Who created the Pokémon franchise and first conceived its core video-game idea?

Satoshi Tajiri created the Pokémon franchise and conceived its central idea of collecting and trading creatures.

Tajiri founded Game Freak, which began as a video-game fanzine before becoming a development company. His interest in insect collecting inspired the concept of finding creatures, keeping them, and exchanging them with other players.

The first Pokémon games were made for the Game Boy, whose Link Cable made player-to-player trading possible. Tajiri saw that communication feature as a way to make creatures appear to travel between players’ games.

Tajiri directed the original Pokémon games, while other important contributors included composer Junichi Masuda and artist Ken Sugimori. Their roles are sometimes blended together in popular accounts, but Tajiri is credited as the franchise’s creator.