Game Freak was founded in 1989 by Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori.
Before becoming a game developer, Game Freak began as a handmade video-game fanzine written and edited by Tajiri. Sugimori discovered the magazine and became its illustrator, beginning a creative partnership that would eventually produce Pokémon.
The pair transformed the publication into a video-game development company. Game Freak’s first published game was Quinty, an arcade-style title released by Namco. The company later worked on several projects before presenting Nintendo with Tajiri’s idea for a creature-collecting role-playing game.
Game Freak’s development of Pokémon Red and Green was financially difficult and lasted about six years. The company nearly went bankrupt during production, but investment from Creatures helped the project reach completion. Game Freak remains closely associated with the main Pokémon role-playing games, while the wider franchise is shared among Nintendo, Creatures and Game Freak.