Otaku
Active Member
...chicken and egg.
This is the wrong metaphor for the situation, I think. Sadly, there isn't a long standing metaphor or analogy I am aware of, so I'll compare it to an orchard. It takes a lot of resource investment to get your orchard started; planting and raising the trees until they begin to bear fruit, after which instead of "building them up", you actually invest less resources as you just need to "maintain" them. If they never produce a yield more valuable than their care... you stop tending them and focus on the more fruitful (pardon the pun) trees.
For a more business related approach, think of how many products and services are marketed not as a premium when they are new, but at significant discounts. This is because there is usually an existing product that you have to attract consumers away from... and that sounds like the TCG market. Why should the collector or the player leave their "old" game for something new? Even if they are dissatisfied, investing in a new game is investing in a new game... and if there isn't a good player/collector base, it hurts the viability of a TCG. So early on, the game had to entice players to it.
Pokémon shouldn't need the old prize support, because it is its own thing now... or at least I suspect that is the view of the-powers-that-be. You may disagree with it, I may question it, but it is important that this view is understood. Constantly asking "How can we grow the game without having more invested in it?" is going to hurt your cause; those deciding on resource allocation hear: "All you've spent wasn't enough!" and may decide that your OP infrastructure is more trouble than it is worth!