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Summary
Among all the major video game franchises that have dominated the collective consciousness of gamers, few can match the juggernaut that isPokemon. With more than 120 games split across tons of generations of Nintendo systems and other platforms, it’s no surprise that Pokemon has grown to be a major influence for gamers of all ages.
The Pokemon franchise has expanded past just games, becoming a massive trading card game, anime series, film franchise, and enough plush toys to fill an entire world. If you’re wondering who created Pokemon, the question is just as complicated as you would expect.
Who Created The Pokemon Games?
Satoshi Tajiri - Game Designer and Director
Born on June 01, 2025, in Setagaya, Tokyo, Satoshi grew up in a region that was in between a rural atmosphere, away from the construction and busyness of Tokyo, but also on the verge of a major period of expansion. As a young boy, Satoshi Tajiri lived a life much like that of a Pokemon trainer.
During his youth, Satoshi grew up in the city of Machida, Japan, a western Tokyo suburb, collecting bugs and insects quickly became his favorite pastime. He enjoyed collecting the various specimens from around his neighborhood, finding them in rice paddies, rivers, and nearby forests. So much so, that other children eventually gave him the nickname of ‘Dr. Bug’. While Satoshi had dreams of becoming an entomologist, his love of collecting things would take him along a different path.
As the city grew, many of the places that Satoshi explored were lost to urbanization, paving over patches of grass and lightly wooded areas to make way for streets and buildings. Satoshi wanted other children to experience the joy that he felt as a child, this desire would lay the foundation for Satoshi’s later work.
Like many teenagers of the time, Satoshi’s interests quickly turned to arcades and gaming. Among the arcade games of the 70s and 80s,Space Invadersbecame his game of choice. His love of Space Invaders spread toother games like Dig Dug, and as he began to play different games with similar mechanics, he sought to make his own sequel to the game.
Satoshi’s game design career began with him dismantling his Famicon to see how it worked and eventually developed into him winning a contest held by Sega for coming up with a unique idea.
The Origins Of Game Freak
From Zine To Studio
Around this time, at age 17, Satoshi, while skipping class to play games a local arcades, had the idea to start a gaming fanzine while studying electronics and computer science at the Tokyo National College of Technology. The zine quickly caught on among gaming fans of the early 80s, a time when there was very little media to consume about games and much of the information available to kids at the time was left to rumor or word of mouth. The magazine, called Game Freak, brought Satoshi together with various contributors, including aspiring manga artist Ken Sugimori.
As the zine grew, Satoshi realized that he had a keen eye for telling a good game apart from bad games, though there were never enough good games, driving him to create his own. The Game Freak zine would run until 1986 and a few years later, the two would establish Game Freak the video game developer studio in 1989. The studio produced a few games on a number of early Nintendo systems, but it wasn’t until the link cable was introduced to the Game Boy that the Pokemon games started to take shape.
The idea of transmitting information between two Game Boys via the link cable reminded Satoshi of insects crawling back and forth, bringing him back to his youth collecting insects. Satoshi pitched the idea to legendary Nintendo developer Shigeru Miyamoto, whom Satoshi viewed as a mentor during his time at Nintendo.
The production of Pokemon Red and Green took six long years to develop, putting substantial strain on Game Freak and Satoshi during this time. The hard work that Satoshi and the team paid of withthe release of the original two Pokemon games, though not at first. Gamers of 1996 were slow to pick up the series, partly because of a lukewarm reception of the Game Boy console in general.
The games quickly picked up in popularity, partly because of the rumor of an extra Pokemon hidden away somewhere in the game, Mew. Though Mew wasn’t available to the public outside of exploiting bugs in the game’s programming, the fervor for the series caught on with gamers, establishing Pokemon as one of Nintendo’s premiere franchises for years to come.
Who Created Pokemon The Species?
An Origin Myth For The Ages
While Satoshi and Sugimori created the Pokemon franchise, there is one Pokemon credited with birthing the universe into existence, Arceus. The Alpha Pokemon was introduced in the fourth generation of Pokemon games, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.
In the games, legends tell that Arceus created both the Sinnoh region from the games, and the Ransei region, the location where the strategy game Pokemon Conquest takes place in, which is shaped suspiciously like Arceus.
Fans have speculated that Arceus is the origin of all life in the universe, inspired by the fact that Arceus has been shown both creating and destroying matter in the anime, stopping time, preventing cataclysmic disasters, and can change its typing to any in the game by holding special Plate items.
Fans of Pokemon Legends: Arceus will recognize the titular Pokemon as being a key component in the game. Theoriginal inhabitants of the Hisui regioncalled the Pokemon “almighty Sinnoh”, eventually leading to the entire region being named after Arceus’ ancient name. Even though players can capture the legendary Alpha Pokemon through the course of the game’s events, it is heavily implied that despite capturing it, players only have control over a portion of Arceus’ true strength and being, making it a creature that mortals cannot fully comprehend.
