Pokemon: Success After Years of Problems

I wanted to share this story of the development of Pokemon Red and Green in Japan because I found it very inspirational as to what makes a video game, as an art, storytelling, and entertainment form special and magical (no pun intended) to gamers and people who love sci-fi/fantasy.

To begin with, the series creator, Satoshi Tajiri, was a very outdoors type of child, loving to collect insects out in the wild in his own home Machida a once rural suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo. He also had done allot of exploring outside, adventuring in forests, ponds, and fields. A major part of his reasoning to do this is because he is affected by Asperger syndrome, part of the Autism Spectrum. To sum it up, the Autism Spectrum is a series of mental disorders that affect Communication, Social Development, and how Ordered/Repetitive a person's behavior is. It is largely speculated that Tajiri's need to collect and order insects is influenced by this, and for is reasoning to make a video game based on this when he grew up.

As he was growing up in the late 1970s, Machida was becoming more and more urbanized with buildings covering up the fields and ponds that Tajiri grew up with. Insect interests became replaced with arcade gaming as the arcade boom began to sweep over to Japan from the United States. He became fascinated with the idea on how people could fantasize over anything they wanted, and now Tajiri wanted to start making games to relieve and share his childhood with everyone. He then decided to start a game magazine called Game Freak, which was produced on a budget with articles written by Tajiri and illustrations being made with his close friend and designer Ked Sugimori. A few years later, the two great friends formed the game Company Game Freak, in 1989. They made several freelance games, with one notable game, Mendel Tower, being released in the United States on the NES.

One year later, Satoshi Tajiri decides that he wants to make a game based on trading insects as he witnessed two children playing with Game Boys connected with a Link Cable. His goal was to let children relive his childhood of exploring the world to collect insects. And thus, the idea was born for Pokemon. Tajiri, representing Game Freak, pitched the idea to Nintendo. Nintendo didn’t exactly get the idea, and thought that this idea for a game would not do well. But after some influence from Shigeru Miamoto, Nintendo agreed to finance the game in exchange for publishing rights. Pokemon began development. The journey may have begun, but problems with development made the destination a long uphill battle.

First, it took 6 years to develop the game, and this is factored in because of various problems with the game code. The original game code was very glitchy and full of bugs, and would require people to constantly patch the game in order to fix the bugs. But with every patch, those patches needed patches, since new bugs and glitches popped up after old ones were fixed. In order to keep up with fixing it, employees were required to work more than 12 hours. In addition, the game was beginning to go over budget, causing Nintendo and Game Freak very close to going bankrupt. So the company could not afford at the time to pay overtime to workers. Due to the conditions, about 5 employee’s quit, making the small studio with big dreams even smaller with larger dreams.


So Tajiri had less workers, going over budget, and was now having to take no salary while stepping in personally to make sure that the game was released soon. His only hope to make sure his dream is shared was to rush through a lot of the development in order to make sure it was released to save Nintendo and Game Freak. He had to work many days without sleep, and had his health deteriorate. And after 6 years, the games Pokemon Red and Green were released in Japan, and after all that hard work, the game sold mediocre. Some people didn’t get the idea, and people didn’t have the mindset. But after urban legends of trying to get Mew, a secret Pokemon, were beginning to surface, people bought the game in massive quantities, causing a spark of interest and popularity. Satoshi Tajiri’s dream was finally shared.

After reading and sharing about what this one man went through for this one game, giving up his own health, time, and money to make something magical, I understand the crap he went through, since I have done that with some of my ideas, although not on a scale like he did. This is why I like the older games, since you get a feeling of how even though there are a lot of problems with how it was made, it turned out to be a great game that spawned an iconic legend that to date that holds popular today. This is also why I don’t regard the newer games to be as memorable, since they can make these games with no problems at all and can do it in a very organized manner. If you can do that, then some of the magic of storytelling and memorable moments of gaming are gone.

I hope you all can relate to this story, and I hope that it sticks to your mind how if you all have dreams, dedication, and the will to push on through tough times, you will succeed and carry on. A Best of luck to these forms, a revived community from around the globe, and for all the future challenges we face. FOR TEAM UNOWN!


Magic