They’re not going to change the dynamic of the game to suit a small percentage of the player pool, especially when it flies off the shelves as it is
If anything the game will continue to be dumbed down, as has been the case for multiple generations
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Then it begs the question, why even make doubles the official competitive format? Singles would make more sense if they’re going to keep stuff the same as they have since Gen 1.
I agree most of the people buying the games are casual players who just want to complete the campaign with a team of their favs, but many efforts have been made in the past decade to bring VGC and doubles to the forefront.
From a sales perspective, I get it, but it’s always struct me as a weird disconnect between casual-competitive. No other game with an active competitive scene will have a single player campaign that does not utilize mechanics central to its competitive format.
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Seems Reddit has answered it multiple times over that it’s just faster and less prone to stalling. With single player, you can work through single battles at your own pace as either a newcomer or casual
If you want to compare with another competitive multiplayer game, League of Legends ranked solo and esports are also worlds apart in play
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Used to think the same but I started using different colour-coded Dragon Shields for my binder sets now and really like them i.e. green for Jungle, copper for Fossil, “Blood Red” for Team Rocket etc.
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It’s not uncommon for the competitive scene of a game to play in a way that differs from from the casual experience. Smash bros and speed running are two examples of this. Many modern games from a gameplay perspective are not designed to be speedrun, but include speedrun modes because developers know that hardcore fans will always find a way to break their games.
It’s a not perfect comparison, but it does make sense to me that casual and competitive scenes can experience the same game in different ways.
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It’s a bit different here as in the case of both Smash Bros. and speed running, competitive scenes are entirely grassroots and community crafted. Pokemon is different as (Singles aside), VGC Doubles is the enforced way to play the game competitively by the parent company.
I get the merits of there being different ways to play the same game to satisfy both casual and competitive audiences, but I just find the almost complete lack of double battles in the mainline Pokemon battles baffling. It’s like this taboo secret you’re not allowed to talk about until postgame when the battle tower opens up and then it’s like “hey kids, did you know there’s this mode called double battles! Seems like a fun gimmick…oh wait, it’s actually our official competitive format.”
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I’m with you, would be cool if they had more double battles in the main games. They did that for pokemon colosseum and XD gale of the darkness. The issue with those games is they are so slow to play through because of how long the battle animations take
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Agreed. The only way I’m replaying those games is 2x speed on an emulator. 
I think it would be neat if they wanted to keep the mainline games primarily singles but release a spin-off game for double battles. Either way, they just need to promote doubles more.
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Everythings fun and games until bug catcher joe with his 6 metapods hits you with a double battle with his partner, and their 6 metronome clefables.
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Don’t give @Will any ideas…
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I’ve also played ROM hacks that make double battles optional in the settings, wouldn’t be difficult to implement. They’re intentionally choosing not to go down that road again
I’m sure I’ve seen it suggested in this board that the games should have difficulty modes, and maybe one of those should be an option to have all the battles be double.
Also, in terms of battle animations taking too long, can’t those be turned off? I’ve only played blue, silver, and soul silver, but wasn’t turning battle animations off a thing back then? Has it not continued? That would really surprise me.
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In the main series games yes, but not in Collosseum and XD Gale of Darkness
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He gangsta. 
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don’t fuckle with shuckle 
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it’s a shell housing multiple shiny Wiglets.
Grading is overrated.
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I’ll take it a step further and say that grading is the root of the poor behaviour we see now.
Without grading it would be more difficult to identify condition. As a result much of the ego/value culture centered around conditional rarity would not have developed. The hobby would be smaller and mostly consist of sharing photos of binder pages.
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