What was Game Freak called before it became a Pokémon game developer?

Before becoming a game developer, Game Freak was called Game Freak magazine.

Satoshi Tajiri began the publication as a self-produced video-game magazine in Japan in the mid-1980s. The name Game Freak reflected Tajiri’s enthusiasm for games and became the identity of the development company he later formed with Ken Sugimori and other collaborators.

The company developed games for several publishers before creating Pokémon. Pokémon Red and Green were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in Japan in 1996, establishing the partnership that continued across the main series.

Game Freak magazine should not be confused with Nintendo Power, an official Nintendo publication, or with the later Game Freak development studio. The magazine was the origin of the name, not a Pokémon product.