Yes, but we played them without shame because we were children... but then we grew up and while the game was still a solid RPG it still had the childish stigma attached to it.

Aye, we can go on about the newest game pokemon designs being downright silly, but that doesn't even matter at this point. It's deeply engraved into everyone elses mind that it is a game for kids because it's marketed for kids(and therefor they assume the game itself is kiddy). Where if you stepped back and take away the market stigma, the show, and swapped the pokemon themselves for more badass designs that you'd see in RPGs like Final Fantasy... but left the everything else the same, it'd be a great RPG on its own(because it is) but no one would be nearly as judgemental about it.