for better or worse, pokemon's formula is never-changing. this has nostalgic value, which Dawn already went into, but I think this has the potential consequence of the games becoming rather stale and repetitive. you start off as a young, starry-eyed child and your goal is to beat all the gyms, kick the evil team's ass along the way, defeat the elite four/champion and become champion yourself. it's a tried and true formula, but it's also predictable and can be rather monotonous to some people.
whether you liked or disliked the direction sm/usum took, i feel it has to be said that there was at least an attempt at something different, even if it largely mirrored concepts already utilised in previous games. i give Game Freak credit where credit is due for sticking to the culture of Alola, gyms, league and all. Z-moves, while unfortunately poorly animated, are conceptually cool at the very least in their lore, so some points for that, too.
before i digress too much, the point being is that the lack of shaking things up is what i believe may be driving most people to stop playing, or at the very least become more disinterested. as for getting them back, i imagine some sort of change of direction would be necessary. something radically different than something the series has always been. even if it's different for the sake of being different (which... can be bad, but oh well).
for myself, i've developed this cycle of sinking hundreds of hours into the most recent pokemon game and burning myself out until the next pair of games are announced. i'd play Swsh: Crown Tundra more, but it feels somewhat strange to at this point, with the "hype" (or whatever's left off it) around it all but disappearing. these days, if i want to scratch the pokemon itch, i'd just play older titles. im playing Pokemon XD these days and later on i'm going to replay Pokemon Stadium 2, so there's that to keep my interest. c:
