Pokémon
It's from 1996, before you were born.
- Developer
- Game Freak
- Publisher
- Nintendo
- Genre
- Role-playing
- Debut platform
- Game Boy (1996 JP / 1998 US)
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About
As of 2026, it's 30 years old.
Pokémon launched in the late '90s with a quietly diabolical business model: release two nearly identical versions, make some creatures exclusive to each, and let childhood friendships do the marketing. 'Gotta Catch 'Em All' was a slogan and a financial strategy.
Catching, training, and battling pocket monsters became a global phenomenon spanning games, a card game banned from half the world's classrooms, an endless anime, and eventually a phone game that got people hit by actual cars.
Charming, collectible, and one of the biggest franchises on Earth, Pokémon is the game that convinced a generation to spend their lives completing a fictional zoology degree.
