Satoshi Tajiri published the first issue of his Game Freak fanzine in March 1983.
The magazine was a self-published video-game fanzine created when Tajiri was 17. It covered arcade games, strategies, and hidden features at a time when specialist video-game magazines were not yet common in Japan.
Ken Sugimori discovered the fanzine in a doujinshi shop and became its illustrator. Their collaboration eventually led them to turn Game Freak from a magazine into a video-game development company. The company developed Pokémon several years later.
The name Game Freak therefore predates the Pokémon games. It first referred to Tajiri's publication, then to the development studio associated with him and Sugimori. This early publishing history is easy to overlook because most fans know Game Freak primarily as Pokémon's developer.