When will older cards (Black and White/ XY) be added to the expanded format option?

@TechHog

Yes, you did say it because if you admit that it's actually an issue of time or resources your entire argument falls apart.

It may well be an issue of time and resources. I do not see how that harms my argument in the slightest. The two ideas are not incongruous.

Do you think TPCi could not pump essentially limitless time and resources into TCG Live and implementing Expanded if they wanted to? It's a card game for the largest media franchise on Earth. The money, staff and resources are readily available if the powers that be wanted them to be available.

I am talking about one reason (not necessarily the only reason) why the resources are not being made available.

They want people buying packs, and the latest packs at that. Pure and simple. If people can play the game using older cards, they have less incentive to buy new cards.

I do not have access to the internal communications or decision making within the company. I can only speculate on the reasons, and this is one of my assumptions.

For me to believe that it is not a factor, I would need to see evidence that TPCi want to support Expanded, but just can't, and the reasons why.

Or I would like to hear your explanation as to why the highest grossing media franchise in the world cannot find the money, staff and resources to implement an extra format in their digital card game client.

Who does own this franchise then? Who is responsible for these decisions? Apparently whenever there is anything to criticise, it's not Game Freak, it's not Nintendo, it's not Creatures, and it's not TPCi. All of them hold stakes in it and own part of the franchise, but if you criticise one of them, it's never their fault.

Which one is it, in your view? Is it all of them? Two of them? Or am I to understand nobody makes these decisions? Pokémon just happens. It is a force of nature that simply exists, and all the companies working on it are beholden to its amorphous will and have no say in its management or direction.

All this money has to go somewhere, right? Somebody has got to be making the profit from the highest grossing media franchise in the world.

Whatever that entity is. They have access to the resources. They could dedicate them to anything TCG related if they wanted. That is what I am getting at.

We can't keep using poverty and lack of resources as a defence for these massively profitable enterprises. At some point you must realise that it is a ridiculous claim.

If whoever is in charge of development wanted Expanded implemented, it would have been done so yesterday.

Software doesn't grow on a tree. It is not some unpredictable force of nature. People make it. Pokémon has the money to hire whomever they want to get the job done.

It's clearly not a priority. And I have repeatedly outlined why I think it is not a priority.

"Development is hard", "they don't have the resources" or "it just is that way, it's not that deep, bro" are all unsatisfactory answers.

Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures are the owners. TPC, the parent company of TPCi, manages most things in Japan and nearby countries, while TPCi handles most things internationally. They barely get much budget beyond that. I don't know the exact revenue splits offhand, but it seems like something like 5% goes to TPCi, which goes to marketing and distribution above all else.

As far as the TCG goes, the cards are designed by Creatures, who also decide rule changes and I believe even the Japanese banlist. That's the difference between Pocket and Live: One is a major project from Creatures and TPC, and one is cheap marketing from TPCi.

So, why don't TPC and Creatures jump in and fix Live? Here's a better question: why would they? TPCi would have had to run the idea by them before starting on it, so they clearly weren't interested in it. We should also consider how they would "fix" it. Well, I can't see them wanting to have it for free. And then we have Creatures, which is known for being as quirky as Nintendo. As for TPC, they've typically been outsourcing to another dev rather than doing in-house projects like this. All of this would point to a new app as the "fix" they would go with. A new, quirky game...