Game Freak has been working on the PokĆ©mon series since its first release 23 years ago, but a lot of people still think of Nintendo as its creators. Junichi Masuda talked about the common misconception in volume 5 of the āMasudaās Roomā development diary celebrating Game Freakās 30th anniversary.
āWhen PokĆ©mon first came out, it was called āNintendoās gameāā¦ So we need to further expand on Game Freak,ā explained Masuda. They also talked about the way it was in the past, where game developers would make a game but not get any recognition for it as back in the day it was the names of the publishers that stood out most.
Masuda continued, āIāve asked about 200 people before to guess what company makes PokĆ©mon, and almost 100% of them answered with āNintendo,ā I still get the sense that people think Iām āfrom Nintendoā.ā
The misconception is pretty common, even for Game Freak art director and game director Takao Unno who added āI have family members reach out and ask me if I can hook them up with discounts on Nintendo consoles. [Laughs] Itās like āI told you, I donāt work at Nintendo!ā
Masuda further added, āWhen I went to visit my parents there was a parent with their child who said āHey! Isnāt that Masuda-san?ā to which the parent replied āSomeone from Nintendo would never come to a place like this!ā [Laughs]. I really wanted to just ask then to follow me on Twitter.ā