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Pokémon History The story something goes like this: When he was a kid in Japan, Satoshi Tajiri would stalk bugs. He'd capture them. He'd collect them in jars. He wanted to make them fight like the rubber-suit monsters in his favorite flicks. He wanted to catch them all. Sound familiar? Now in his 30s, Tajiri, the founder and president of Game Freak, has taken this hobby and turned it into something bigger than a game, bigger than a movie, bigger than a toy line. The inventor of Pokémon, Tajiri has unleashed a global pop-culture phenomenon that has made more money than Poké-icon Pikachu can shoot sparks-- $5 billion in worldwide merchandising sales. American gamers have bought 4 million copies of Pokémon Red and Blue. The animated series, now in its third season, is the top rated kids' show in the country. Nintendo's Pokémon training tour crams malls with 10,000 kids at every stop. And yes, even though the number of Pokémon licensees is up to 90, the craze is still growing. "I don't even think the property has fully been taken advantage of by the industry," said Ed Roth, president of the NPD Group's Leisure Activities Tracking services. "I don't think it's anywhere near its upside potential. There's a lot of pent-up demand." At this point, Pokémon faithful can get their hands on nearly anything emblazoned with Pikachu or his too-cute kin, including toys, T-shirts, comic books, ball caps, pajamas, backpacks, novels, and lunch boxes- all items from heavy-hitter licensees such as Hasbro, Topps, General Mills, Viz, and Pioneer. Nearly all the licensees are expanding their Pokémon lines. The first Pokémon flick--Mewtwo Strikes Back-- hit theaters accross the US, Nov. 12, 1999. Current speculation in the toy industry is that Pokémon could easily be the next Furby. And, of course, Pokémon Gold and Silver, along with Yellow are coming. Not bad for a Game Boy game crafted by a skeleton crew of programmers and artists. Tajiri's first step into the world of video games came in 1981, when he won first prize in the TV Game Idea Awards, a Sega enterprises-sponsored design contest. Later, he became a game-industry analyst, writing and critiquing games for his own magazine called Game Freak in 1982. In April 1989, he incorporated Game Freak, which has since designed and created games for the likes of Sony, Sega and Nintendo. In 1990, Tajiri began designing the concept and code for Pokémon. That's also when he started working with Tsunekazu Ishihara, president of Creatures, the Japanese game company that among other things produced the artwork for Pokémon and its 151 critters. During the six years it took to develop the project, Nintendo invested in the game and became co-owner of Pokémon in Japan. The Red and Green versions hit Japan on Feb. 27, 1996. Accompanying merchandise included a weekly comic series but little else. Nintendo hoped Pokémon would boost the original Game Boy's lagging sales. It did a bit more than that. It sold nearly 4 million copies in 1997, topping newer titles like Square's Final Fantasy VII and the mega-popular horse racing title Derby Stallion. To date, more than 12 million copies--split across four "color versions"-- have been sold in Japan, putting Pokémon sales ahead of other high-profile PlayStation titles like Final Fantasy VIII and Metal Gear Solid. Japanese fans have bought more than a billion cards from the Pokémon trading card game, also designed by Ishihara. The animated series, which gained notoriety after one episode's strobe light like scene threw a few hundred kids into siezures (turns out the whole thing was blown out of proportion), is just as big a hit in its home country. It's spawned two feature films, the second of which has just finished a run in Japanese theaters. Japan's two toy filled Pokémon Centers have lines out the door and down the block on weekends and holidays. And All Nipon Airways painted way-larger-than-life Poké-critters and logos onto several planes in its fleet to lure family travelers. If the thought of a 30-foot Pikachu staring down at you from the hull of an airliner doesn’t strike you as odd, consider this: Pokémon has followed the standard franchise formula backward: Instead of starting as a popular movie, TV Show, or Comic book, and then moving on to become a game (like Spawn, Batman, South Park, etc.) Pokémon started as a hit game and went on to become a hit TV Show, movie, and merchandising phenomenon. Few saw that coming, and when the Pokémon craze did hit hard, even the experts were surprised by the big boom. Roth said, “I expected when the concept was launched in the US last year, not just the video game but the toys in general, it would probably be a nice success and generate 25 to 50 million retail on an annual basis, and then it would just fade out as most of these fads do.” So what is the big deal with Pokémon? There’s gotta be something about this crude-looking black-and-white Game boy RPG that captivates millions of pre-teen boys and adults, not to mention an unusually large audience of girl gamers. “I think it’s the amount of depth and overall quality,” said Gail Tilden, Nintendo’s vice president of Product Acquisition and Development, who left her position as head of Nintendo Power to launch Pokémon in America. “It took six years for the creators to complete the game and all the original ideas and concepts and things about the RPG, the evolve system, the battling, the trading. It has so much depth and it’s so carefully and creatively thought out, and I think that’s appreciated.” The game’s creators, however, say Pokémon’s merchandising bonanza is more of a happy accident than part of any sinister plan to turn kid gamers into Poké-addicts. “Mr. Tajiri didn’t start this project intending to make something which would become very popular,” Pokémon producer and master game designer Shigeru Miyamoto told us. “He just wanted to make something he wanted to play himself. There was no business sense involved, only his love involved in creation. Somehow, what he wanted to create for himself was appreciated by others in this country and is shared by people in other countries.” One of the main reasons Pokémon has become so popular with a mass audience of younger players is its emphasis on trading and battling. It’s a social game that gets kids out of the house. Parents can’t complain that their kids site in front of the TV all day because, unlike traditionally popular home video games, you can take Pokémon anywhere. Nintendo Co. Ltd. President Hiroshi