You have what is a common misconception. That the actual IP/Content is ever what has made money. It is not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...

Look at the totals broken out by area of revenue. Pokemon is a big offender, the games and movies might as well not exist from a revenue standpoint.

Pokémon $88 billion Licensed merchandise – $80.8 billion[b] Pokémon mobile games – $6.13 billion[c] Box office – $1.156 billion[26]

Now you know why everthing has to have some sort of T-shirt, hat, pen, keychain blah blah.