During the latest episode of the Video Game History Foundation’s podcast, VGHF founder Frank Cifaldi had Nintendo of America’s former marketing lead Gail Tilden on and they discussed some of the trials and tribulations she went through trying to market certain Nintendo properties to Western audiences. Two big topics came up during this chat, which were the history of trying to make Metroid and Zelda films as well as the subject of this article: Pokémon’s introduction to the the rest of the world.
Towards the end of the podcast, Cifaldi was chatting about the history of RPGs in the West and the conversation inevitably came to Pokémon. A breakout hit in the US, Pokémon wasn’t an introduction to the genre for Western kids, but it was by and far the most popular series before the 21st century. Gail mentioned how the game felt very rooted in Japanese culture, so Nintendo’s ad agency had asked if they could change the art to be grittier, more realistic, and potentially have it centered on baseball players.
“So prior to me getting involved that directly as, like, team lead, we had all seen the game, a black and white RPG on Game Boy with very Japanese characters,” Tilden said, “and then our ad agency said, Could we just change the art and it’ll be like, gritty, and we’ll make like, you know, graffiti on the walls and stuff like that.” Seeing as how there were Pokémon leagues in the game, the agency assumed they could swap that for baseball leagues and keep the general gameplay loop intact.
Eventually, former Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa came in and said, “Forget it. We’re just doing it.” He pushed to have the Western distribution rights for Pokémon given to Nintendo of America and then made sure everything was handled exactly as it was in Japan. Tilden then details some of the marketing stunts NOA would employ, including getting 4kids involved with the anime, getting yellow Volkswagen Beetles painted in Pikachu colors, and having KFC distribute toys (which was a dud since it launched too early). It’s fascinating stuff.
As for what Pokémon would be like as a baseball game, I can weirdly see that working as a concept. Pokémon, at the end of the day, is focused around the idea of collecting critters and doing battle with them and that made it a natural fit for a trading card game. If you apply that same thing to baseball cards and then just increase the violence, there’s no reason why that kind of game couldn’t be fun. It most certainly would not have been the same phenomenon that Pokémon was — and remains to this day.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
