Personally I think that battle sims like showdown would still be a thing in the pokemon world. Cuz like picture this: you are ten years old and the only Pokémon you have access to is the elderly family Sunflora. You love Sunny to death but also literally every media you consume involves Pokémon battles and champions and cool ass fights. Sunny is too old to fight and your neighbor’s Gothita is too young. One day on the playground your friend tells you about this cool website that lets you battle pokemon on the computer. Later that night you boot up the family computer and instantly realize that this website lets you play as GROUDON (!!!!). There’s no going back from there.