Pokémon already had that stuff. The anime features lots of guns pretty early on. The slavery is implicit to the capturing idea, they're just not hiding it. Hell, even the sexual assault pal is preferable to Drowzee and Hypno's implications.
Being able to interact with those things is what people wanted - Mons in the open world that interact with each other, that have predator/prey dynamics, that you can hunt for food or just catch. Mons that you can use for things other than fighting people, that you can actually ride around, that you can put to work building or making things for you.
They're all things we got to see NPC's doing in the games, the game just lets you do them too.