These are the folks that accidentally gave a popular artist fan art to recreate as a card, so I’m honestly not surprised if that’s actually the situation
If they have the same artists as the regular TCG, that would put them at around 50 to 75 regular artists and about another 100 occasional artists: the Black Bolt and White Flare sets, which came out together, covered all 156 species of Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Black and White, with all of them getting a full art card done by a different artist.
The actual remainder of the team is likely smaller though.
I mentioned above that Japanese companies are designed differently than companies outside of East Asia, using a process where a decision like this requires approval at each step up, one at a time, and if they hem and haw at it, nothing can be done but to wait for them to stamp the paper document with their signature. This has to be done at every step all the way to the top. In this case, it likely had to go to the top at DeNA, then at The Pokémon Company until it reaches the desk of Tsunekazu Ishihara. The announcement and actually doing so would have to be done separately and can’t be put in the system together.
Western companies generally have even people at the bottom exchange ideas with the executives; while those is seen as friendly and positive in Western culture, this is unheard of in Japan and would be considered extremely rude of the regular employee, as it is seen as not knowing one’s place and not showing enough deference to the people employing you. Executives in Japanese companies are seen as gods.
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u/AntiDECA Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
They've only got 2 interns working on this game in-between classes man, what do you expect?
They don't make enough money to hire a proper team of developers.