Word: never
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...there is a problem: the key principle of the Pokeocracy is acquisitiveness. The more Pokemon you have, the greater power you possess (the slogan is GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL). And never underestimate a child's ability to master the Pokearcana required to accumulate such power: the ease with which they slip into cunning and thuggery can stun a mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer. Grownups aren't ready for their little innocents to be so precociously cutthroat. Is Pokemon payback for our get-rich-quick era--with our offspring led away like lemmings by Pied Poke-Pipers of greed? Or is there...
...mouth by designing a secret twist into the programming. Officially there were only 150 species of Pokemon. Unknown to Nintendo, Tajiri had put a 151st in the software: Mew, a major character in the film. "You had to acquire Mew by interacting," says Tajiri. "Without trading, you can never get Mew." The rumors started flying of a secret monster that only a few people had the key to unlock. More games sold...
Rolled together with his other passion: video games. Tajiri was raised on Space Invaders in the early days of the video-game revolution. He never went to college but studied electronics at a two-year technical school. He spent much of his time at arcades, perhaps the very ones that grew over the ponds of his childhood. "It was as sinful as shoplifting," Tajiri says. "My parents cried that I had become a delinquent." He was such a fanatic that one arcade gave him a Space Invaders machine to take home...
...Quite honestly, role-playing games, particularly for the Game Boy system, were never popular in the U.S.," says Gail Tilden, vice president of product acquisition and development at Nintendo of America. "We had a real concern that the role-playing nature of the game would be a hard sell for us." "The negotiations were not easy," says Kubo, who calls Tilden "the Dragon Mother of Nintendo." He explains, "She is a mother, and at first she didn't understand when we said Pokemon is good for children. In the end, though, it was good for us that a mother...
...once again, the Pokemon swept a nation. "We've never seen anything like it," says Tilden. The products plugged into every kiddie angle: toys appeal to younger kids, who then move on to the cards and graduate to the various levels of video games. The TV show propagandizes each new creature with a tutorial called "Who's that Pokemon?" Most of the Pokemon growl their names repeatedly ("Squirtle, Squirtle, Squirtle"), so the children learn who's who quickly. The craze is also Gen Y Web-friendly: the most popular website for kids 12 years and younger is Pokemon.com...