The beloved Pokémon gamesOpens in a new tab could have been much different for North American audiences than what we know them to be. Former Vice President of Brand Management at Nintendo of America Gail Tilden revealed some fascinating insights into bringing Pokémon to an American audience while in conversation with the Video Game History FoundationOpens in a new tab.
Tilden led the effort to bring Pokémon out of Japan to the rest of the world, excluding China and Korea. The team floated around wild concepts to appeal to Westerners who might have thought Pokémon was too cute. However, in my humble opinion, there is no such thing as too cute. Before Tilden became team lead, Nintendo’s ad agency suggested changing the art in the game to be grittier by putting graffiti on in-game walls. The team considered more than just aesthetic changes for the game. At one point, making all the Pokémon trainers baseball players in a sports league was contemplated.
After the President of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa, realized how successful the franchise was in Japan, he figured they shouldn’t change much. So they migrated Pokémon over from Japan as is, only changing marketing tactics. Tilden described the moment in the podcast saying:
And as all this discussion and meetings were going on for a few months, Pokémon was heating up and heating up. Now there’s TV shows. Now there’s comic books. Now they get, you know, movies and more games and toys. And so finally, Mr. Arakawa said, ‘Forget it. We’re just doing it. We’re doing it. And not only are we doing it, we’re going to do it all. We’re doing the whole thing. We want control of the whole thing…we’re going to make sure that it’s done the way it was in Japan, and we’re going to make sure we can control everything.’
To market the game, they sent out physical videotapes that gave a spiel about the video game, animated show, card game, and toys. They also did some fun marketing activations, including buying 10 yellow Volkswagen Beetles and making them look like Pikachu. In ToPikachu, Kansas, a bunch of skydivers wore yellow and jumped out of planes that dropped hundreds of Pikachu plushies. Yes, the mayor of Topeka agreed to rename the city for a day. The Pikachu Volkswagen Beetles, known as Pikabugs, were also present. In the days that followed, they went around the country promoting toys and Pokémon Red and Blue.
“By 1999, it had taken off. It was a full-fledged phenomenon,” said Tilden. I think there is no doubt about Pokémon’s cultural impact. And as they say, the rest is history. So we didn’t get a gritty Baseball RPG, but with how massive Pokémon has gotten, never say never.
