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Who owns Pokemon? That seems like a pretty easy question, Nintendo is right, that’s why Pikachu is in Smash Bros. Well, sort of.
The internet likely couldn’t give you an answer. With the controversy about Sword and Shield, Gamefreak’s attempts to make non-Pokemon games for non-Nintendo platforms, and news of Junichi Matsuda leaving the developer but joining The Pokemon Company, people are beginning to ask questions. Many are wondering who owns what among Pokemon, if it counts as a first or second-party franchise, and why a company like Niantic gets to publish Pokemon Go with little to no involvement from Nintendo.
The Answer
The most concise answer is Nintendo. More specifically, Nintendo owns the trademark for Pokemon, the Pokemon Logo as well as the rights to every Pokemon character from Pikachu to Ash to Sprigatito the weed cat. At the end of the day, if every company attached to Pokemon split apart, Nintendo would be the only one who would be legally allowed to make more ‘Pokemon’ games.
That being said, it is more complicated than that. Nintendo is one of three owners of the Pokemon IP. They’re the ones who likely own most of it, but they’re still just one. The other two owners are Gamefreak, who develops the main series of Pokemon games, and Creatures who created the Pokemon TCG, various Pokemon spin-off games, and designed the models for the Pokemon that have been used throughout the series from Pokemon X and Y onwards.
How much Pokemon each company owns has actually never been disclosed. It should be noted however that Nintendo also owns roughly 10 percent of Creatures (who, under their previous name ‘Ape Inc’, helped to make Earthbound). Between Creatures and their ownership of the copyright, it is likely Nintendo owns the most stock in Pokemon, or at least no less than the other two.
The Pokemon Company
This leaves one final piece of the puzzle: The Pokemon Company, the guys that make all the Pokemon merch and license the property out to developers like Niantic for Pokemon Go and Tencent for Pokemon Unite. Where do they fit in?
To put it simply, the Pokemon Company does not own Pokemon. The Company was created as a joint investment between Pokemon’s three IP holders to manage the brand and ensure its continued success. They are the ones that work with game developers, toy manufacturers, and anime studios like OLM to produce Pokemon merchandise and keep the brand pumping out more content.
This means that The Pokemon Company is technically subject to the will of Nintendo, Gamefreak, and Creatures. Nintendo owns 32 percent of The Pokemon Company with the other two likely owning the rest of the company. Despite this, The Pokemon Company has a lot of autonomy to serve the interests of the franchise including doing things in ways that Nintendo traditionally wouldn’t do.
I mean, Pokemon has made official ASMR and a Tiktok. Could you see Nintendo allowing that with Mario? Exactly.
It should be noted that the President of The Pokemon Company Tsunekazu Ishihara (pictured above) was also the founder of Creatures.
The Creation of Pokemon
The reason for these three companies becoming involved in Pokemon goes back to the roots of the original games Pokemon Red and Green.
Pokemon was created by Satoshi Tajiri of Gamefreak who pitched the game to Nintendo for publishing on the original Gameboy. While Nintendo agreed to publish the game, it was soon apparent that Gamefreak was having trouble fitting such a big game onto the tiny GameBoy cartridges and was beginning to run out of funding.
According to Toucharcade, this is where Creatures stepped in, infusing Gamefreak with some extra money to finish the game in exchange for a share of ownership of the series. Pocket Monsters: Red and Green would be developed over six years before making their way to stores in 1996. Needless to say, it was worth the investment for all parties involved.
Gotta Catch ‘Em All
To summarize, Pokemon is owned by three companies: Nintendo, Gamefreak, and Creatures Inc. Of the three of them Nintendo likely owns the largest chunk of the Pokemon IP including the copyright for the series and all the characters that inhabit it.
The Pokemon Company was formed by the three owners to manage the brand and produce new merchandise and content for it. It’s a strange system but the sales of Pokemon show that it works. If I had to guess, I would say that Nintendo can probably pull the plug if they don’t approve of something (like Pokemon coming to Playstation) but for the most part, The Pokemon Company seems to be left to their own devices.
This flexibility is likely why Pokemon is able to be as expansive as it is. From anime to video games to toys, to viral videos. We truly live in a Pokemon World, and Nintendo, Gamefreak, and Creatures are controlling it all from behind the scenes.
Source: Pokemon.com
