Game Freak was officially incorporated on April 26, 1989, several years before it developed the first Pokémon games.
The company grew out of a Japanese video-game fanzine called Game Freak, which Satoshi Tajiri created in 1983. Artist Ken Sugimori joined the project after discovering the magazine, and the two eventually turned their shared interest in games into a development company.
Game Freak's first published video game was Quinty, known as Mendel Palace outside Japan. The studio later worked on several Nintendo projects, building experience before pitching the creature-collecting concept that became Pokémon.
Pokémon Red and Green were not an immediate project after incorporation. Tajiri conceived the idea around 1990, and development lasted about six years. The long process nearly bankrupted Game Freak, but the 1996 release transformed the small studio into one of Japan's best-known game developers.