Yamuachi told a crowd at the company’s Space World ’97 exhibition, “I want people all over the world to play Pokémon. First in the US but people in different countries have different tastes. So changes must be made, and we are working on that.” Even though Yamauchi was steadfast, Nintendo was never sure Pokémon’s appeal in Japan would translate to American gamers. After all, it is a fairly complicated and unusual game, and Nintendo of America had few raw materials to build Pokémon hype machine when Red and Blue launched here last September. “We didn’t have any artwork or TV shows as a reference,” Tilden said. “We just had a Game Boy game. So we went to great lengths to localize the game, to make it just as intriguing for American players as in Japan.” Tilden added that Nintendo actually had to reprogram Pokémon Red and Blue instead of just translating the Japanese text (which would explain many of the subtle differences between the US and Japanese versions). “Because the original creators, Game Freak and Creatures, had taken six years to build the game, the code was somewhat fragile, so we couldn’t directly port the game to English.” One of the first steps was changing the names of 150 Pokémon into names that kids in the US would understand. While Pikachu was still called Pikachu (“pika in Japanese means a flash of light), American kids might not have accepted Fushiigidane as much of an altered name—Bulbasaur. To make sure that each name was unique only to Pokémon, Nintendo trademarked all 150 monster names. A small team at NOA’s Redmond, Wash. Headquarters came up with the names for the US versions’ monsters. Headed by Hiro Nakamura, they eyeballed each of the Pokémon’s appearance and characteristics, then submitted the names to the game’s creators in Japan for approval. “It’s not just the way the Pokémon look that determines what they’re called,” Tilden told us, “It’s also their attacks and powers and what kind of Pokémon they are. Like Snorlax has a sleep spell. If they evolve, you have to think of how the name fits the first, second and third phase of this character.” Meanwhile, Nintendo of America purchased rights to all things Pokémon, thus locking up rights to the TV Show, merchandise and the Pokémon name everywhere in the world except Asia. Then NOA kicked off a $20 million marketing campaign to support the launch of Pokémon Red and Blue, the animated series, the toy line—everything. Nintendo held its first and more spectacular publicity stunt in Topeka, Kan., which the mayor renamed ToPikachu for one day while cargo planes carpet bombed 10,000 kids with Pokémon toys. From there, Nintendo reps piled into 10 Volkswagen Beetles painted like oversized Pikachus and zoomed into 10 cities across the country. Nintendo also mass mailed more than 1 million videotapes to open-minded gamers that explained the game’s workings, and introduced some of its 150 monsters and previewed the animated series. All Nintendo could do was wait for Pokémon’s release date—September 27, 1998—to come and go to see if the preparation paid off. As we all know now, it did. In the first two weeks of its availability, Pokémon became the fastest-selling Game Boy game ever, selling 200,000 copies. Pokémon success even took Nintendo’s top brass in Japan by surprise. “When we started this project in Japan, one of the first things I was told was that this kind of thing would never appeal to American audiences,” Miyamoto told us, “They said, ‘Because the characters are in a very Japanese style, you cannot sell them to Americans.’ So from the very beginning I never thought there would be an English version. Now it’s just as popular in the United States [As in Japan], and I realized that we shouldn’t always believe the opinions of conservative marketers.” Today, Nintendo is pushing the competitive aspect of Pokémon—the link-cable feature that lets you battle your best pocket monsters against a pal’s—by holding special tournaments across the country. The tour hit malls in 19 cities this summer, with tens of thousands of Pokémon fans earning badges by participating. Nintendo recently extended the tour and is now giving away the 151st super rare Pokémon, Mew, at these events. Check Pokemon.com for a listing of tour dates and cities. And of course, Nintendo is readying several new Pokémon titles for US launch. First up is Pokémon Yellow. Hitting the Game Boy in October (it doesn’t take advantage of the Game Boy Color’s full palette), Yellow follows the TV show more closely than the original, but has the same gameplay as Red and Blue at its core. Pokémon Stadium for the Nintendo 64 will hit March, and Nintendo’s still reevaluating Pikachu Genki De Chu—the Japanese N64 game that lets you talk to Pikachu with a special microphone peripheral—to see how hard it would be to alter the voice-recognition system so it understands English. But it’s the sequels—Pokémon Gold and Silver—that have Poké-freaks in a frenzy. These Game Boy Color titles are the true sequels to Red and Blue in every way, with new monsters. You won’t get to play them for a while, though. Gold and Silver aren’t due in the US until at least next fall, and Nintendo has barely begun localizing the games. “Translation work hasn’t begun on the game itself,” Tilden said, “but some of those Pokémon already featured in the show, and a few are in the upcoming movie, so we have worked on coming up with those new names." At this point Nintendo could name Gold and Silver’s critters after the kids on The Brady Bunch and the games would still sell a few billion copies, but that doesn’t mean Pokémon will remain Nintendo’s cutesy cash cow forever. “You don’t know with these things,” Roth said. “I don’t want to make a cop-out and say it’s just a fad, but that’s what it is. This too will have its peak. It won’t be around for the next 20 years, I don’t think.” Whatever Pokémon’s lifespan, this humble little Game Boy game has already accomplished more than anyone expected. Looking forward, we’re certain the movie was a hit; Pokémon Yellow, Gold and Silver will be blockbusters; and the merchandise will get more varied and bizarre. But even if the franchis Pikachu built dries up sooner rather than later, there are those at Nintendo who will always like Pokémon for what it is—a good game. “The point was not to make something that would sell, something very popular, but to love something and make something that we creators can love,” Miyamoto said. “It’s the very core feeling we should have in making games.” |
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