The years in which Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were released were also the introduction of the Pokemon VGCs, or "video game championships": these were competitions held at the regional, then national and global levels in which people would be able to compete directly with other players for the title of Pokemon World Champion. This in turn began to make players more concerned about factors normally trivial for non-competitive play, such as EVs and Natures, and was also the rise of a number of battle simulators to lessen the amount of work on people that would possibly be spent in making a flawed team.
1
0