Game Freak was founded as a video game company in 1989.
Before becoming a development studio, Game Freak was a self-published video game magazine created by Satoshi Tajiri. Ken Sugimori joined as an illustrator, and the pair eventually transformed the publication into a game company on April 26, 1989.
One of Game Freak’s early games was Quinty, an action-puzzle title released in North America as Mendel Palace. The studio later created Pokémon, which became its most famous series and one of Nintendo’s most important franchises.
Pokémon was not launched immediately after the company’s founding. Tajiri conceived the idea around 1990, and development of the first games took roughly six years. This timeline explains why Game Freak predates Pokémon by several years and why 1989 is not the franchise’s anniversary year.