
probably! If they start struggling bad enough, it’s inevitable!
Makes me wonder if there would be all the card/foil variants in Pokémon like they do with magic too. Or if they would keep it separate like they did from ‘99-‘03.
Would they have made a reserve list for Some base cards? 
There already has been base set “reprints” of many cards. The difference is that those reprints serve the niche of something easier to collect, rather than just trying to capture the secondary market price value of the original.
I’ve collected and played MTG for the past 2 decades, and even I’m selling most of my cards besides some very memorable and beloved stuff…
A few of my other long term collector friends are upset for the wrong reasons in my opinion. They are upset that cards we have either had for many years, or paid a lot of money for are getting “reprints” violating the reserve list promise.
I dont’ mind that at all. Maybe revised duals would drop a little, but even then who cares the originals will always be the originals for a collector and this has been seen in many other hobbies. I just don’t get the company itself pricing out the majority of their players on a direct to consumer level. I can afford it, but I know a lot of people who cannot and the health of the game is something I defenitely worry about when the focus seems to be less on creating really cool things, and much more on how to suck every last penny
I imagined this and feel grateful on how we got to enjoy 25th anniversary compared to mtg 30th
Exactly. Wotc separating from Pokémon was the jest thing that happened to Pokémon
If WOTC had made money from Pokemon all these years their business would have followed a completely different trajectory. They might not have made desperate cash grab decisions like that.
That makes sense, given if its popularity today would still be realized with their ownership of it. Do you think we would still have thick yellow borders? It also makes you think if we would still have the ex, EX, GX, V, etc in our sets. Would holos still reign supreme? 
I think there would certainly be some differences, but the sets would all still be recognizable.
This is because WOTC didn’t actually get to make all the decisions themselves. The Japanese cards always came first, and WOTC had no control over those. It was WOTC’s responsibility to adapt those cards to the foreign language markets.
They did of course deviate from the Japanese cards with their own design decisions, like the yellow borders. They also sometimes messed with the set lists, like when they added Dark Raichu as a secret rare to Rocket. I expect we might have seen more differences on that level, but nothing dramatically different from the Japanese releases.
Agreed! We would get 1st Charizard proxies every 5 years
If WotC would have been in charge, we wouldn’t have a TCG anymore.
They kicked out all 15+, so their playersbase would be up to 14 years.
That’s not were the money is.
I have had this argue for many years with the high ups at TPCI, but their targeted group always stayed 8-14 years old.
While the most money is not coming from those, it’s from players/collectors/reseller of singles.
WotC killed own handed the Harry Potter TCG by putting it in the market for boys only. And they would have killed the Pokemon TCG because they did throw out the group who buys the most.
And please don’t tell me the little kids who get a booster now and then are the ones who buy the most, I never believed that and I never will.
It’s funny because the reason wotc sold to Hasbro was because of Pokémons insane success during the 90s boom. The stock price shot up, people wanted to cash out, wotc didn’t have the funds, so they turned to Hasbro.
Pokemon Secret Lair
So, a significant difference between PkMn and MtG is the drive behind sales. Especially the older stuff. WotC’s recent reprints cater to collectors, cuz they’re $1k proxy cards that no player can use…
Reprinting WotC era PkMn would cater to collectors, absolutely, however, I wonder…
@squirtle1000 @cyberurchin @wooltchi
If WotC had retained the PkMn contract, they would have benefitted from the collector customer base instead of the player base alone. How would THIS have changed WotC’s business practices?
Good question. Idk 
. Also it would be interesting because there would no longer be a “WoTC era”, so that nomenclature would be out the window haha.
I guess it would just vintage and modern, but Also the tcg wouldn’t have had that weird format change in 2003 and potentially Ex ruby and sapphire (or whatever they would have named it) would have been released later potentially? I’m sure we would have different names for all the sets as well as maybe another (a third) Team Rocket set?
Maybe a couple reprint sets like a Neo 2 or something haha. Skyridge might have had more print runs? My mind is racing 
We would have gotten jamboree